Part 9

“Could you let me have the hundred right now if I agree to sell the place?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll sell—because I’ve got to have that money right off.”

Indie hurried home and began to put things to rights. She packed up her personal belongings and moved all her humble furniture into one room, where it could be easily got at in case she should send for it a little later, if she were fortunate enough to secure steady work in the factory which Mr. Griggs had referred to. He had even given her a clipping from the Sunday paper containing an advertisement calling for twenty new hands, “experience not necessary.”

Indie was sweeping the back yard when some one strode up the pebbled walk with brisk, business-like steps, which she mistook for Mr. Griggs’s walk, for he had promised to stop in on his homeward way. But it was not the agent. It was Indie’s old friend Lem Powers, whom she had so timidly avoided for years. His broad-brimmed hat was turned up squarely in front, framing his dark, strong, sunny face in a sort of a rough halo.

“Evenin’, Indie,” said he, with a tug at his up-standing hat-brim. “Do you happen to have a wrench about the place? My buggy wheel’s locked an’ I ain’t got no tools with me.”

Indie shook down her sleeves hurriedly, keenly conscious of her unpleasing appearance. “Won’t you set down while I hunt up the wrench?” she asked, nodding toward the veranda bench. “I’ve done packed up everything, but I can find the wrench easy’s not.”

“Packed up!” the young man echoed in blank astonishment, with a sweeping glance at the denuded premises. “Why, you don’t aim to move, do you?”

“I expect to leave Shallow Ford to-morrer mornin’,” Indie answered solemnly.

“You don’t say so? Goin’ to live with your cousins?”

“No, oh no,” Indie answered quickly, with a dry smile. “None of them ain’t never asked me to live with ’em, and even if they had I wouldn’t go.”

“I didn’t know you had other kin.”

“I ain’t. I aim to go to Birmingham to work in the factory. I seen a advertisement callin’ for twenty new hands and I thought it would be a good chance to get started.”

“Whatever put that idee into your head, I’d like to know? I don’t b’lieve you’ll like the work one bit, Indie,” the young man said with grim conviction. “It ain’t healthy, to begin with. Don’t you rec’lect how pale an’ peekedy them Baldwins looked when they come back here on a visit after havin’ worked in the thread factory down at Birmingham? They didn’t have the sperit of a jack rabbit between ’em, an’ their ways was plum changed too—sorter forrard like. You won’t like the sort of company they keep, Indie.”

“I’ve got to go now,” said Indie, doggedly, “cause I’ve done put the place for sale. Mr Griggs thinks he can sell it without any trouble.”

“He may. Indie, is it on account of the mortgage you’re leavin’?”

Indie shook her head. She could not tell Lem her real motive.

“’Cause if it is,” said Lem, earnestly, “I’d be only too glad to stand good for the debt if you’ll let me.”

Indie’s pale face reddened painfully, and her head went back an inch or two, for she had her pride in spite of her helplessness. “I couldn’t ever raise enough truck to pay off the debt, anyhow,” she answered coldly.

“You could rent the place an’ pay off that way. I do wish you would let your old friends do a little something for you, Indie,” he pleaded, growing red and embarrassed under her increasing coldness.

“It’s too late to rent now, ’cause it’s way past corn-plantin’ time,” Indie objected, “an there ain’t nothin started but two acres o’ roastin’ ears an’ some garden truck.”

“I should think you’d hate to leave the old place,” Lem observed, letting his bright gaze wander over the green pasture strip and the narrow creek bottoms where the young corn waved idly in the evening breeze.

Indie’s thin face clouded with the shadow of regret, but she made no reply, for she would not have admitted, on pain of death, that her heart ached with the pathos of renunciation.

“Ain’t there nary thing I can do for you, Indie?” Lem asked, after an awkward pause, in what seemed to the listener a very off-hand, indifferent voice.

“No thanky. There ain’t a thing to do but to take the cow over to board with the Bankses. Seems like I can’t bear the thoughts of sellin’ her to out-an’-out strangers, so I thought I’d board her till some of the neighbors gits ready to buy her. Miss Clayton’s goin’ to keep Billy for me till I get settled, so’s I can take him.”

Billy, the big tortoise-shell cat that purred on the door step, lifted his head at the sound of his own name and blinked contentedly, whereupon Lem stooped and stroked his glossy fur. “I guess Billy’ll miss you if no one else does,” he remarked dryly.

Then he rose and held out a big brown hand. “Well, good-bye, Indie, an’ good luck to you,” said he. “If ever I can do anything for you, let me know, will you?”

“Good-bye,” said Indie gravely.

Indie went away the next morning—a morning full of balm and peace. Fresh, fragrant winds scattered the rose petals thickly over her shoulders as she hurried down the garden path to meet the stage. She did not trust herself to glance back, for some strange, dumb emotion tugged at her heart-strings and soundless voices called to her out of the sweet silence that enveloped earth and sky.

She shivered as she entered the hot, sultry, dust-laden train with its burden of dull, spiritless travelers. “It must be the air,” she murmured to herself as she sank into a seat. “These cars is awful clost with the sun beatin’ down on ’em an no air stirrin’. Now, if a body was at home they could open the doors an’ winders an’ set in the shade.”

“Home! Home! Home!” said the swiftly revolving wheels that bore her relentlessly away from the old, sweetly familiar scenes toward an unknown, lonely future. She watched the green fields and woods that whirled past the windows until they grew less and less frequent, with dingy little stations squatted between them. The landscape changed and the car grew hotter and the smoke thicker, for the train was approaching the factory district of Birmingham, the Alabama metropolis. Children, with unclean, pallid, faces, stared up at the car windows as the train pulled through their grimy quarters, and men in blackened, greasy clothes lounged along the tracks in the occasional shade of a sweltering brick wall.

Indie found the squalid home of Tom’s widow after much patient wandering about the uneven, unswept streets. Many minutes passed before her ring was answered; then a white-faced woman opened the door a very little way. Yes, she was Mrs. Pasely. Did anyone want to see her?

“I am Tom’s cousin, Indie,” the caller announced simply. “I’ve brung the money for Tom’s funeral.”

The widow cried a little at first while she told Indie of Tom’s tragic death, but her mind was too absorbingly occupied over the funeral to permit of the luxury of self-pity. She dressed hurriedly and went out to communicate with the undertaker, leaving Indie with the children, three little, frail, colorless, old-young beings, who reminded Indie of cellar-grown plants. The widow was not long away; late that afternoon the two women and their three charges followed Tom’s remains to consecrated ground.

“I never can tell you how thankful I am,” was all Mrs. Pasely said to Indie concerning her sacrifice, “for now I feel at rest about poor Tom bein’ laid away like he ought to be. If the baby was just well I’d try to start out an’ make a livin’ and do my best without Tom,” she added mournfully, “but it seems like I ain’t got no heart to do nothin’ while he’s so weak and puny. He ain’t been to say real well since we left Texas, where we lived right out in the country. I’ve tried everything I could think of but nothin’ don’t do him no good as I can see. The doctor says he won’t never git well till I take him back to the country, an maybe not then. Me’n Minnie’s got promise of work in the factory next week, but if little Tom ain’t no better I can’t leave him with jest Jim to look after him. If we only could git back to Texas agin we’d all git well an’ stout, an’ I wouldn’t care if we _was_ poor. All I care about is for little Tom to git well.”

Oh, if she could only take them all back to the farm with her, thought Indie. A great wave of home longing surged through her heart as she thought of the peace and beauty of the deserted home. She knew just where the shadows of noontide lay darkest over the old rose-bordered yard—knew that the back veranda where she always ate her simple midday meals with Billy purring at her feet was just then in the thickest shadow of the china-berry trees, and that all was still and sweet and tranquil in that far-off haven of rest. Instead of factory walls there were green, blossomed hedges; instead of the strident clamor of motor cars and mill gongs there was a ceaseless chorus of song birds, and instead of the hot, smoke-tainted air of the city, there was the fine, earthy fragrance of the good sweet soil that lay fallow while so many weary toilers sweltered in their city prisons.

Indie made Tom’s widow understand the whole situation, then she offered herself in any capacity that could serve little Tom, who had the look that she dimly remembered in young Tom when she first went to live with his parents. Indie would take work in the factory as she had planned to do and board with Tom’s widow to help along all she could, or she would take them all back to the farm and work very hard to make a mere living while little Tom had a chance for his life.

“Why, I’d be willin’ to work day an’ night on a farm!” the widow answered earnestly. “I’m jest plum certain Tom will git well way off there in the country. Oh, do take us back with you! Me’n Minnie an’ Jim can make a real good crop between us. You’ll see!”

That was what Indie wanted. She would sacrifice the last thing that remained to her—her pride—and ask Lem to help her by standing good for the hundred-dollar note, and far the rest she would work as she had never worked before.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Indie announced. “You git right to work packin’ up what you want to take.”

The world was aflame with the splendid fires of sunset when the little party alighted before the farm gate on the following evening. “I’m real glad it’s light enough for you to see the flowers an’ things,” said Indie, as she led the way up the rose-bordered walk that seemed to greet her with sweet familiarity. “Good thing I left the key under the porch steps right where I could find it handy. There, now walk right in an’ set down, while I kindle a fire an’ git some supper.”

She had bought a few eatables the last thing before leaving Birmingham, which she speedily converted into a tempting meal. Her guests rewarded her industry to a gratifying degree, even to little Tom, who seemed to have acquired a good appetite which delighted his frail, worried mother beyond bounds. “He ain’t et like that in I dunno when!” she exclaimed with tears of joy.

It was close upon Indie’s usual bedtime when her ministration ended. She slipped out for a quiet rest on the front door-step to enjoy the peace and loveliness of the perfect spring night, but hardly had she seated herself when the garden gate creaked rustily and someone strode up the walk with heavy strides. At the sight of the dim figure on the step the intruder stopped precipitately.

“Who’s there?” asked a familiar voice.

Indie rose tremblingly. “It’s Indie Bright,” she answered. “Did you want to see me?”

“Indie!” exclaimed a voice so thrillingly joyous that the listener felt herself quiver from head to foot with a strange, inexplicable ecstasy.

“Ain’t it Lem Powers?” she asked. “Has anything happened?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” came the surprised answer. “I thought you was gone!”

Indie told her story briefly, carefully deflecting all merit from herself. “I’m real glad it happened that way,” she finished, “for I did hate to sell the old place.”

Lem drew a deep breath. “You’re jest five hours too late, Indie,” he said in a queer voice, “for the agent sold the farm this afternoon at four o’clock.”

Indie felt the solid earth recede beneath her. “Sold it!” she echoed fearsomely. “Oh, Lem, whatever _shall_ I do!”

“I dunno. There ain’t no use in tryin’ to buy it back, ’cause the man that bought it won’t part with it for anything, except——”

He paused and went a step nearer. “Except you’ll give him what he’s always wanted—yourself. Indie, I never did want no other girl but you, an’ never will.”

Indie shrank away, but a strong, warm hand found hers in the shadow, while the low earnest voice went on to tell her of a miracle that thrilled every fibre of her being with unspeakable happiness.

“I aimed to ask you the day you told me about leavin’,” Lem confessed, “but by the way you talked I thought it wouldn’t be no use, so I bought the place hopin’ you’d want to come back some day.”

“Lem,” said Indie, after a long, happy silence, “I never had no idee that—that you ever wanted me. I thought it was Cousin Louise you wanted.”

“Louise—after I’d seen you!” Lem cried incredulously. “Why that would be like chosin’ a bit o’ glass instid of a real diamond. It was Louise as told me how you’d took a dredful dislike to me from the very first, an’ of course I couldn’t help but believe it by the way you always acted when I was around. I tell you, Indie, that made a heap o’ difference to me. I’d a done anything in the hull world for you an’ would yit if you’d only let me.”

Indie drew a deep breath that sounded strangely like a stifled sob. “Oh, Lem, that’s just the way I’ve always felt about you,” she confessed very softly and hesitatingly.

After a long, long while, during which the years and their burden of care and loneliness and heart-ache slipped away from Indie’s heart like an wornout garment, she drew her hands away from Lem’s close clasp. “You’d better go now, Lem,” she said very gently, “’cause it’s gitting late an’ I don’t want to wake the folks up after they’ve got to sleep.”

“All right, Indie. I’ll be back tomorrow to see about putting in a late crop o’ corn for Tom’s folks to work out. We’ll jest let ’em keep the place free of rent for a while an’ see to it that they make enough to keep ’em. You can look after ’em all you want to, for it ain’t but a little piece from our place over here. Good night, Indie.”

Indie lingered in the soft, starry dusk for a few moments after Lem had gone, to gloat over her great happiness; and presently something dark and small scuttled out of the lilac hedge and bounded into her lap with a mew of welcome. It was Billy, quivering with elation and delight.

Indie caught her pet to her breast with a cry of rapture. “Oh, Billy, Billy, ain’t it lovely to be home again!”

_Our Civilization_

BY COUNT LYOF TOLSTOY

Men say that civilization, our civilization, is a great good. But they who have this conviction belong to the minority who live not only in this civilization but by it; who live in ease, almost idleness, in comparison to the lot of workmen.

All such men; kings, emperors, presidents, princes, ministers, functionaries, soldiers, proprietors, investors, merchants, engineers, doctors, scientists, professors, priests, writers, are so sure our civilization is a great good that they cannot bear the thought that it should disappear or that it should even be changed.

Ask, however, of the great mass of agricultural people, slave people, Chinese, Hindus, Russians—ask nine-tenths of humanity whether this civilization, which seems a superlative good to those who are not agriculturists, is really a blessing or not? Strangely enough, nine-tenths of humanity will reply in the negative.

What they need is soil, fertilizer, irrigation, sun, rain, forests, harvests, and simple farming implements that one can make without abandoning the agricultural life. As for civilization, either they know nothing of it, or it presents itself to them under the aspect of the debauchery of cities, with their prisons and their bagnios; or under the aspect of taxes and useless monuments, of museums, of palaces; or under the aspect of duties which prevent the free circulation of products; or under the aspect of cannon, of armor and of armies that ravage whole countries. And they say, if that is civilization it is of no use to them, and that, it is even hurtful to them. The men who enjoy the advantages of civilization maintain that it is good for all humanity; but in this case they cannot bear testimony because they are both judges and parties concerned.

One cannot deny that we are now far along the road of technical progress; but what is far along on that road? A little minority lives on the back of the work people; and the work people, they who serve the men that enjoy civilization in the whole Christian world, continue to live as they lived five or six centuries ago, profiting only from time to time of the leavings of civilization.

Even if they live better, the breach that separates their lot from that of the rich classes is rather wider than it was six centuries ago. I do not say, as many think, that, since civilization is not an absolute good we should throw out at one stroke the structure men have devised for the struggle against nature; but I do say that, to make sure this structure shall really serve men well, it is necessary that all and not only a small minority enjoy it. No one must be deprived of his due by others under the pretext that these benefits will return one day to his descendants.

The good and reasonable life consists in choosing, of many ways that lie open, the way that is best.

Therefore Christian humanity in the present situation should choose between two things: either to continue along the path of wickedness in which existing civilization gives the greatest number of benefits to the smallest number of people, keeping the others in poverty and slavery; or immediately, without postponing it to a future more or less remote, to renounce in part, or wholly, the advantages which this civilization has given to certain privileged ones, thereby preventing the liberation of the majority of men from poverty and serfdom.

_A Coal Miner’s Story_

BY CHARLES S. MOODY, M. D.

The average worthy citizen reclining beside an open coal-grate, reading the press accounts of the latest coal strike, has little interest in the matter further than his interest in the probable effect of the labor disturbance upon the price of his winter’s fuel. When he reaches that part of the narrative that tells of the troops having been ordered to the scene of action, the powerful arm of the military invoked to put down the uprising among the working-men, he heaves a sigh of relief that now the strike will be of short duration and the price of coal will not be advanced. Seldom does he consider the matter from the standpoint of the man who mines the coal.

Were that one big lump glowing warmly in the centre of the grate gifted with the power of speech, it would tell a tale that might well harrow up the feelings of the most callous. Alas! it is dumb, just as the man who dug it out of the bowels of the earth is dumb. It glows its heat away, crumbles into gray ash, and the worthy citizen retires to his rest with mind untroubled by any unpleasant thought of want or penury among those who go down into the unwholesome deeps of the mine and toil all day shut out from God’s gracious light that he and you and I may enjoy comfort and warmth.

At one time of my life the relentless wheel of Fate in its ceaseless revolving whirled me to its nadir, and spilled me into the squalid chaos of a coal-mining town, and, not content with that, hurled me into the nethermost hell of all that seething vortex of toil and poverty.

That the worthy citizen may see something of that side of the shield—the side sable—I will attempt to tell it, not with the graces of one skilled of pen, but in all its plain, naked, glaring hideousness.

At this point allow me to crave pardon for the frequent use of the personal pronoun. I am speaking as a coal-miner, and can tell it better by using the first person.

I was raised in the Far West. My life had been spent among the green mountains of the Pacific Coast, and I knew but little of the land beyond the Rockies. When ambition came, as it comes to youth everywhere, I dreamed of other lands where that ambition might find its full fruition. I left the mountain home, and set out to conquer the world of my dreams. My journey ended at the little town of Excello, in Northern Missouri. I was moneyless, and, as I soon ascertained, friendless. Disappointment glared at me from every door. Every vocation in life seemed filled, and all the avenues leading thereto were crowded with men eager to push the possessor of a job from his place and occupy it in his stead. I tried every possible chance for work, but without avail. Not even a country district school, with all its manifold possibilities of poverty, was open to the stranger.

Not far from Excello, the Kansas and Texas Coal company have opened up extensive mines at Ardmore. At last, desperate and in absolute despair, I turned to the coal mines that wait with black, widespread maws to suck in such flotsam of humanity as I was then. I set out from Excello on foot in the bleak dawn of a March morning, for the only Mecca left open to me. A donkey-engine drawing a train of coal-cars soon overtook me, and the engineer stopped his train and took me on. It was but a trivial act of kindness to a stranger, but it stands out so distinct and vivid by reason of its rarity that I must speak of it here. Motives of the most sordid meanness so completely actuate the principles of those people that the simple act of one of them giving a tramp a ride glows from out the grime of greed like a gem.

The little engine grumbled and rattled its way down the banks of a dirty yellow stream, dignified by being called a river, until it halted beside the head-house of one of the mines, and I was permitted to take my first view of Ardmore, one of the worlds that I had come so far to conquer. Ah, the irony of it all! What a contrast to the mental picture that the boy had painted upon the canvas of fancy not so many weeks before!

First the tall head-house and hoist, with the coal-screens all under one roof standing black and grimy at the mine’s mouth. Then the long incline, up which crawled the laden cars from the mine, looking for all the world like filthy serpents from some subterranean world. Off to one side towered the culm-pile, emitting its choking sulphurous smoke and polluting the muddy water of the little stream that wound about its base. Off yonder, on either side of the same stream, perched a double row of squalid grimy shacks, like gigantic carrion birds waiting to pounce upon the filth that flowed down the current of the river. These were the homes of the miners. Home! What a travesty on the sweetest word in any tongue! In the distance clustered the offices of the Company and the Company store, that most powerful tentacle of the giant octopus by which the Company holds its operatives.