Part 6

“I’m glad you’re going to do something for the children,” said Marion. “If you don’t succeed in improving things in this generation much, you will in the next, if you educate the children.”

“That is what I propose to do,” said Salome. “They must have better schools than they ever had.”

“And be compelled to attend them,” interposed Burnham.

“Oh, there are so many things to be done. It will take years to get everything in working order.”

“You have laid out a beautiful scheme, Miss Shepard,” remarked Geoffrey Burnham, “and in most respects a practical one. But you must not be too sanguine. These people are ignorant,—fairly steeped in ignorance. They are jealous, too, and doubtless will mistrust your motives, and believe you have some selfish reason behind all your endeavor.”

“I have,” laughed Salome. “I want my mills to be models, and my people to be the best, most skilled, most intelligent, and most progressive community in America.”

“Bravo!” said Villard. “So do I.”

“I am not so sanguine as you may think,” Salome went on. “I know they are ignorant. How should they be anything else? All their lives they’ve been used as we use the machines in the factory,—to make good cloth, and plenty of money. Nobody has thought of their welfare, or cared what they did, or thought, or became, when working-hours were over. How do we know what sort of men they are, or what capabilities they possess? I read somewhere, only the other day, that there may still be Fichtes tending geese, and Robert Burns’ toiling on the farm; that there may be, yet, successors of William Dean Howells at the type-forms, of T. B. Aldrich at the book-keeper’s desk, of Mark Twain at the pilot-wheel. We have no right to keep them back. But this writer went on to say, that the world has less need of them, even, than of those who cannot aspire to thrive outside the shop, and who go to their daily toil knowing that their highest hope must be not to get ‘out of a job’ and not to have their wages cut. I don’t suppose they will, at once, appreciate our efforts to better their condition. Possibly they will oppose us at first; but we can have no better task to perform than to make them prosperous, contented and joyous in their work. And by making a man of the operative, I fully believe we shall bring material prosperity to the mills.”

“But the expense,” urged Burnham. “Have you calculated that? I doubt if the mills could stand so heavy a burden all at once.”

“I have calculated the expense,” Salome answered him. “And what cannot be done from the yearly profits of the mills, I will do myself.”

“We shall be eagerly watched by the whole manufacturing world,” said Burnham.

“So much the better,” added Villard. “It is time somebody set the example. If we succeed in carrying out all these plans, and keep the mills on a paying basis as well, it will be the beginning of a mighty reform in the working-man’s world. I believe we can succeed.”

“You will be called quixotic and all sorts of pleasant things, Salome,” said her friend Marion.

“The beginner in any reform is always called a crank, if nothing worse,” replied Salome. “If I chose to build a million-dollar castle to live in myself; if I preferred to dress in cloth of gold and silver; if I insisted upon eating off solid gold dishes; or even if I were to endow a church or a female college, the world would admire and praise me, and say these things are a rich woman’s prerogative. If I choose instead to spend my fortune on the Shawsheen Mills, and elevate by its judicious expenditure two thousand operatives for whom I ought to feel morally and socially responsible, the world will probably wonder and call me quixotic. Christ Himself was called a fanatic. Most people to-day, if they voiced their real sentiments, would wonder that He could be so democratic as to die for the whole world, ignorant, uncultivated, detestable sinners, and all.”

One of those silences fell upon the room, that always follows the mention of Christ’s name in a conversation not strictly “religious” in character. Marion was admiring the courage of her friend; Burnham was rather taken aback at this fearless reference to a Being whom he seldom heard mentioned outside the churches; and Villard was surprised and delighted with this unworldly woman of the world, and her avowal of principles and hopes and wishes which he had cherished for years. He was the first to speak.

“You must have done some hard thinking,—and a good deal of reading, in the past six months.”

“Yes,” answered Salome. “I have. I have read everything I could think or hear of, on subjects bearing on this case; and I have lain awake many a night, since it was really borne in upon me that I have something to do here, planning my work. But the greater part of the credit, if there is any, in my plans, lies with my grandfather. He thought out many of these things, years ago; I have simply adapted his theories to our modern times and conditions.”

XI.

And so the great strike ended.

Had Salome realized the burden of care which she was taking upon herself, it is doubtful whether she would have assumed it as cheerfully as she did. But as weeks rolled into months, and responsibilities multiplied and cares increased until she became as hard a worker as any in the mills, she did not flinch. She had put her hand to the plough, and it did not once occur to her to turn back.

She went to the office of the mills the day they were opened, and began to study, thoroughly, the details of the business. Villard and Burnham were her teachers, and both were often astonished at her business keenness and cool judgment. She had pressed Marion into service immediately, and always took her to the counting-room, where the two staid throughout the entire morning, going home to lunch at two, and usually remaining there the rest of the day. But always, whether she was in the house, or out driving, or overseeing the new houses, which were progressing rapidly, Salome’s one thought was the improvement of conditions at the Shawsheen Mills.

When Marion had been with her a week, Salome said to her:

“Marion, I want you to stay with me all the time.”

“I should be so glad,” replied her friend, “but I can’t afford it. I shall have to go out into the world again, before long, to earn my living, dear; but I will stay here as long as I can.”

“You good girl!” was Salome’s answer. “Why not stay here and earn your living? I want a companion, shall very soon need a secretary, and as soon as I get things in running order, ought to have a woman like you to help draw in my people. You need a congenial place at a comfortable salary. Now, why not stay? I will pay you a thousand dollars a year.”

Marion drew a breath of astonishment.

“It isn’t worth that,” she said; “Madame Blanc only paid me seven hundred.”

“Madame Blanc is not fixing a scale of wages for me,” said Salome; “as to your ‘worth,’ my dear, I must judge of that. When we get fairly at work, I shall give you enough to do, and you will find yourself a very busy woman. Besides, if I had a young man to do what I want you to do for me, he would ask a thousand dollars, wouldn’t he? And why shouldn’t you have it? Because you are a woman?”

Marion was not demonstrative. On the contrary, she had a great deal of the true New England reserve; but she got up and went over to her friend, put both arms around her neck and then——cried.

“If you could know what a chance this is for me!” she said at last. “If you had known what a dreary thing existence had become, and what a hopeless prospect I had in the future! And now, to live here and work with you,—in your grand scheme,—Oh, Salome!” And she wept again.

“Then I will put the care of the cottages into your hands first of all,” said Salome, patting her cheek. “You’ve kept house and know what one ought to be like for an ordinary family,—what things are necessary for the comfort of the household and convenience of the housewife. I don’t. I should be as apt to build expensive music-rooms and leave out the pantries, as any way. Go ahead, and get up as nice houses as you can, at $1,500, $2,000 and $2,500 a piece. Mr. Villard thinks none of the employes will care to buy anything more expensive. Here is the architect’s address,” and she handed Marion a card.

But the building of the model boarding-house was a project too dear to Salome’s heart for her to easily relinquish to others. Her plan, as she had presented it to Villard and Burnham, grew and magnified itself until her co-laborers had to resort to all sorts of arguments to keep her from wild extravagance.

She had begun by planning for the factory girls a house which should be really a home; but as she went about among the operatives, and began to get an inkling of what the young men of the mills really were, of the bare, desolate dens which gave them shelter, she did not wonder that they resorted to the streets for comfort and amusement. She began to see how the young men and girls who entered the mills could scarcely help drifting into low and unworthy lives; and she grew more determined to do something to raise them to a higher plane of living.

Her grandfather’s manuscripts did not help her much here. In Newbern Shepard’s day, the factory-hand had not sunk to such ignorance or even degradation, as he has, in some instances, in later times; and in those more democratic times, it had not been so hard for him to rise above the level of his kind. In that day, too, it had been possible for him to find a home, in the true sense of the word, with families of a certain degree of refinement. But in Salome’s more modern times, she saw, and grieved, that the factory boarding-places were of the sort that dragged the operatives down and kept them on a lower plane, even, than the Shawsheen tenement system.

She consulted much with the superintendents and with Marion. She visited the large cities and thoroughly examined the young men’s and young women’s various houses and unions. She got ideas from all, but a perfected plan from none. Finally, she collaborated with her architect, Robert Fales, and soon had her model boarding-house on paper. After that it was only a work of days to begin on the foundations of the institution.

The operatives at the Shawsheen Mills gazed on all these changes with curious interest, which, however, they carefully suppressed when any of their superiors were about. The average independent American citizen, as he exists among working-men, does not care to pose as an object of even partial charity. He delights in crying out against Capital, and clamoring for a share of the Profits; but when it comes to actual taking of what he does not feel he has earned, he is more backward.

The Shawsheen operatives, in spite of the promises which had been made, had gone to work again with little hope that the state of affairs for them would be any better in future than in the past. As days went by, and they saw Salome Shepard come to the mills every morning, and knew that she was personally interested in them as her people, they were skeptical of any results for good. And when they began to hear it whispered that she, a woman, was the actual head of the Shawsheen Mills, some of them talked earnestly of leaving. What! they—strong, able-bodied, skilled mechanics—work under a woman?

But they didn’t go. A dull season was upon them, and work scarce. Other mills were shutting down and sending their operatives into two months of enforced idleness. The Shawsheen hands were forced to stay where they were and be thankful for a chance to work.

Then, as the story that they were to be furnished with new and better homes gained credence among them, their first real interest dawned. Many did not believe their conditions would be bettered; many, even, did not care; and most of them grumbled because their rents would probably be high, and said the new buildings were only a means to grind the poor and extort more money from them, to put into a rich woman’s pocket. Such is the thankless task of the philanthropist.

Salome heard something of this, but did not allow the knowledge to disquiet her.

“A few months will convince them,” she said, quietly. “No wonder they are on the lookout for oppression and extortion. As near as I can judge, this factory has long been run on a plan to warrant them in such a belief.” And this was all she ever said against Otis Greenough’s method of administering affairs at the mills.

As the summer went by, Salome’s friends in the town began to wonder at her extravagant outlay, as they called it. They prophesied that she would soon tire of her new amusement, and leave the houses unfinished, when her projects would fall flat. Some of them came to her and remonstrated, on the ground that her inexperience in financial affairs was cause enough for her leaving the Shawsheen Mills and the employes as they had been. But invariably she replied, that if she had chosen to build herself a million-dollar castle, they would have approved of her; but because she proposed to spend a half-million on the mill property, all of which she felt sure would return to her some day with interest, she was called extravagant and foolish.

“But if you had built the million-dollar house,” said Mrs. Greenough, “it would have been a great thing for the place. Think what an ornament to Shepardtown it would be!”

“And think what an improvement—what a great thing for Shepardtown—it will be to tear away those miserable, tumble-down tenements on Shawsheen alley, and to add a hundred neat and cosy houses to the hill,” she retorted. “And, besides, you haven’t seen my—well, my Institution (I haven’t named it yet). Think what an ornament that will be to the place.”

But as nobody realized what the “Institution” of her dreams was to be, Salome got no sympathy from her friends. Curiosity increased on all hands, as the summer waned and an immense brick structure grew apace on the hill. It had a square, dome-like center, with huge wings on each side. But the workmen were sworn to secrecy, and nobody was allowed to go inside from the time the building was far enough advanced to allow of its entrances being fastened up.

XII.

It was finished at last. The plasterers and painters and plumbers had done their last stroke of work and departed, leaving the keys with Salome, as she had requested. On the same afternoon, she sent for Robert Fales, and together they showed Burnham and Villard, with Marion Shaw and Mrs. Soule—who was as anxious as any of them to see the place, although she would not own it—over the new building.

A broad flight of stone steps led up to the main entrance. The wooden framework, which had concealed the façade, had been taken down, and there, over the massive doorway, was the name of Salome’s “Institution,” carved in red sandstone—“NEWBERN SHEPARD HALL.”

“Why not simply Shepard Hall?” said Burnham, as they stood looking up at it.

“Or Salome Shepard Hall?” put in Mrs. Soule’s voice, for she felt that it would be like the rest of her niece’s folly to have her name carved in stone up there.

“Auntie!” exclaimed Salome reprovingly; then, turning to Geoffrey Burnham—“Shepard Hall might have meant me, or it might have meant my father, or the whole race of us in general. This building is a memorial to Newbern Shepard, not to his family. How do you like the design of the façade?”

The building was of red brick, with massive trimmings of red sandstone, and was substantial and useful in general appearance, rather than ornate.

“Ten times as expensive as you needed,” was her aunt’s comment.

“Yes,” answered Burnham, to whom the remark was directed. “A cheap, wooden building would have answered the purpose, I should say.”

“Perhaps,” laughed Salome; “but I am not putting up wooden monuments to my grandfather’s memory. Besides, you don’t know my purpose, yet.”

“Something quixotic and unnecessary, I’m afraid, my dear,” answered Mrs. Soule.

Salome did not answer but led the way up the stairway, and unlocked the heavy doors These opened into a vestibule leading into a large room fitted up with bookcases and tables.

“This is the library,” said she. “Now, see the two reading-rooms, one on each side. One is for the girls, and one for the young men.”

They passed out into the one designed for the girls,—a pleasant airy room with plenty of light and space. The walls were tinted and the woodwork was in the natural finish. Nothing in the way of furnishing had, of course, been done. Beyond the reading-room was another large class-room, and opening from it were several smaller ones. These all occupied one wing of the new building.

“What do you propose to have done with all these rooms?” asked some one.

Salome looked over to John Villard and smiled.

“I’ve read and studied ‘All Sorts and Conditions of Men’ to some purpose,” she said; “I propose, as time goes on, to have various practical and useful things taught the girls here. Dressmaking for instance, and millinery and domestic science. The conveniences for that, though, are in the basement.”

She led the way by a flight of stairs that led from a side-entrance, at the end of the wing, to the basement. There was a spacious hall with rows of hooks to hang garments on. From this, opened a large and pleasant dining-room. Under the main portion of the building was a great kitchen with ranges and all the modern appliances of a hotel kitchen, though on a smaller scale.

“Isn’t this rather elaborate for a factory boarding-house?” asked Burnham; “for, I take it, that is one of your objects, at least, if not the primary one.”

“I approve of this,” said Mrs. Soule judicially. “It’s poor policy to fit out a kitchen with cheap stuff. Give servants the best of everything to do with, and teach them how to take care of them.”

“Miss Shepard has gone over the subject very carefully,” said Mr. Fales, “and, I must say, has shown most excellent judgment in everything. As you say, madam, it’s only money wasted to put cheap stuff into a building like this.”

“Now, look through the pantries and larder and laundry,” Salome interrupted; “I think, for a woman who knows absolutely nothing of the details of housekeeping, I’ve excelled myself.” She spoke boastfully and shook her head at Marion, at the close of her speech.

“How much of it did Miss Shaw plan?” slyly asked Geoffrey Burnham.

“Every bit of it, below the main floor,” responded Salome. “Since you seem incapable of believing that I did it, I may as well own that Marion and Mr. Fales planned the whole of the basement, and that I, in my ignorance, could only look on and admire. But they did so well that now I am inclined to take all the glory to myself.”

They passed through the basement, coming up at the other end of the building, and found themselves in the young men’s wing. Here, besides the reading-rooms and class-room, was another fitted with two or three workbenches.

“I propose to give them a chance to take an industrial education,” said Salome, “if they should want it.”

“I declare!” ejaculated Mrs. Soule. “To give skilled mechanics a chance to take lessons at the work-bench! You are out of your mind, child.”

“I didn’t plan it for skilled mechanics, auntie,” said Salome gently, “although they may come if they want to. But you know, or ought to, that the majority of our men can only perform one kind of work. They may be nearly perfect in their special branch, but are almost helpless when it comes to handling the hammer and saw and chisel. If they learn the proper use of these things, it will not only increase their knowledge in that direction, it will broaden them in other ways.”

“I don’t see how,” persisted her aunt.

“Besides,” put in John Villard, “if it does no other good, if the experiment keeps a few of our fellows off the street at night and develops a new taste, it will be worth while.”

“Well, perhaps you are right,” said Mrs. Soule, “but no such philosophy or philanthropy was taught in my day.”

“‘The world do move,’ auntie,” laughed Salome. “Now, shall we go upstairs?”

A broad flight of steps from the hallway at the end of the wing led up to the second floor, which was just like the one on the girls’ wing. Upstairs, the broad corridor ran through the middle of the wing, with bedrooms opening from either side. In the main body of the building, under the dome, was a large hall, fitted up with movable seats, and having a raised platform at the front.

“This is the pride of my heart,” Salome announced, as she ushered her friends into it. “If any one dares to criticise it, woe be unto him! Mr. Burnham, what fault can you find with this?”

They all laughed at her inconsistency.

“I should not dare make it known, if I had any,” he said. “But may I ask what it is for?”

“Why, to hold meetings in, and lectures and things,” she answered, quickly; “what did you suppose?”

“Oh! And for the Labor Unions to congregate in and plan how they may overthrow and destroy you, I suppose,” scoffed Burnham. “And it is a capital place to breed the next strike.”

“There will be no ‘next strike,’” was the confident answer. “And as for the rest, wait and see. I had the seats all movable because once in a while there will be a party, and they will want the floor for dancing.”

“Salome! Not dancing?” cried her aunt.

“Why not? The floor is an excellent one for dancing. I saw to that myself,” said she, purposely misunderstanding her relative.

“You are not going to let them have their low dances here?” Mrs. Soule’s tone showed how much the idea horrified her.

“Low dances? Certainly not,” said her niece. “But we are going to show them how to have something better. We are going to lift them above wanting a low entertainment of any kind, and teach them how such things are carried on by better people,—by us, for example.”

“Salome, you don’t mean me to understand that you are going to come and dance here, yourself?”

“Perhaps, though I had not thought of it. But why not?” continued the perverse niece. “Mr. Villard, will you lead the first figure with me, on our opening night?”

“With the greatest pleasure in the world,” said he, with a thrill at his heart which he did not recognize.

Mrs. Soule sat down on a convenient window-seat.

“What would your father say?” she murmured.

“I never knew my father well enough to judge.” Salome answered, with a slight tinge of bitterness in her tone. “But I know what my grandfather would say. I am going to put a piano in here,—or would you have an organ?—and I intend that this hall shall be the rallying place of the young people. I’m also going to give a course of entertainments here during the winter, twice a week; I’m not going to begin with lectures and heavy ‘intellectual treats;’ but I will gradually lead up to them with concerts and even a minstrel show or two.”

“Salome,” gasped her aunt feebly from the window-sill.

“You see, if we begin by shooting over their heads, they won’t come at all,” said Salome. “But if we begin with something light and amusing, and not too far above their level, and gradually raise the tone of the entertainments, they’ll find themselves attending lectures and other sugar-coated forms of intellectual betterment, and like them; and never mistrust that I am working out a mission on their unsuspecting heads.”

“I’m glad you realize something of their present intellectual condition,” said John Villard, who had been unusually silent and grave while looking over the new building; “and realize that it’s only gradually that we can bring them, as a class, up to a higher grade as intelligent young people.”