Hope Mills by Amanda Minnie Douglas (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📕

/> "Can you tell me why this is, Jack Darcy? Here are countries with fine and lovely climates, where every thing grows to your hand; yet they always seem to lie idle: Italy and Spain and Turkey and South America, and our own Gardens of Eden," with a bit of sarcastic smile. "The very ease of living seems to take the ambition out of one. Well, why shouldn't it? Even the bees, you know, were demoralized when they found they did not have to lay up for winter. Wouldn't those people come to be worse tramps and idlers? I'm sure the poor white trash of the South has helped itself very little."

"We were talking of concerted effort," interposed Maverick,--"purchasing a large tract of land, forming a community, taking different kinds of workmen, and making a success of it. Why should we not have flourishing towns in Florida, as well as in Kansas?"

"To be sure, to be sure!" nodding his head and tugging at his beard in a manner that showed he was not a whit convinced. "Then you give up," he said, "that any thing can be done at home?"

"Any thing done at home?" Jack lifted his level brows, and stared a little.

"Yes. The going away may all be very well. I tried it in '57; went out to Indiana with a little money, and tried farming that I didn't know any thing about, had the ague six months, and then came back poorer certainly. Now, the thing is just here with a good many of us,--we have our little homes, and in such times as these, in any hard times, we couldn't sell for any thing worth while. Then there's many a thing, to a man or a woman past middle life, that can't be reckoned in dollars and cents: the home you've made for yourself, the old friends, the church, even the familiar street you've walked over so often that every flagstone comes to have a near look."

"But those who have no homes, no strong interests"--

"If I was going to found a colony, I should want a little better stock," with a short, dry laugh.

"May be you have a plan?" suggested Maverick good-naturedly.

"Well, I've thought it over a good deal this winter, sitting in the house with the old lady;" and there came a peculiar far-off look in Cameron's eye as he studied a figure in the carpet. "If God worked miracles nowadays, and was to make a dozen or so honest men with a good, stout share of brains, there might be a little lifting-up of the dull skies. Take this town, leaving out politics and all that sort. Five years ago we were prosperous, and there wasn't a prettier town anywhere about. Good wages were paid, people were thrifty; and I will say it for David Lawrence, if he was one of your high kind, he was a gentleman. I've worked for him fifteen years steady. Then the Eastmans came in, and there was nothing but hurry and drive, grumbling about high wages, buying cheap wools, and if cloth was poor, blaming the men. Then wages went down and down, and, when the men stood out, the scum of all the places around was brought in. Yerbury improved, and beer-saloons multiplied. Houses were thrown together and sold; and now they're all falling apart, and standing empty, and half a dozen families are crowding into one miserable tenement. Who made the money? Was it high wages that ruined Hope Mills, and wrecked Yerbury Bank?"

"You have hit the truth somewhere, Cameron."

"Those men were thieves and swindlers; and I suppose to-day they're living on the fat of the land, milk and honey thrown in. See here, I'm not an educated man, but I have a little common sense. Suppose we'd been let to go our ways quiet like,--the farmers holding on to their farms, and making two blades of grass grow where one grew before. Wasn't that some old philosopher's advice? Suppose David Lawrence hadn't built that great palace out on Hope Terrace (he was a plainish man himself), and there had been five or six beside him making a moderate share of money. He's lost all his great fortune, there's seventy thousand or so gone somewhere, the bank has smashed with thousands more of everybody's money, with nothing much to show but trumpery mortgages; there's no work and no money, and a howl goes up that there has been over-production. Not over-production of honesty, I take it."

Maverick looked at the little earnest man, and laughed a hearty, cheering sort of laugh that was like pouring oil into a wound. Jack stared with wide-open eyes.

"I've been to hear Rantley two or three times,--he's going about lecturing, you know,--but I don't see as he has any very good plan for getting work on its legs again. Then I've listened to the parson this winter, to please the old lady; and he is sure all this is a judgment for our sins. Seems to me, judgment went a little askew: why doesn't it touch Eastman and such fellows?"

"Has nothing been done?" asked Jack. "I have heard no business gossip for the last three months. Can't it be proved that he was a defaulter?"

"Perhaps it could. The old lady was reading the other morning about the scapegoat being sent into the wilderness with everybody's sins on his head; and I guess they'd rather have _him_ off somewhere, and pack the trouble on him. He might tell too much if he was here. They couldn't get the money back, even if he has it; but no one ever will believe that David Lawrence profited by it. That money belongs to the people of Yerbury, who have earned it, and saved it; and I say thieving and roguery have more to do with hard times than 'surplus of labor.' The big men have taken the money that belonged to the little ones."

"None of the Lawrence estate has been settled, I suppose?" asked Jack.

"Every thing is for sale. The mortgage on the big house is to be foreclosed, also on the mill I believe. I declare to you, Darcy, it makes my heart ache to see those dumb spindles, and the great silent engine standing like a mourner at a funeral. Come now, why should Hope Mills go to ruin, and Yerbury fall to pieces, while you and Maverick go and build up Florida? Wouldn't the money and the energy do something here?"

Cameron's eyes looked out of their overhanging thatch with a puzzled, thoughtful expression, as if there must be a solution to the mystery.

Jack was startled. Building up Florida looked feasible, but building up Yerbury--

"Then you will not go with us?" said Maverick with a half-laugh.

"I've my little home clear of debt, and a trifle at interest; and over in Yerbury churchyard there are two graves dear to me and my old lady. It would break her heart to leave them. And sometimes, Maverick, I thank God, that I've no sons to grow up tramps or worse. No, I'll stay here, and fight through somehow."

They were silent for several minutes, each one tugging at the knotty problem. Then Cameron rose, reached out for the phial of medicine, drove his slouch-hat down over his forehead, and walked toward the door.

"Drop in and see us, Jack, after you have thought it over a bit. Mother's always had a warm corner in her heart for you.--Morning, doctor;" and, nodding, he closed the door behind him.


CHAPTER XI.

JACK and Maverick glanced at each other, a long, searching, questioning glance.

"Given twenty or forty moderate fortunes, instead of the one great one," said Jack slowly.

"And you have a greater amount of general prosperity and happiness."

"Co-operation," continued Jack.

"And now, if you don't mind, you may take a walk with me," said Maverick. "Office-hours are over, and I have some rather serious cases on hand. Jerry's gone lame, stuck a nail in his foot, so I console myself with pedestrian theories."

"All right. I may need a pilot."

It was a mid-April day; but spring was late, and every thing looked bleak to Jack after his Southern sojourn. Certainly it was quite different from the trim little town of Jack's boyhood. The blight of poverty and thriftlessness had fallen upon it. There were piles of refuse in the streets, still half frozen; there were muddy stoops and shabby hall-doors, and broken area-palings, and now and then a window patched up with paper or rags. For though there may be much high theorizing and preaching on the two or three exceptional men who have lifted themselves out of dens of poverty, and come through great tribulation, there are thousands who work out nothing but blind destruction and utter shipwreck, and who in frantic efforts for salvation drag down those nearest and dearest, as a drowning man may clutch at his own brother.

"Not very inviting," apologized Maverick; "but I have two calls to make here in Boyd's Row,--old rookeries that ought to have been pulled down long ago, but I suppose they still bring in Boyd considerable. I have made a complaint about the drains: they are enough to breed a pestilence. Tom Byrne has three children down with scarlet-fever. Two of them will be carried out presently, but I hope to save the little girl. No--I won't take you in."

"Tom Byrne--he was a mill-hand. And I know his wife well. Yes, Maverick." And Jack followed him.

It was a two-story cottage with three rooms on a floor, and two families occupying it. The Byrnes were up-stairs.

The two beds were in the front room, for the middle one was dark. There was a well-worn carpet on the floor, and the furniture very poor. Jenny Byrne had sold her best to pay the quarter's rent in the last place which they had left the first of January, the landlord preferring it should stand empty. Her little savings had been swept away by the bank disaster: there was no work, and three children to feed, except that Deacon Boyd found Tom sufficient employment to pay his rent.

On one bed close by the window lay the little girl, heavy-eyed and crimson. The elder boy had come to the stupor that precedes death, the other was restless with a half delirium. Jenny Byrne's round rosy cheeks had vanished, and her eyes had a distraught look, the lurking fear of coming woe. She stared at Jack a moment, then stretched out her hand, but as quickly withdrew it.

"Did you tell him, doctor? O Mr. Darcy!"

"Yes. He _would_ come."

She wiped away some tears with the corner of her faded apron, then answered a question of Jack's. What could he say to the poor thing? Surely she had done her duty with truest endeavor; and Tom Byrne was a very fair average man, liking his daily glass of beer, but rarely going farther.

"Can you fix a bed in the other room, and put Kitty in it?" the doctor asked. "She is better, but I would rather have her out of here."

"And Jamie is better too?" she questioned, with tremulous eagerness. "His fever is nearly gone, and he's having such a nice sleep"--

"Sleep is the best thing for him," returned the doctor briefly. "About Kitty"--

The mother's wan face flushed. She came close to Dr. Maverick, her eyes downcast.

"The coal gave out this morning, and I've no fire there," she said just above a whisper. "The relief-store is closed"--

"Yes, yes; I'll see to it;" with a nod. "I will