The Stillwater Tragedy

  XVII

  During the first and second days of the strike, Stillwaterpresented an animated and even a festive appearance. Throngs ofoperatives in their Sunday clothes strolled through the streets, orlounged at the corners chatting with other groups; some wandered intothe suburbs, and lay in the long grass under the elms. Others again,though these were few, took to the turnpike or the railroad track,and tramped across country.

  It is needless to say that the bar-room of the tavern was crowdedfrom early morning down to the hour when the law compelled Mr.Snelling to shut off his gas. After which, John Brown's "soul" couldbe heard "marching on" in the darkness, through various crooked lanesand alleys, until nearly daybreak.

  Among the earliest to scent trouble in the air was Han-Lin, theChinaman before mentioned. He kept a small laundry in Mud Lane, wherehis name was painted perpendicularly on a light of glass in thebasement window of a tenement house. Han-Lin intended to be buriedsome day in a sky-blue coffin in his own land, and have a dozen packsof firecrackers decorously exploded over his remains. In order toreserve himself for this and other ceremonies involving the burningof a great quantity of gilt paper, he quietly departed for Boston atthe first sign of popular discontent. As Dexter described it,"Han-Lin coiled up his pig-tail, put forty grains of rice in a yallarbag,--enough to last him a month!--and toddled off in his two-storywooden shoes." He could scarcely have done a wiser thing, for poorHan-Lin's laundry was turned wrong side out within thirty-six hoursafterwards.

  The strike was popular. The spirit of it spread, as fire and feverand all elemental forces spread. The two apprentices in Brackett'sbakery had a dozen minds about striking that first morning. Theyounger lad, Joe Wiggin, plucked up courage to ask Brackett for a dayoff, and was lucky enough to dodge a piece of dough weighing nearlyfour pounds.

  Brackett was making bread while the sun shone. He knew that beforethe week was over there would be no cash customers, and he purposedthen to shut up shop.

  On the third and fourth days there was no perceptible fall in thebarometer. Trade was brisk with Snelling, and a brass band wasplaying national airs on a staging erected on the green in front ofthe post-office. Nightly meetings took place at Grimsey's Hall, andthe audiences were good-humored and orderly. Torrini advanced someUtopian theories touching a universal distribution of wealth, whichwere listened to attentively, but failed to produce deep impression.

  "That's a healthy idea of Torrini's about dervidin' up property,"said Jemmy Willson. "I've heerd it afore; but it's sing'ler I neverknowd a feller with any property to have that idea."

  "Ther' 's a great dale in it, I can tell ye," replied MichaelHennessey, with a well-blackened Woodstock pipe between his teeth andhis hands tucked under his coat-tails. "Isn't ther', MistherStavens?"

  When Michael had on his bottle-green swallow-tailed coat with thebrass buttons, he invariably assumed a certain lofty air of ceremonyin addressing his companions.

  "It is sorter pleasant to look at," returned Stevens, "but itdon't seem to me an idea that would work. Suppose that, after all theproperty was divided, a fresh shipload of your friends was to land atNew York or Boston; would there be a new deal?"

  "No, sir! by no means!" exclaimed Michael excitedly. "Thefurreners is counted out!"

  "But you're a foreigner yourself, Mike."

  "Am I, then? Bedad, I'm not! I'm a rale American Know Nothing."

  "Well, Mike," said Stevens maliciously, "when it comes to areg'lar division of lands and greenbacks in the United States, I goin for the Chinese having their share."

  "The Chinese!" shouted Michael. "Oh, murther, Misther Stevens! Yewouldn't be fur dividin' with thim blatherskites!"

  "Yes, with them,--as well as the rest," returned Stevens, dryly.

  Meanwhile the directors and stockholders of the various mills tookcounsel in a room at the rear of the National Bank. Mr. Slocum,following Richard's advice, declined to attend the meeting in person,or to allow his name to figure on the list of vice-presidents.

  "Why should we hitch our good cause to their doubtful one?"reflected Richard. "We have no concessions or proposals to make. Whenour men are ready to come back to us, they will receive just wagesand fair treatment. They know that. We do not want to fight themolders. Let the iron-mills do their own fighting;" and Richardstolidly employed himself in taking an account of stock, andforwarding by express to their destination the ten or twelve carvedmantel-pieces that happily completed the last contract.

  Then his responsibilities shrunk to winding up the office clockand keeping Mr. Slocum firmly on his legs. The latter was by far themore onerous duty, for Mr. Slocum ran down two or three times in thecourse of every twenty-four hours, while the clock once wound wasfixed for the day.

  "If I could only have a good set of Waltham works put into yourfather," said Richard to Margaret, after one of Mr. Slocum'srelapses, "he would go better."

  "Poor papa! he is not a fighter, like you."

  "Your father is what I call a belligerent non-combatant."

  Richard was seeing a great deal of Margaret these days. Mr. Slocumhad invited him to sleep in the studio until the excitement was past.Margaret was afraid to have him take that long walk between the yardand his lodgings in Lime Street, and then her father was an old manto be without any protection in the house in such untoward times.

  So Richard slept in the studio, and had his plate at table, likeone of the family. This arrangement was favorable to many a stolenfive minutes with Margaret, in the hall or on the staircase. In thesefortuitous moments he breathed an atmosphere that sustained him inhis task of dispelling Mr. Slocum's recurrent fits of despondency.Margaret had her duties, too, at this period, and the forenoons weresacred to them.

  One morning as she passed down the street with a small wickerbasket on her arm, Richard said to Mr. Slocum,--

  "Margaret has joined the strikers."

  The time had already come to Stillwater when many a sharp-facedlittle urchin--as dear to the warm, deep bosom that had nursed it asthough it were a crown prince--would not have had a crust to gnaw ifMargaret Slocum had not joined the strikers. Sometimes her heartdrooped on the way home from these errands, upon seeing how little ofthe misery she could ward off. On her rounds there was one cottage ina squalid lane where the children asked for bread in Italian. Shenever omitted to halt at that door.

  "Is it quite prudent for Margaret to be going about so?" queriedMr. Slocum.

  "She is perfectly safe," said Richard,--"as safe as a Sister ofCharity, which she is."

  Indeed, Margaret might then have gone loaded with diamonds throughthe streets at midnight. There was not a rough man in Stillwater whowould not have reached forth an arm to shield her.

  "It is costing me nearly as much as it would to carry on theyard," said Mr. Slocum, "but I never put out any stamps morewillingly."

  "You never took a better contract, sir, than when you agreed tokeep Margaret's basket filled. It is an investment in realestate--hereafter."

  "I hope so," answered Mr. Slocum, "and I know it's a good thingnow."

  Of the morals of Stillwater at this time, or at any time, the lesssaid the better. But out of the slime and ooze below sprang the whiteflower of charity.

  The fifth day fell on a Sabbath, and the churches were crowded.The Rev. Arthur Langly selected his text from St. Matthew, chap.xxii, v. 21: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which areCaesar's." But as he did not make it quite plain which was Caesar,--thetrades-union or the Miantowona Iron Works,--the sermon went fornothing, unless it could be regarded as a hint to those persons whohad stolen a large piece of belting from the Dana Mills. On the otherhand, Father O'Meara that morning bravely told his children toconduct themselves in an orderly manner while they were out of work,or they would catch it in this world and in the next.

  On the sixth day a keen observer might have detected a change inthe atmosphere. The streets were thronged as usual, and the idlersstill wore their Sunday clothes, but the holiday buoyancy of theearlier part of the wee
k had evaporated. A turn-out on the part ofone of the trades, though it was accompanied by music and a bannerwith a lively inscription, failed to arouse general enthusiasm. Aserious and even a sullen face was not rare among the crowds thatwandered aimlessly up and down the village.

  On the seventh day it required no penetration to see the change.There was decidedly less good-natured chaffing and more drunkenness,though Snelling had invoked popular contumely and decimated hisbar-room by refusing to trust for drinks. Bracket had let his ovenscool, and his shutters were up. The treasury of the trades-union wasnearly drained, and there were growlings that too much had beenfooled away on banners and a brass band for the iron men's parade theprevious forenoon. It was when Brackett's eye sighted the banner with"Bread or Blood" on it, that he had put up his shutters.

  Torrini was now making violent harangues at Grimsey's Hall tolargely augmented listeners, whom his words irritated withoutconvincing. Shut off from the tavern, the men flocked to hear him andthe other speakers, for born orators were just then as thick asunripe whortleberries. There was nowhere else to go. At home werereproaches that maddened, and darkness, for the kerosene had givenout.

  Though all the trades had been swept into the movement, it is notto be understood that every workman was losing his head. There weremen who owned their cottages and had small sums laid by in thesavings-bank; who had always sent their children to the districtschool, and listened themselves to at least one of Mr. Langly'ssermons or one of Father O'Meara's discourses every Sunday. Thesewere anchored to good order; they neither frequented the bar-room norattended the conclaves at Grimsey's Hall, but deplored as deeply asany one the spirit that was manifesting itself. They would havereturned to work now--if they had dared. To this class belongedStevens.

  "Why don't you come up to the hall, nights?" asked Durgin,accosting him on the street, one afternoon. "You'd run a chance ofhearing me hold forth some of these evenings."

  "You've answered your own question, William. I shouldn't like tosee you making an idiot of yourself."

  "This is a square fight between labor and capital," returnedDurgin with dignity, "and every man ought to take a hand in it."

  "William," said Stevens meditatively, "do you know about theSiamese twins?"

  "What about 'em,--they're dead, ain't they?" replied Durgin, withsurprise.

  "I believe so; but when they was alive, if you was to pinch one ofthose fellows, the other fellow would sing out. If you was to blackthe eye of the left-hand chap, the right-hand chap wouldn't have beenable to see for a week. When either of 'em fetched the other a clip,he knocked himself down. Labor and capital is jined just as those twowas. When you've got this fact well into your skull, William, I shallbe pleased to listen to your ideas at Grimsey's Hall or anywhereelse."

  Such conservatism as Stevens's, however, was necessarily swept outof sight for the moment. The wealthier citizens were in a statebordering on panic,--all but Mr. Lemuel Shackford. In his flappinglinen duster, for the weather was very sultry now, Mr. Shackford wasseen darting excitedly from street to street and hovering about thefeverish crowds, like the stormy petrel wheeling on the edges of agale. Usually as chary of his sympathies as of his gold, heastonished every one by evincing an abnormal interest in thestrikers. The old man declined to put down anything on thesubscription paper then circulating; but he put down his sympathiesto any amount. He held no stock in the concerns involved; he hatedSlocum, and he hated the directors of the Miantowona Iron Works. Theleast he hoped was that Rowland Slocum would be laid out.

  So far the strikers had committed no overt act of note, unless itwas the demolition of Han-Lin's laundry. Stubbs, the provisiondealer, had been taught the rashness of exposing samples of potatoesin his door-way, and the "Tonsorial Emporium" of Professor Brown, acolored citizen, had been invaded by two humorists, who, after havingtheir hair curled, refused to pay for it, and the professor had beentoo agitated to insist. The story transpiring, ten or twelve of theboys had dropped in during the morning, and got shaved on the sameterms. "By golly, gen'l'men!" expostulated the professor, "ef dis yahthing goes on, dis darkey will be cleaned cl'ar out fo de week'sdone." No act of real violence had been perpetrated as yet; but withbands of lawless men roaming over the village at all hours of the dayand night, the situation was critical.

  The wheel of what small social life there was in Stillwater hadceased to revolve. With the single exception of Lemuel Shackford, themore respectable inhabitants kept in-doors as much as practicable.From the first neither Mr. Craggie nor Lawyer Perkins had gone to thehotel to consult the papers in the reading-room, and Mr. Pinkham didnot dare to play on his flute of an evening. The Rev. Arthur Langlyfound it politic to do but little visiting in the parish. His was notthe pinion to buffet with a wind like this, and indeed he was notexplicitly called upon to do so. He sat sorrowfully in his study dayby day, preparing the weekly sermon,--a gentle, pensive person,inclined in the best of weather to melancholia. If Mr. Langly hadgone into arboriculture instead of into the ministry, he would haveplanted nothing but weeping-willows.

  In the mean time the mill directors continued their deliberationsin the bank building, and had made several abortive attempts toeffect an arrangement with the leaders of the union. This seemedevery hour less possible and more necessary.

  On the afternoon of the seventh day of the strike a crowd gatheredin front of the residence of Mr. Alexander, the superintendent of theMiantowona Iron Works, and began groaning and hooting. Mr. Alexandersought out Mr. Craggie, and urged him, as a man of local weight andone accustomed to addressing the populace, to speak a few words tothe mob. That was setting Mr. Craggie on the horns of a crueldilemma. He was afraid to disoblige the representative of so powerfula corporation as the Miantowona Iron Works, but he equally dreaded torisk his popularity with seven or eight hundred voters; so, like thecrafty chancellor in Tennyson's poem, he dallied with his goldenchain, and, smiling, but the question by.

  "Drat the man!" muttered Mr. Craggie, "does he want to blast mywhole political career! _I_ can't pitch into our adoptedcountrymen."

  There was a blot on the escutcheon of Mr. Craggie which he wasvery anxious not to have uncovered by any chance in these latterdays,--his ancient affiliation with the deceased native Americanparty.

  The mob dispersed without doing damage, but the fact that it hadcollected and had shown an ugly temper sent a thrill of apprehensionthrough the village. Mr. Slocum came in a great flurry to Richard.

  "This thing ought to be stopped," said Mr. Slocum.

  "I agree to that," replied Richard, bracing himself not to agreeto anything else.

  "If we were to drop that stipulation as to the increase ofapprentices, no doubt many of the men would give over insisting on anadvance."

  "Our only salvation is to stick to our right to train as manyworkmen as we choose. The question of wages is of no account comparedwith that; the rate of wages will adjust itself."

  "If we could manage it somehow with the marble workers," suggestedMr. Slocum, "that would demoralize the other trades, and they'd beobliged to fall in."

  "I don't see that they lack demoralization."

  "If something isn't done, they'll end up by knocking in our frontdoors or burning us all up."

  "Let them."

  "It's very well to say let them," exclaimed Mr. Slocum,petulantly, "when you haven't any front door to be knocked in!"

  "But I have you and Margaret to consider, if there were actualdanger. When anything like violence threatens, there's an honestshoulder for every one of the hundred and fifty muskets in thearmory."

  "Those muskets might get on the wrong shoulders."

  "That isn't likely. You do not seem to know, sir, that there is astrong guard at the armory day and night."

  "I was not aware of that."

  "It is a fact all the same," said Richard; and Mr. Slocum wentaway easier in his mind, and remained so--two or three hours.

  On the eighth, ninth, and tenth days the clouds lay very blackalong the horizon. The
marble workers, who began to see theirmistake, were reproaching the foundry men with enticing them into tocoalition, and the spinners were hot in their denunciations of themolders. Ancient personal antagonisms that had been slumberingstarted to their feet. Torrini fell out of favor, and in the midst ofone of his finest perorations uncomplimentary missiles, selected fromthe animal kingdom, had been thrown at him. The grand torchlightprocession on the night of the ninth culminated in a disturbance, inwhich many men got injured, several badly, and the windows ofBrackett's bakery were stove in. A point of light had pierced thedarkness,--the trades were quarreling among themselves!

  The selectmen had sworn in special constables among the citizens,and some of the more retired streets were now patrolled after dark,for there had been threats of incendiarism.

  Bishop's stables burst into flames one midnight,--whether firedintentionally or accidentally was not known; but the giant bellows atDana's Mills was slit and two belts were cut at the Miantowona IronWorks that same night.

  At this juncture a report that out-of-town hands were coming toreplace the strikers acted on the public mind like petroleum on fire.A large body of workmen assembled near the railway station,--towelcome them. There was another rumor which caused the marble workersto stare at each other aghast. It was to the effect that Mr. Slocum,having long meditated retiring from business, had now decided to doso, and was consulting with Wyndham, the keeper of the green-house,about removing the division wall and turning the marble yard into apeach garden. This was an unlooked-for solution of the difficulty.Stillwater without any Slocum's Marble Yard was chaos come again.

  "Good Lord, boys!" cried Piggott, "if Slocum should do that!"

  Meanwhile, Snelling's bar had been suppressed by the authorities,and a posse of policemen, borrowed from South Millville, occupied thepremises. Knots of beetle-browed men, no longer in holiday gear, butchiefly in their shirt-sleeves, collected from time to time at thehead of the main street, and glowered threateningly at the singlepoliceman pacing the porch of the tavern. The Stillwater Grays wereunder arms in the armory over Dundon's drugstore. The thoroughfarehad ceased to be safe for any one, and Margaret's merciful errandswere necessarily brought to an end. How the poor creatures who haddepended on her bounty now continued to exist was a sorrowfulproblem.

  Matters were at this point, when on the morning of the thirteenthday Richard noticed the cadaverous face of a man peering into theyard through the slats of the main gate. Richard sauntered downthere, with his hands in his pockets. The man was old Giles, and withhim stood Lumley and Peterson, gazing thoughtfully at the signoutside,--

  NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS.

  The roughly lettered clapboard, which they had heedlessly passed athousand times, seemed to have taken a novel significance to them.

  _Richard_. What's wanted there?

  _Giles. [Very affably.]_ We was lookin' round for a job, Mr.Shackford.

  _Richard_. We are not taking on any hands at present.

  _Giles_. Didn't know but you was. Somebody said you was.

  _Richard_. Somebody is mistaken.

  _Giles_. P'rhaps to-morrow, or nex' day?

  _Richard_. Rather doubtful, Giles.

  _Giles. [Uneasily.]_ Mr. Slocum ain't goin' to give upbusiness, is he?

  _Richard_. Why shouldn't he, if it doesn't pay? The businessis carried on for his amusement and profit; when the profit stops itwon't be amusing any longer. Mr. Slocum is not going to run the yardfor the sake of the Marble Workers' Association. He would ratherdrive a junk-cart. He might be allowed to steer that himself.

  _Giles_. Oh!

  _Richard_. Good-morning, Giles.

  _Gikles_. 'Mornin', Mr. Shackford.

  Richard rushed back to Mr. Slocum.

  "The strike is broken, sir!"

  "What do you mean?"

  "The thing has collapsed! The tide is turning, _and has washedin a lot of dead wood!"_

  "Thank God!" cried Mr. Slocum.

  An hour or so later a deputation of four, consisting of Stevens,Denyven, Durgin, and Piggott, waited upon Mr. Slocum in his privateoffice, and offered, on behalf of all the departments, to resume workat the old rates.

  Mr. Slocum replied that he had not objected to the old rates, butthe new, and that he accepted their offer--conditionally.

  "You have overlooked one point, Mr. Stevens."

  "Which one, sir?"

  "The apprentices."

  "We thought you might not insist there, sir."

  "I insist on conducting my own business in my own way."

  The voice was the voice of Slocum, but the backbone was Richard's.

  "Then, sir, the Association don't object to a reasonable number ofapprentices."

  "How many is that?"

  "As many as you want, I expect, sir," said Stevens, shuffling hisfeet.

  "Very well, Stevens. Go round to the front gate and Mr. Shackfordwill let you in."

  There were two doors to the office, one leading into the yard, andthe other, by which the deputation had entered and was now making itsexit, opened upon the street.

  Richard heaved a vast sigh of relief as he took down the beamsecuring the principal entrance.

  "Good-morning, boys," he chirped, with a smile as bright as newlyminted gold. "I hope you enjoyed yourselves."

  The quartet ducked their heads bashfully, and Stevens replied,"Can't speak for the others, Mr. Shackford, but I never enjoyedmyself worse."

  Piggott lingered a moment behind the rest, and looking back overhis shoulder said, "That peach garden was what fetched us!"

  Richard gave a loud laugh, for the peach garden had been ahorticultural invention of his own.

  In the course of the forenoon the majority of the hands presentedthemselves at the office, dropping into the yard in gangs of five orsix, and nearly all were taken on. To dispose definitely of Lumley,Giles, and Peterson, they were not taken on at Slocum's Yard, thoughthey continued to be, directly or indirectly, Slocum's pensioners,even after they were retired to the town farm.

  Once more the chisels sounded merrily under the long shed. Thatsame morning the spinners went back to the mules, but the moldersheld out until nightfall, when it was signified to them that theydemands would be complied with.

  The next day the steam-whistles of the Miantowona Iron Works andDana's Mills sent the echoes flying beyond that undulating line ofpines and hemlocks which half encircles Stillwater, and falls awayloosely on either side, like an unclasped girdle.

  A calm, as if from out the cloudless blue sky that arched it dayafter day, seemed to drift down upon the village. Han-Lin, with nomore facial expression than an orange, suddenly reappeared on thestreets, and went about repairing his laundry, unmolested. Thechildren were playing in the sunny lanes again, unafraid, and motherssat on doorsteps in the summer twilights, singing softly to the babyin arm. There was meat on the table, and the tea-kettle hummedcomfortably at the back of the stove. The very winds that rustledthrough the fragrant pines, and wandered fitfully across the vividgreen of the salt marshes, breathed peace and repose.

  Then, one morning, this blissful tranquility was rudely shattered.Old Mr. Lemuel Shackford had been found murdered in his own house inWelch's Court.