Fred made no reply to this charming bit of worldly wisdom. His delicate and high opinion of self had received a crushing blow. Married off, out of hand, to save him from poverty!

Why should his thoughts turn to Sylvie at that moment? Something stirred within him, an insane desire to win her—oh, mad enough, surely! He could, he would, do something! There was all his education and talent; yes, he really had talent. He would make himself famous. She should see that he had the right kind of stuff in him. He would climb up the hard hill in his lonely, sorrowful, proud way, until she, looking on, would come to repent her unjust verdict!

He shut himself up in his study, and made some very fair translations from his beloved poets. There were better ones, doubtless; and, after all, fame might not lie in that direction. There was physical science, much in vogue, and entertaining: no doubt he could do something in that line. There were theories and speculations, there were old philosophies—surely the ground was rich everywhere.

It was very poor at Yerbury, though there were theories enough. But, when you took them for temporal meat and drink, they were not a fattening diet. Men lounged in the streets and on the corners, or, worst of all, in saloons, talking themselves angry and hoarse over the bad luck, and blaming every one right and left. Women sat at home, and cried over losses and crosses, cooked their scanty dinners, and retired to bed early to save fuel. The poorer ones went out to a day's washing, glad to get that. Boys played cards, read dime-novels, and dreamed of wonderful fortunes at the West: some few stout-hearted chaps set out to seek them.

There were panaceas. Mr. Rantley preached the rankest communism and broadest free-thinking. Capital, i.e., money, was the tyrant of the world, and always would be until the laborers of the world rose up and claimed their rights. Why should this man starve when the man over yonder had his store-house full of flour that he was holding for higher prices? What right had he, except the might? So long as men were allowed to hoard up these monstrous fortunes, they could control the market, and would! What were the starving thousands to them? What if half the provision in the country rotted on the owner's hands? he could get as much or more money for the other half. What if the miners were at work only a small portion of time? could not the amount of coal be managed more easily, and prices kept up? Capital desired to keep production at the lowest ebb, because it could be more conveniently mastered. The only remedy was to give every man a chance, to break up these colossal fortunes, to have no great mills and mines; to have smaller capitalists, fewer hours of labor, to divide the immense hoards among the poor and needy until there should be no more want or suffering!

The Rev. Mr. Bristow shook his head at this modern anti-Christ. Every thing was anti-Christ, with Mr. Bristow, that went outside of his own narrow creed. He preached some stirring sermons. It was God's judgment upon them for their sins. They had forgotten him, they had been led away by false gods; they had made golden calves, and worshipped them; their sons had strayed into infidelity; their daughters had flaunted in gay attire, with plaiting of the hair, and dancing away their immortal souls; and now they must return to their God, to the meat that perisheth not, to the bread of life, and to the well of living water. There must be such a returning to God, such a revival of religion, that the world would be swept clear and clean out of its old sins!

"Splendid sermon! splendid sermon!" said Deacon Boyd, rubbing his hands together unctuously. "Parson's hit the nail just on the head. We've all strayed out of the way. I think a good old-fashioned revival'll set us straight sooner'n any thing. Nothing like coming to the Lord on the spot! This very week we ought to begin."

"I think you're right, Deacon Boyd," said grave Mr. Rising. "I, for one, will take hold of the work."

They called the church together, and began. I will not disparage the work. There were hungry souls that seemed fed with spiritual food, aching hearts that were bound up, reckless minds that paused on the verge of desperation. But there were others who wondered, even in the midst of the deacon's prayer, how it was that the Lord warned him to draw his twenty thousand dollars out of Yerbury Bank a week before the failure, when there were only he and his wife to keep, and let poor Mrs. Wharton with her five helpless children lose her husband's life-insurance, her little all, by putting it in the bank just a fortnight before the failure. Special providences, whereof Deacon Boyd discoursed so eloquently, happened oftener to the rich than to the poor.

However, they prayed and fasted and repented. To many, any strong emotion that took them out of the wearing round of thought was a blessing.

Jack Darcy, with a curious disbelief in every thing, went the rounds, and dropped into Maverick's office to talk it over. Sylvie was not home this winter: she and her aunt spent it in Philadelphia. Then Jack grew dull and restless. If the end of all things had come in Yerbury, he ought to try some other place in the great world.

It was settled presently quite by accident. A cousin of Mrs. Darcy's, one of your strong, thorough, energetic women, came to spend the winter with them; and Jack's mother, watching the throes of her son's soul, a little afraid of socialism, materialism, and all the other isms, proposed that Jack should take a journey West or South, and have a glimpse of the men and things beyond this narrow boundary.

"Grandmother grows feebler all the time now; and, being past ninety, we can't expect to keep her much longer. Of course, Jack, when she is gone, I shall have no tie but you; and, if it suited you to settle elsewhere, I should not object. You are young and ambitious, and I ought to think of your advancement. There never has been a time since your poor father's death that you could be so well spared;" yet the mother sighed. "And you have been a good son, Jack: you have given up many a wish cheerfully to two poor old women."

"Don't call yourself an old woman," said Jack almost gruffly, then he stooped to kiss her.

His heart gave a great boyish bound.

"Good-by, old Yerbury!" he cried exultantly one morning, quite sure of a new, glad life elsewhere.

"Though I shall be sorry to leave Sylvie and Maverick," he thought. "These old towns do grind the very soul out of a fellow who has any desire or energy in him. The world isn't all alike, I know," giving his chestnut mane a toss like a young, mettlesome colt.



CHAPTER X.

IF Jack Darcy had taken his tour for pure pleasure and enjoyment, the time was ill chosen in every respect. Winter was bad enough; but an unprosperous one, full of financial clouds and storms, and scurrying drifts of distrust, was not calculated to make the way brilliant.

But he had one glorious enjoyment to begin with. He went straight to Niagara, and took his first glimpse of it in its awesome majesty of frost and ice. From that high exaltation we call worship, through every intermediate degree and sense of beauty, to that of a delicate and minute fairy dream. The winter sun radiating glowing tints, with skies of sapphire and opal, the great stretches of wordless wonder, bound hand and foot like some old Norse god amid his ice-fields; the one night when a full moon silvered it with prismatic grandeur, and made of the glittering ice-crystals entrances to diamond-mines of fabled genii, touching him weirdly with this unearthly splendor; and the next solemn day, when the very sky seemed chilled to unfallen snow, and the ice-caverns turned a dull blue, reminding him of descriptions of polar scenery, and filling his soul with a sense of boundless solitude.

Then he began his tour of the cities. He had taken some books along, whether to perplex or make clear his brains, he hardly knew. He pored over pages of Adam Smith, he turned to Ruskin for comfort, he picked up Brassey's figures and experience, and Stuart Mill's strong, kindly reasoning, and digested them in his own slow, practical, much-befogged way, trying to solve the problems.

It was a great and wonderful world. Little Yerbury had hardly any true idea what a mite she was, when one looked at the immense labor-fields of the West and apparently endless resources. Yet there was the same depression out here. Shops and mills closed, for sale, and to let; some running on three-quarter time, with half the number of workmen, others going on at ruinous competition; anxious, moody-eyed men walking the streets, or grouped on corners, their coats and hats shabby, their beards untrimmed, old boots and shoes with the heels tramped over at one side, or a bit of stocking showing through the leather. "No man hath hired us," said their despondent faces plainer than any words. Young men and boys offering to do any kind of work for any kind of pay, sleeping in station-houses; relief-stores, church charities and soup-houses, homes for the friendless, and all such places, filled to overflowing, and new hordes crowding in every day.

Yet there seemed to be no lack of money. It lay in banks, it went begging for good security. Where was there any good security? Every inch of ground, every building, stocks and furniture, were covered by mortgages. Stock companies trembled in the balance, and went down like card-houses. Everybody wanted to sell every thing, but there were no buyers. Everybody wanted to work, but there was nothing to do. Everybody was in a chronic state of grumbling; there was no profit to be made in farming, in manufacturing, in any thing. There had been too much over-production, for which every one blamed his neighbor. The great warehouses were full of grain, the mills loaded up with iron, the factories full of cloth and flannels and cottons; and yet people were going hungry and in rags. It was puzzling and painful. We had bought too much abroad, and sent the money out of the country, the balance of trade would make it all right again; there had been over-production, and now there must be a vigorous repression; there had been too much speculation in real estate; there had been too great an accumulation of capital in the business centres; we were fast verging to the state of older countries, where there were the few rich and the many poor: there was a surplus of labor, and was there not also a surplus of people?

There was another sad side to it all, that made Jack's heart ache. These young men and boys tramping through the country, begging or worse, swearing, telling foul stories, herding together anywhere, corrupting one another's morals, smoking, drinking,—somehow they managed to obtain these indulgences,—looking furtively out of languid, sodden eyes, their faces hard and worn, their voices coarse and gruff; and they were to be the next generation of what?—loyal and honest citizens, or jail-birds?

It was not all so sombre. At five and twenty a healthy, unwarped nature is many-sided. There were countless marvels to see and to study. He stumbled over people who had known Mr. Lawrence, and who had a kindly feeling for a Hope Mills man. And he had done something more in the last eight years than merely learn how to make cloth. He had dipped into chemistry, and knew a little about dyes; he had studied up in grades and kinds of wool, and was interested in labor processes. With fresh opportunities he looked into it more closely, observed new methods of decreasing waste, or saving labor. He was a well-informed, well-mannered, sensible fellow; and occasionally some one would say of him, "A smart, long-headed chap, that! The world will hear of him some day, or I am mistaken."

He kept looking about for some place where, if the world did not hear of him, he might get a chance in some enterprise where he could take a few steps upward. There certainly were more men than places. The world was a bee-hive, surely; but alas for those who swarmed out in such times as these!

After he had gone as far West as Minnesota, he went down the Mississippi to a different kind of civilization in the quaint old cities. It was none the less heart-sickening. He found traces of the war, that we had almost forgotten, fresh at every step; still it seemed as if the hand of Nature was much more bounteous than at the bleak North. Yet Bishop Heber's old missionary hymn rang continually through his mind. Even amid the Florida orange-groves, and the great cotton-fields, some cause brought about baleful results, in the unwisdom of man.

Then to the cities of luxury and thrift, where wealth was strong enough to crowd poverty out one side, where art and music and cultivation made a subtile atmosphere that somehow recalled the Lawrences. He lingered and quaffed delightsome draughts, and at last tore himself away from seductive sights and sounds. In a dim, half-defined way the delights came to him. Would he ever be stoic enough to spurn them?

Last of all, home with its sweet welcomes, its cleanliness and order, its familiar furniture and cheerful fires, its easy-chairs and quaint fragrant air, as if every thing had lain in dried rose-leaves; the mother love and tears, the smiles out of dimmer eyes, and cousin Jane Morgan's hearty greeting; to say nothing of his delicious supper and his own bed, where sleep seemed awaiting him with open arms.

His mother had written a good deal of Yerbury gossip to him, but it had been mostly of the pleasant order. When he dropped into Maverick's office the next day, and was welcomed so heartily that it was like a brother's greeting, he listened to the other side. Affairs were worse than ever. The bank had gone into liquidation, and would pay about forty per cent. Property mortgages had been foreclosed right and left; there was nothing, scarcely, doing; there had been want and misery and sickness, and now diphtheria was raging.

"So you see the revival didn't do every thing," said Maverick grimly. "I'm of the opinion, if some of them had preached less, and distributed bread and broth with a freer hand, it would have been more of a good work. The praying would be well enough in its place, and, for those old fellows who pray on a full stomach, very enjoyable, I dare say. But I'd like them to look after their drains and their wells and their cisterns before they ask the Almighty to sanctify these afflictions to the poor wretches who suffer from them. And now, Jack Darcy, what are you going to do? Have you found better pastures?" and Maverick glanced up with curious inquiry.

"No," replied Jack, rather reluctantly it must be confessed. It seemed to him now that he had been spending his time for nought, unless pleasure counted, and he felt a trifle ashamed of it.

Maverick gave an odd little laugh that puzzled the other.

"See here, Maverick," began Jack in such earnest that he blushed like a great boy, "I haven't found any new place for myself. The world seems just full and running over. The great cities have their own men out of employment, and hordes from every other place. I'd be almost ashamed to ask for a job. I declare, I'd rather raise as much of my living as I could in our back garden, or take Perley's farm, and put it together, and set men raising strawberries, than tramp round, asking for work, with a feeling that it was taken from some one who had a better right, who was a native of the soil."

"Then you have not lost your conscience?"

"I hope not. It is the same old story everywhere. What is to be done about it?" and Jack knit his brows. "I have been going over the books that I thought would help or let in a little light on the matter, but it is a wisdom hard to get at. How to make more work in the world, how to cheapen living, how to"—

"Bring about the millennium! What dead earnest you are in, Darcy!"

"Weren't you in earnest a moment ago, Maverick, when you talked about the praying and the bread and broth?" said Jack with a great knot drawn in his brow.

"Yes, Heaven knows. And some one must take hold of the thing who has eyes to see, and brains, and—and money. You see, people have crowded into cities and towns, and if they could be sent out somewhere! Why don't we organize colonies or something of the sort? Now, there's Florida. Living is cheap, and in such a climate there are fewer needs of clothing and fuel. I have been wondering why the big dons in cities did not gather up the poor they have been feeding at soup-houses and everywhere, and send them out with some one to manage until they could stand alone. There would be less diphtherias and fevers and starvation; for that's its right name, Darcy. What can you do when one's system is all run out with meal-mush, and weak tea that is half willow-leaves, and such trash? There's Kilburn—he has had the name of being good to the poor this winter because he has given them trust at his store. Such stuff! I have looked into a few samples," and the expressive nostrils curled in disgust. "He makes an enormous profit, for he sells the poorest kind of goods to these people at the highest prices. Then he manages to get hold of something, house or furniture, or maybe clothes,—I don't know. He and Deacon Boyd—Darcy, how can a man honor religion when these two men are its exponents? So good to the poor! Pah! It makes me sick. Isn't there a cleaner air somewhere on God's earth? Can't they be taken out of this?"

"If they could be! There must be one way out, Maverick: better, perhaps, than going West where thousands are tramping about. And Heaven knows they need a new factor in civilization down there!"

The young eyes met in sudden hopeful animation. Had they solved even one strand of the great tangle, that worse than Gordian knot which could not be cut?

The door opened slowly; and there entered a middle-aged, rather grizzled man, with shaggy eyebrows, sparse beard, and bent shoulders. He glanced in hesitatingly, his eyes wandering down to Darcy.

"I declare to man!" and he stared hard, with the door-knob still in his hand. "Jack Darcy! I heard you were home. How d'y do? How d'y do?" and he wrung the hand warmly. "I'm powerful glad to see you," and he looked him slowly over, from head to foot. "Why, you've grown, or something! What a great giant you are!—Morning, doctor," nodding rather incidentally to Maverick. "So you've had a long tramp, Jack? Your mother brought some of the letters over to my old lady, who has been rather poorly the last two months. Why, you could set up book-writing! Well, what's the good word? Can't be like Yerbury all over."

"There are too many towns full of idle people, if that is what you mean. But it was splendid, Cameron! I have one more dream,—to go up and down the Western coast, and over the Rocky Mountains; but I want to digest this first. I have no fancy for mental dyspepsia," and he gave a good, wholesome laugh.

"The right way, Jack," nodded Maverick, with a shrewd twinkle in his eye.

"Well, you've come back to a dull place,—a dull place," and Cameron shook his head despondingly. "We used to be main proud of old Yerbury; but—is the whole world to go on and starve to death, with such crops, and such an abundance of every thing?"

"We are going to weather it through, Cameron," Jack answered with a stubborn hopefulness. "There have been hard times before that have ended in renewed prosperity."

"Yes. There was '57; hard enough, Heaven knows, with the banks going to smash everywhere. It ruined my father. And way back in '37, when there was such a wild-fire about real estate, and it came out just as this has. Do people ever learn by experience, Maverick?" and the man gave a short, unmirthful chuckle. "You could buy up half Yerbury to-day, for taxes and mortgages. I can't, for the life of me, see how it all came about. And that it has gone all over the world,—well, human nature in England or Germany can't well laugh at human nature in this country.—Are these things like cholera and fevers, doctor, taking a clean sweep once in a while?" and Cameron gave a twist to the end of his faded beard, as if he might wring the secret out of it.

"We have learned to manage the cholera, and see in it, not a dispensation of Providence, but the natural result of filth and greed and carelessness. Darcy and I are getting up a panacea now," with a bright little laugh. "But how is Mrs. Cameron? Is her medicine out?"

"Yes;" and Cameron drew a phial from his pocket. "You don't think it would do to stop here? She's pretty well, I should say;" and he fingered the bottle as if he were debating whether to have it filled or not.

"No. She must go on. She is getting her strength back nicely; but it's bad policy to stop at three-quarters of the race,—eh, Cameron? The first warm day I'll take her out driving."

While he was talking, he reached out for the bottle, and began compounding. Cameron nodded an acknowledgment of the last sentence, then turning to Jack, said abruptly,—

"What was the scheme, Darcy?"

Jack flushed, and glanced at Maverick.

"Emigration, the old remedy," answered the doctor. "England has tried her hand at it pretty successfully; so why shouldn't we? Only we need not go out of our own country. There are thousands of acres of productive land lying idle, and thousands of people starving, or worse. Too many here,—not enough there."

"Where to?" Cameron asked laconically, his face unmoved by any ripple of enthusiasm.

Jack seemed to be put on his mettle by it. Lack of faith in him always roused his belligerent qualities, back in the old school days.

"Yes, Cameron," in an incisive tone, looking steadily out of his determined eyes. "The cities are crowded over and over, and full of tramps, and the West swarms with them. We need not imagine we have all the idle people here at the East. But farming there has come to be a business of great things, almost as bad as manufacturing. You must have money, or the big fellows will swallow you up. But we were talking of Florida. No winter, as one may say; and your house a simple matter, your fuel, your clothes, a mere nothing. You could hardly starve if you tried."

Cameron came back to his chair, pushed it out from the wall, planted himself deliberately in it, and tilted back, pushing up his old felt hat, as if he did not mean to have his vision obstructed. Then he gave his beard another twist.

"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 be in again"—looking at the sleeping child—"say about four." Then he changed the medicine for Kitty, and gave one or two orders.

Jack thrust a bank-note in Jenny's hand, with his good-by. "Tom will be so glad to see you, Mr. Darcy," she said, with an effort at calmness.

"Can nothing be done for them?" asked Jack, as they regained the street.

"No. Jamie had gone too far when I was called in. Larger rooms, fresher air, nourishing food: that's the secret of a physician's success in many cases. Poor little ones! He will not go through the night. Now, Jack, you are not to come in here, positively. Stand in this breeze, and blow the scarlet-fever out of your clothes."

He did as he was bid, and, getting tired, tramped up and down. How much of man's selfishness and dishonesty there was in this! If the time could ever come when the mists and fogs of complacency would be swept off, and we could see that it was the innocent suffering for the guilty, not that these poor souls were sinners above all men, as the self-righteous Pharisee preaches!

Maverick rejoined him with a grave face, then the two went down Main Street. Houses to let, stores and shops closed, and those open but half-stocked, and wearing a listless air. If three hard years so told on the place, and there was no prospect of better things, what would it be in five or ten? Was it some such misfortune that had overtaken those grand and luxurious cities of Oriental lands?

"Where are the Lawrences?" Jack asked presently.

"Well, I really do not know. I think I did hear that Mrs. Lawrence had gone to New York. The young man"—

Jack held his breath, and there was a strange flutter at his heart. After all these years he saw again the pale, handsome child who had given him a boy's ardent love.

"I have a fancy that he will not amount to much. Queer idea that of Cameron's, wasn't it, Darcy? Who was it that first preached or wrote of the 'duty nearest one'? Of course things cannot stay this way forever, they must mend; and maybe if some one took hold to help mend them—Cameron's idea is not a bad one. Maybe the same amount of money and energy expended here would be productive of good results: still I hold on to Florida for my poor and wretched suffering ones. But it is worth thinking of. Here, let us turn round by Hope Mills."

Jack was silent. "Hope Mills!" It rang through his brain like a chime of bells. Of course he knew that Mr. Hope had given them his name; but had he builded better than he knew? Was it indicative of something greater than the power of one man,—of many men? of strong, earnest endeavor; of truth, honor, and honesty; of thrift, and happy, jocund industry, once more?

But now it was very silent. The great yard had an untidy look, with some piles of weather-beaten lumber, and old debris. The windows were covered with dust; the broad stone steps showed where the winter snows had fallen and melted, leaving streaks of dirt, and more had blown in the corners. No cheerful creak of the great engine; no vapory puffs of smoke circling skyward from the chimney; no whir of looms. It saddened one inexpressibly.

"It is a big subject," said Jack slowly. "I've been puzzling my brains half the winter with what wiser heads than mine have said about capital and labor,—Mill and Brassey and Howell, and our own men, with soft, sweet bits of Ruskin, and savage bits of Carlyle. I don't know but Carlyle was right when he said, 'The beginning and the end of what is the matter with us, in these days, is, that we have forgotten God.' Cameron said it another way,—honor and honesty. Because, certainly, honor appeals to all that is noblest in human nature,—to chivalry, and tenderness and thought for others; and nothing ever prospered, in the long-run, that did not have a substratum of truth."

"Well, according to Bristow, we came back to him this winter—not I, Darcy, I don't make any pretence,"—and he shook his head with slow gravity. "But I was interested in the revival on psychological grounds. I had never been so inside of one before. Bristow is a good man, no doubt; but it is just the one chosen way with him,—strong crying and praying, and believing yourself a sinner above all men, and then a sudden peace and happiness, and a courage to endure,—a blind, unreasoning courage to take the present as it is, because God sent it, and it must be for the best. Boyd and Whitlow and Kenny were the great lights. They went about from house to house; they exhorted and prayed. Whitlow was one of the old bank-directors. Strange to say, he did not lose a penny. His money was in government-bonds; and now he has persuaded Yerbury that if his advice had been taken there would have been no trouble. Whitlow discharged his man this winter, and took in his place a half-grown boy. Mrs. Whitlow sets a good example to her class by discharging one handmaid and making the other do double duty. Yet, so far as I can find, Whitlow is a richer man than he was three years ago. Kenny keeps his factory open, and gives the men three days' work in the week, and pays them in poor shoes, as much as possible; and takes out a good deal in high rent. Boyd, who has the name of being the greatest saint of all,—does what? Opens that miserable row of houses, that he couldn't let on any terms, and takes in tenants who are willing to work out the rent. He gets good prices, too. Is he losing on them? Faugh! the very term of charity makes me sick. And this winter he purchased a good deal of the stock of the relief-store. Wretched flour; miserable, adulterated stuff of tea; pork, some of it that wasn't fit to eat; and cheap butter, that every one would have been ten times better without. I went to him one day, red-hot, in a sanitary view of the business; and he preached religion to me,—his kind. 'Boyd,' said I, 'there's Keppler's saloon, your own property, paying you a good income, no doubt, in these hard times, adding to the want and misery of Yerbury faster than your whole church can save. If you are in earnest, go break up that den of iniquity!'"

Jack laughed. "What did he say to that?"

"Meekly, that Keppler had a lease for five years, and was going on the second. The man is so honorable, he cannot break faith with his fellow-man, forsooth; but he breaks faith with God, in a serene, untroubled manner." And Maverick's lip curled scornfully under the fringe of moustache.

"But there must be some gold, or the counterfeit would not be so successfully received. We have had so much false money everywhere, that, since we can make that pass, we do not trouble ourselves. And yet, Maverick, there is something in it that you and I don't see clearly yet; but we cannot teach it acceptably until we can show better fruit. And, when leaders of all kinds, in high places, show that self only is at the bottom of every thing they do, it seems hopeless to demand that the class below, watching them, and suffering from their wrongdoing, shall attain a higher moral status. How can they help following coarsely in the footsteps of their betters?"

"Darcy, suppose you turn parson!" and Maverick laughed half quizzically. "See here: the world wants a very old sermon preached again to it, hammered into every fibre, put up over every doorway,—the essence of all knowledge, all religion, briefly comprehended in this, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' You won't need gown or bands for that work. Not to have one code of morals for the rich, and one for the poor; one creed for Sunday, and quite another belief for Monday; to have no lofty, impossible theories and exalted moods, but truthful, honest living; not to push away the miserable, ignorant souls, but take them by the hand in hearty co-operation. Maybe Cameron has the right clew. Why should we let human love be shamed by such things as an Oneida community or a Mormon city?"

The strong, earnest voice stirred Jack like martial music. All these years he had been struggling with a great, blind, confused something,—perhaps it was not a silver-mine or a railroad, but a work just here in the town of his boyhood, where he was known, where he had played and worked.

"Seventeenthly, and lastly," and Maverick looked at his watch, "I cannot idle any more time upon you, and must cut short with a 'To be continued.' We will talk it over again and again; and, if we cannot get it into shape, there is still Florida left. So, while you are dreaming it out by this great silent mill, whose prisoned spirits should prate of prosperity instead of desolation, I'll run my course around Yerbury, and we'll compare notes over our cigars. Addio," waving his hand.

Jack watched the compact figure as it moved briskly away; then he sauntered round the mill, down one street and up another, strolled out to Lovers' Lane, and returned by Larch Avenue. The Barry house began to show signs of life, for old Mat was clearing up the grounds. This was the one oasis that had not been bitten by speculation. He thought of winsome little Sylvie, and one summer evening when Irene Lawrence stepped into that pretty, cosey room with the grace and beauty of a Juno. Where was she now? And what was Fred doing? Making a great leap into name and fame, doubtless, now that he was put upon his mettle. The old boyish freaks came back to his mind, the enthusiastic unreasoning adoration, the last tender parting. An intense and subtile sympathy filled his soul; and, though he smiled a little, the memory was very sacred.

The texture of Jack's mind was not of the quick, brilliant, or sanguine order. He went over his books again; he ruminated as he cleaned the garden-paths, spaded the beds, trimmed the trees and shrubbery, and attended to the odds and ends known only to a careful householder. Cousin Jane was in her element out here; and they two discoursed of farming and gardening, and industry, she in a sharp, trenchant way.

She had remarked incidentally that her visit was near its end. Now that Jack was home, cousin Ellen would not need her.

"I don't see why you should not make your home here, cousin Jane," replied Mrs. Darcy. "Grandmother grows feebler all the time, and you have quite spoiled me by your strength and cheeriness. You have no nearer tie; and if you could content yourself with us—Jack was speaking about it a few evenings since. We should like so to keep you, cousin Jane."

Jane Morgan studied the beseeching eyes a while, then dropped her own, and thought.

"Very well," she answered, "if you like to have it so. While I am well and strong I think I ought to do enough somewhere to earn my living, and not use up the little laid by for a rainy day. If you and Jack are agreed, we'll consider it a bargain for a year. I like to be settled about what I'm going to do: there's nothing so uncomfortable as hanging on tenterhooks. When my visit's through I like to go, if I'm going; not stand an hour or two with the door-knob in my hand."

Jack was delighted. They could spare him now and then of an evening to stroll down to Maverick's office, where they discussed pretty nearly every thing under the sun. It was so in the beginning,—"the earth was without form, and void." Then the Barrys returned; Sylvie changed in some indescribable way as to a kind of delicate outside manner, but the same fresh, earnest girl in heart and soul, taking up her friendship with Jack just where she had laid it down. Yet they had both grown broader and richer in nature and experience, and there was something of the subtile flavor of new acquaintanceship.

Yerbury cleaned house, even to the tidying-up of streets and carting-away of rubbish. It was pitiful to see the attempts of some of the poor women, who washed their worn white curtains, scrubbed the shutters and hall-door, and set out a few ragged geraniums in the front yard, or made a little bed of lettuce and onions.

Yerbury Savings Bank was in the hands of a receiver. Some sold out their small accounts for a trifle: it was agreed there could not be much in the way of dividends. Here was a great mortgage on the Downer farm, that the Eastmans had partly cut into city lots. And, though Downer had received a large price, he was a poor man to-day, with no business, and several sons tramping the highways for work. Farms had not been profitable, but had the wealth and extravagance produced any better result? These places around would be sold presently for any sum they would bring.

"Speculation did look so tempting, though," said Jack with a humorous smile. "But for grandmother I might have been in the midst of it."

"There's just one thing that makes a man or a country rich," said Jane Morgan incisively; "and that's industry, good, honest labor. Marking up one's goods before breakfast, as the Frenchman did, realizes no absolute money. The speculators jingle their dollars from hand to hand, until some poor fool, attracted by the noise, gives them a hundred for their twenty. When a man makes money simply by another person's loss, he has not created any thing, or made any more of it; and the world's no better, that I can see."

"Cousin Jane, you are dipping into political economy;" and Jack nodded gayly. "I shall have to ask Maverick and some of the others up here; and maybe you can put in a straw, or a head of wheat, toward the regeneration of Yerbury."

"I dip into a little common sense now and then, and it seems to me that's what the world needs. There is no lack of the uncommon kind, and it's not to be altogether despised, since at times uncommon things are given to people to do. But, if all the bees in the hive thought they had a call to be queens, it runs in my mind there'd be a lack of honey presently."

"You are on the right foundation, cousin Jane. We must not only make the honey an honorable thing, but honor the bees, put labor on a better, truer foundation."

"I should just say, 'See here, my friends, it is not possible for us all to be rich, whether it is some fixed immutable law of fate, or the lack of necessary elements in one's character, or the meeting of the right person with the right circumstances; but the fact is there, true as judgment. You can be comfortable and clean if you have the energy; and it is better to scrub your own kitchen-floor, or raise a bushel of potatoes, than to sit and whine about luck or respectability. Now and then a ready-made fortune drops down upon one, and I don't know but it often brings a curse: anyhow, what you work for, you are pretty sure to enjoy.' It makes me mad when I see healthy, hearty young women sighing for servants and pianos and what not; when their grandmothers, who had as good blood, and as good sense, didn't despise honest work."

Sylvie Barry came in while Miss Morgan was in the midst of her "speech," as Jack declared it to be; and now she clapped her small white hands, with a "Bravo!"

"A new disciple, Jack," and she smiled. "Miss Morgan, we shall set you to reading our favorite authors, and solving the tremendous question. Where can we get work for these to do? For a great many stand idle in the market-place, because they have not been hired. What can we set them at?"

"Well, Miss Barry, I don't know much about the big, outside questions; but, going around Yerbury a little this winter, I shouldn't say the work was all done up; or, done in such a poor, thrown-together way, that it tumbles right to pieces again. There's skewy, ill-made beds with ragged counterpanes; there's shreds of old ingrain-carpets, that you fall over; there's broken chairs, and shabby clothes, and dirty corners,—work enough, I should say, to last some woman an hour or two. She might get out her pieces of calico, and, with the children's help, make a new spread, maybe a tidy apron, and she might braid a rag mat out of bits, and a hundred things that go toward comfort. No: all the work isn't done up yet, Miss Sylvie," and Jane Morgan stopped just then, to knit the seam-stitch in a stocking for a poor body.

Sylvie threw herself on the footstool, and leaned her arms on Miss Morgan's knee.

"I wasn't thinking so much of that when I spoke," she began earnestly; "but I do wonder if some of us couldn't take it up. There are art-schools, and music-schools, and cooking-schools, in the great cities; and why couldn't we start something of the kind here? Poor people—the real poor, I mean—are often wasteful and idle because they do not just know how to be any thing else. They buy cheap garments in stores, and they soon come apart. I had a sewing-school last summer, and I found some mothers didn't seem to care whether their children learned or not,—since there was so much sewing done by machines. But if the mothers could be taught a little"—

"That's about the upshot of what I said. You see, Miss Barry, people have been earning so much money of late years, that sewing has gone out of fashion. It didn't pay to do this or that, so they earned and spent. Now they sit listless in their dirt and rags, bemoaning hard times. It is good to know how to do more than one thing," and Miss Morgan nodded her head confidently, her strong face full of earnestness.

"Why can't you and Sylvie start a school—what shall we call it?—of useful and homely arts? You see, the girls do work in the mills and shops until they get married, and then they do not know how to make the best of their husbands' money. But don't crowd out all the beauty and the pleasure; there must be something to enlist the heart. Give a man an interest in a thing, and you awake a new feeling, an enthusiasm that makes every thing go as smoothly as oiling up machinery."

"I have often thought," said Mrs. Darcy in her soft, gentle voice, "that the poor did not get as much good of their money as the better classes, because they never have enough to buy advantageously, and store-keepers so often take the advantage of them. Now, yesterday I was over to Mrs. Hall's, and the poor thing was trying to make some bread, and she was not fit to stand up and knead it; so I thought I'd try. The flour was heavy and sticky and lumpy, and what I should call very unprofitable. No one could make good bread out of it. She said they traded at Kilburn's, because he would wait if they did not have the money. The flour was seven and a half a barrel; the eighth, ninety-five cents; and I do not believe the bread was fit to eat. So you must remember, when you blame people for poor cooking, that they may not always have decent materials to work with."

"Maverick was growling about Kilburn the other evening. It is a shame that he should sell such poor goods, when prices have come down a good deal."

"Can you not reform him a little?" and Mrs. Darcy smiled.

"Cousin Jane and Sylvie might go into business, as did the poor weavers of Toad Lane, with their sack of oatmeal, firkin of butter, a little sugar and flour," said Jack laughingly. "A fair division of labor. The men of Yerbury shall provide work, and the women shall train the inefficient how and where to spend money."

Sylvie glanced up with bright, inquiring eyes.

"Was it some more co-operation?" she asked.

Jack brought out his book, and read the story of the "Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale" and their wonderful success from a small beginning. The girl listened with wide-open eyes, and even Jane Morgan laid down her knitting.

"The queen-bee and the workers again," said she, as Jack closed the book. "It is not every man for himself, but every man for each other. And it comes back, always."



CHAPTER XII.

"WHERE is grandmother?" Jack asked one morning late in May, as he came in from the garden, and found her place at the table vacant.

"She does not feel very well this morning, and I told her there was no need of rising with the lark," answered cousin Jane; but, though her voice was cheerful, there was a new gravity in her face.

"It is something unusual"—

"She is getting to be an old lady, Jack. There, sit down to your breakfast while it is nice and hot. No fear but what I will attend to grandmother."

She had risen; but in the midst of her dressing her hands had lost their cunning, her limbs their strength. Jane came to look at her in alarm.

"It's a warning," she said, with her grand old smile. "But I have no pain, and so you can leave me here for a while. My strength may come back."

Mrs. Darcy was much frightened.

"Remember that ninety-four is a good old age, and she has hardly had a sick day in her life. After breakfast Jack might go over for Dr. Maverick. He is sensible, and will not torment her with experiments."

Jack rather hurried through his meal, and then ran up to grandmother's room. She put out her wrinkled hand, thin to be sure, but still slender and smooth, with no knobby joints. A proud sort of beauty illumined the old face, though the eyes were a little dull.

"Dear boy," and there was a curious quaver in her voice, "I've had to give in at last. The Lord knows best. He has given me many a happy year with you; yet I have never forgotten the folks over yonder. I shall be glad to see them again,—your father, Jack, and the rest. 'Then they came to the land of Beulah, where the sun shineth day and night, and betook themselves to rest'—you know. We used to read it together."

A sharp pang went to Jack's heart. He pressed the limp hand to his lips, and gazed into the face that had changed in some indescribable way. Then Jane came with a tempting breakfast, and fed her with wonderful gentleness, it seemed to him.

He went out, and brought Maverick back with him.

"It is a general breaking-up of nature," said the doctor with a tender gravity. "Nothing can be done, unless she should suffer; but I do not think she will. It is the way lives ought to end oftener. Give her whatever she will take; and keep cheerful, all of you. After all, it is only a little journey."

"Where?" the young eyes asked as they met each other in solemn mood.

Jack scarcely left her. She liked to open her eyes, and find him sitting there, when she would smile faintly, and murmur a few words. Sylvie and Miss Barry were the only visitors admitted to her room. They used to read out of "Pilgrim's Progress," the book she had loved so well, and occasionally they sang some sweet old hymn.

"Jack," she said once, "you will find everything in my old box there in the bureau. It was my mother's, and came across the sea with me. You have been a good lad. You took your father's place with me, and you must never regret that you staid here to make an old woman happy. You have been a good lad—a good—little lad"— And her mind wandered to other years.

Just growing gradually weaker, and falling asleep peacefully. A long, well-spent life, and a death to remember and desire.

They buried her in Yerbury churchyard, and the townspeople turned out to do her honor. Jack thought of another death, and the almost solitary state of the funeral.

How good it was that they had Jane Morgan now! She carried them right along.

Jack opened the brass-bound box, still fragrant with its sandal-wood lining. Some old letters, the trinkets she had saved from her poverty, and a will bequeathing her all, in government bonds, to Jack.

There was nearly seven thousand dollars. With his own little savings he felt quite rich.

"Jack," said his mother, "all these years you have waited patiently, and put by your own dreams. Do not think that I did not notice the struggle. It was very generous and kindly; and I am glad, for grandmother's sake, that you staid. But now if you like we will go somewhere else, and make a new home"—did her voice tremble a little then? "I am still young enough to take root elsewhere, and cousin Jane is so energetic she helps one to new life. There may be prettier and more prosperous places, and you have years before you in which to realize a fortune."

He glanced up at the face bending over him, instinct with the honorable grace of middle life; the hair with a few threads of silver; the soft, fine skin showing some wrinkles about the eyes and two or three light creases across the forehead; the cheeks out of which roundness had vanished, and the lips the scarlet of girlhood, but though both were pale the mouth was still tender and sweet. A womanly woman,—that seemed to him a perfect description of his mother, a woman who had loved three generations, and held by them. Now for his sake she would give up the old ties, and try a new world,—this shy, shrinking, loving woman.

What would she leave? She had never known any other home in her married life, though this had been changed and improved since her wedding-day. Everywhere some trace of his father. The porch with the roses climbing over it, the great maples in the street, planted by him; the odorous old balm of Gilead, that he had hunted up because she had cared for it, and they had one in her old home; the trailing clematis with its shining smilax-like green, and its heliotrope fragrance; the white rose that had been planted on the morning of Jack's birth, and had sent up many generations from the old root; the latticed summer-house with its wealth of grapes; and almost like a vision Jack could fancy he saw the tall figure and deliberate step,—the sweet ghost of memory that could never walk in any other place. Did his mother have such dreams?

Yes, there were better things to life than mere money-getting.

"I believe those were the wild dreams of boyhood,"—smiling a little,—"the 'long, long thoughts of youth.' I used to want something that would occupy my whole soul and every energy, that was stirring, earnest, absorbing, and held a grand outlook. But I think"—very deliberately, as if he were weighing every word—"that my work has come to me, instead of my going out to seek it. At all events, I shall not go away for the present."

"Well," she returned, but she could not keep the great gladness out of her voice.

Having thus made his election, Jack Darcy looked sturdily about to see what was to be done, and the best way to do it. He asked two of the old over-lookers, Hurd and Bradley, to meet him at Maverick's office; and there they discussed co-operation until long past midnight. They looked into the cotton-mill connected with the Rochdale experiment; they read up the workings of those at Oldham and Lancashire, of the industries in France, and banking in Germany.

"Here we are," said Jack, "with so much of our lives spent in learning to manage looms and turn out different kinds of cloth. People must wear clothes until the millennium, and cloth will be made. It seems to me that it must be a good thing to identify the workmen, and get their real interest. We should avoid strikes on the one hand, the continual disputes about wages, and be much less at the mercy of all outside influence. The men will understand thoroughly that industry, economy, thrift, and perseverance is good for each individually; that he is using these qualities not only for the master, but for himself. There will be better work, and more of it."

Hurd seemed to be taking the measure of Darcy through this speech. Now he said,—

"Darcy, any man who knows enough to head such a business as Hope Mills, knows enough to carve out a fortune for himself; and my opinion is that he would be a fool to let the chance slip."

"A man may have the knowledge, but not the requisite capital," was the patient answer. "Then he might think"—

"Well, you've a sight of faith, that's all! Your men will go on with the tramp of soldiers in good times; and when the pinch comes, then look out! If they were educated, reasonable, sensible; but you and I both know the mass are not. It will do better in the old countries, for there children expect to follow in the footsteps of their parents; but here, where every boy looks upon himself as a possible president, it cannot be done. It has been tried, and has failed. It will again."

"Then you will not join?"

"I don't say that, Darcy. I can't very well get away from Yerbury: if I could, the Lord knows I'd go. But there—it is just as bad everywhere else. Don't be too sanguine though: you young chaps build air-castles easily."

Bradley wrung his hand warmly at parting. "I want to look into this thing a little more closely," he said. "I believe you have struck the keynote. Whatever raises the workman raises the whole world. If you get him to be self-supporting, there is one less pauper or tramp for the State to take in charge, and tax all other workingmen for his support."

"I rather like the scheme of the co-operative store," Hurd began presently. "There's a sight of money somehow between the producer and the consumer. Farmers are grumbling all the time. I wrote to my brother-in-law last spring about trading for a small farm, and going into poultry-business perhaps; and he sent back a list of prices he had obtained for his produce. Butter twenty-five cents, and we paid forty this winter. Milk two and a half cents a quart, while ours is from eight to ten."

"Transportation to be counted in," suggested Maverick.

"The thing discouraged me, so I thought I'd hold on a bit, since I did not know the first rule for farming. As Darcy says, we have spent all these years perfecting ourselves in our business, and it hardly looks reasonable that we should succeed at once in something altogether different. If you don't mind, Darcy, I'd like to look over that Rochdale experiment a little at my leisure."

Jack handed him the book, and the small party dispersed. In a week they met again, with two more, one a stubborn old Englishman who had been in the business. They had done very well for a while, then the market flattened. They could not hold their stock, so the big fish swallowed them up. That was always the end where you had no credit and no reserve capital. Truth to tell, Jack began to realize how hard it would be to convert some of the very men he would like to have.

Meanwhile Hamilton Minor came up with some capitalists, and Hope Mills was put up at auction. They looked around the town, examined the building and machinery, which was the best of its kind; but nobody could tell whether we had reached bottom prices or not, and, though the place was to be offered at an immense sacrifice, they were wary. Empty mills and rusting machinery were not profitable investments. Mr. Minor's eloquence went for nothing. These long-headed dons would rather hold on to their money, though they expressed a good deal of sympathy for the Lawrence estate.

"I do believe it will go for the face of the mortgage," said Jack to Maverick that evening. "Twenty thousand dollars, and a year's interest and taxes. Twenty-two thousand would cover the whole thing; and three years ago Mr. Lawrence wouldn't have looked at fifty thousand. Maverick, I can get together ten thousand of my own, and if there was one other person"—

"We will hunt him up," returned Maverick hopefully. "There is the reputation of the cloth already made, which is one great step in your favor. Yes, it must be done."

Yerbury was looking a little brighter and better at midsummer. Scarlet-fever had pretty well disappeared; but malaria had come in its stead, convenient name for want of nourishment, stagnation, and despondency. The haggard-looking wives and mothers went out to a day's washing or scrubbing; but the children, better off, roamed over the fields in search of berries or a stray ownerless fruit-tree, laughing and happy in their rags and bare feet.

Darcy tried two or three pretty well-to-do men, that he fancied had the good of the town at heart; but the project looked wild to them. If David Lawrence couldn't stand up against hard times, no new men could. He, Darcy, had better put his money in government-bonds, and live on the interest. Nothing could be made in such times as these.

"It seems as if one half of the world has decided that the other half should starve," Jack declared in a discouraged tone. "No one is willing to start the ball again. If it wasn't for mother I would risk every dollar of my own. And then to think of the land lying idle about here,—enough to feed half the town! I do not wonder that we are fast coming to beggary and ruin."

Maverick was pretty sober for several days, then he went off to Narragansett Pier; "tired of my everlasting badgering," said Jack to Sylvie, who, poor child, had her hands and heart full of projects that she talked over with Miss Morgan and her aunt, and did not make much more progress than Jack.

So it happened one July evening that Jack sat smoking on the porch in a rather despondent frame of mind. Miss Morgan and his mother had gone to make some neighborly calls.

A quick step came down the street. "If Maverick wasn't in Rhode Island!" thought Jack; then it came nearer, with a little halt, and Jack sprang down the steps in the moonlight.

"Hillo, old fellow!" said the rich, laughing voice. "Have you looked after my patients, and entertained my office-callers, in my absence? That would only be fair play, for I have been about your business; and, by Jove! succeeded too!"

"Maverick!" There was an odd little tremble in Jack's voice.

"Ask me to sit down, and stay me with—well, a pipe, for I have finished my last cigar. I came in the train just fifteen minutes ago, and skulked—that's the very word—under the trees and through by-ways, lest some one, seeing, should lay violent hands on me. Yes, get out your best armchair, old chap, and treat me like a prince."

The two seated themselves again, and stretched out their legs to the porch-railing. The soft light fell around, outlining here and there a bit of vine as if it were held against a silver background. A few early insects were chirping, and somewhere down the street there was a waft of distant music.

"Succeeded!" Jack drew a long breath.

"Yes: with a woman too. Nay, you need not look at me so wonderingly. I have not sold myself for base gold to the Evil One," laughing lightly. "I have never told you much about myself; for, like the needy knife-grinder, 'story, God bless you! there was none to tell;' but there is a chapter now, and you must hear it first. My mother was left an orphan in her infancy, and her aunt adopted her. She was a canny Scotswoman, by name Jean McLeod. She was very good to my mother, who married quite to her liking, although my father was not rich, but we always lived in a certain style, and my father had a fine reputation as a lawyer. My mother's death, the result of an accident, so prostrated him, that he never recovered from the shock. Aunt McLeod came to stay with us through that weary time. Then she took us both to her heart and home: it was a large warm heart and a beautiful home. My father left a little: it was made over to me; and my sister, five years younger than I, was brought up properly, and married properly, and lives in Chicago in elegant style. Then Aunt Jean tried her hand on me, chose a suitable young woman, and insisted that the fates had decided it. The upshot was a quarrel. Not but what the girl was nice enough, and all that, but I did not care to marry; and so I walked off to Europe, and was there three years. Some rather cool letters passed between us at first, but they grew warmer; and when I returned it was winter, and she was in New York. I went straight up to her house. She was very glad to see me; and there in her lovely library, all glow and softness and perfume, by the side of the grate, with a screen in her hand, sat Anastasia Lothrop. She is Aunt Jean's pet protegee, though she has home and lands and people of her own. A handsome woman too, by Jove! However, we have gone our separate ways. I think she (Aunt Jean) was rather annoyed at my settling at Yerbury.

"Well, I went to Narragansett, and found her alone this time; and she has promised to buy Hope Mills. I do believe there's no end to the woman's money. She talked it over as a mere bagatelle. I am to meet her in New York, and you are to go down, Jack; and we are to see the holder of the mortgage, and do no end of business. I think she is rather interested in the scheme, and I do believe she is delighted to do me a favor. Now you can keep your money for a kind of reserve fund. The mere savings of labor will not answer at first, you know."

Maverick drew a long breath then, and puffed lustily at his cigar.

"I don't know how ever to thank you."

"Don't thank me, Darcy. You see, I am interested in this experiment. I want to see if there is enough faith and honesty and industry and trustfulness left in the world to make such a general partnership a success. You know it has been said that since the war our character as a whole has degenerated fearfully. Politically there is no doubt of it. Commercially and industrially are still open questions. If we could succeed in making one hundred people comfortable, instead of one rich, nine comfortable, and the other ninety next door to pauperism, we shall have done something. If we can so educate ninety men that they are able to understand the difficulties and embarrassments of carrying on business and its numerous fluctuations, we shall have raised them higher in the social scale. And it is most sadly true of all the large failures of late, some one has been dishonest, some one or two or three have taken other people's money to speculate with. It should be called stealing as much as when a poor man takes it, even if he spends it for rum. And, Darcy, we will keep our eye single upon one thing: we shall not move the world, or convert it, but haply one little corner of Yerbury; while all the wit and wisdom the world has been saving up for ages will be hurled against us in different shapes, from puffy snowballs to the grim old fellows soaked in water and frozen hard. And sometimes I think, with all the energy you are going to bring to bear upon this, you could carve out a fortune somewhere else."

"I don't know as to that, Maverick," said Darcy in a half-funny, half-sad tone. "From New York to St. Louis, from thence to New Orleans, to Florida, and back here again, I never found an opening. Two or three people did promise to write to me, but they have not. I felt the world could go on quite as well without me and hundreds of others. So, then, the only thing is to create a place; and Heaven knows I shall try hard enough to make a success of this."

"And you will do it too: I'm not afraid. Give us your hand, old chap! I never swore friendship with but just one fellow: that was in my college days, and I have his note for one hundred dollars as a memento. I might have been keener, I dare say; but one of the transcendentally lovely things of youth is its perfect faith. These preternaturally wise and prudent young people come into the world mentally gray-headed. But I do it now with my eyes wide open; and, when you are a rich man, I have another scheme I want to take through, a sort of home or hospital of my own planning: so don't fancy I shall let you off easy."

They held each other's hands in a long, lingering clasp. Beside the warmth and magnetism that was a component part of Dr. Maverick's nature when he chose to use it, which was not nearly always, there was a steadfast kindliness, the vigor of a true and pure manhood, that made a clear atmosphere about him, in which insincerity, weakness, and selfishness seemed to flicker into pale shadows, and shrink away from the intense mental light he turned upon them.

And just here the vision of the boy face came back to Jack, the strangling arms about his neck, the fluttering breath and quivering lips, and the sound of the rather thin, childish voice,—"You are my King Arthur, and I shall love you my whole life long."

The sadness in the smile was for the old ideal.



CHAPTER XIII.

"THE telegram!" exclaimed Maverick ten days later, striding down the garden where Jack was at work in the strawberry-bed.

Jack Darcy flushed like a girl, through the other fine coloring of labor. He had hardly dared to believe in and hold to Maverick's promise. Manlike, neither had spoken of it since that night.

"'Thursday, at four, at the Westminster.' That is to-morrow. We must be on time, or she would never have any faith in us; and, though my credit may be nil, yours must be"—

"As I hope to keep it through my life," was the grave reply. "You will take the morning train?"

"Yes. It will give us a trifle of spare time, which won't be bad for a couple of overworked fellows like us. But I must look after a lot of people this afternoon, and if I can I will drop in this evening."

Jack went back to his strawberries. He had been making a mental calculation about an acre, and the profits thereon, moved to it by something Jane Morgan had said. Twenty miles below them, on Swanston Bay, which was quite a summer-resort, the hotel-keepers had paid twenty-five cents per quart for nice large berries. On their little patch they had raised a hundred and twenty quarts. There was another side to the labor-question,—diversity of industry. Jane's idea of a great fruit-garden, or call it a farm, was not bad. You could crowd ten such patches in an acre of ground. If nothing better came to hand, he might hire some of the ground lying waste around Yerbury, and set the idle at work.

Sylvie came through with some flowers in her hand. Jack looked up again, and laughed, and threw himself on the grass under a tree, chatting gayly. He felt so light at heart! She wondered a little, and then, without knowing the cause, rejoiced with him in the depths of her soul.

The two men started the next morning, and at the appointed time were ushered into Miss McLeod's private parlor. Maverick had said, "She's a little queer in some ways; but in the main you will like her, I think." Meanwhile Jack had formed a dozen ideals of her, based mostly on the personal appearance of Miss Barry and his grandmother.

The door of the adjoining room opened, and Miss McLeod entered. An old woman, of course, and a fashionable woman, but with a young-old face and figure. Not the graceful airiness of youth, so often painful in its desire to impress the beholder with what it is not, but an old age to which all the good things of life, rightly used, have contributed, and brought about a delightful result. She was of medium height, and possibly had not been handsome in her palmy days; but she challenged one's respect for a true and honorable womanhood, and an old age neither inane, querulous, nor servile.

A rather plump figure, with deep chest, full shoulders, and erect carriage. The face was wrinkled; but the skin had a peachy softness, the lips were still full and finely curved, and, though the mouth was rather wide, it indicated resolution and decision. The whole contour of the face was slightly aquiline, the forehead high and broad, but the curling hair falling over it in the requirements of fashion softened it; shining silvery white, curling naturally, and very abundant, the coil at the back partly covered with a diamond-shaped bit of elegant black thread lace that matched the barb at her throat. Her rich, soft, steel-colored silk made no rustle as she crossed the floor, but the diamonds in her ears and on her breast flashed a glitter of sunlight about her.

Maverick greeted her with pleasant but not effusive warmth, and introduced his friend. They skirmished on the boundary-line of small talk for a while, Jack feeling that he was being measured and gauged at every possible indication of the real man, but his honesty of purpose kept him steadfast.

Presently Maverick plunged into the business part, much to Darcy's satisfaction.

"I wrote to my lawyer, Mr. Hildreth, about it," Miss McLeod replied. "He has seen the parties holding the mortgage; and, on account of business embarrassments, they are extremely anxious to realize upon it. Mr. Minor is naturally desirous of having it sold at an advantage; but he is on the bond, and has been making continuous efforts with no success. No one can tell how low property will sink, business property especially, that depreciates so rapidly if neglected. The mortgage is considered one-third of what the property was valued at seven years ago; but we have all shrunk a trifle since that," with a shrug, and a curious little bend of the head, as if the decapitation was not altogether a pleasant process. "This is the 4th of August, and on the 19th it is advertised for sale. There may be one chance in a thousand of a better purchaser; though Mr. Hildreth thinks no one but a lunatic, or a woman, would put money in such an adventure," her lips curving in their bitter-sweet smile. Indeed, there was nothing she was so much like as a cluster of bright bitter-sweet berries, on a sharp but sunshiny autumn day, with the leaves and tendrils brown and faded, but the brilliant life and soul still shining from the ripe centre. She impressed you with the same defiant glow of exultation.

"I have money lying idle, it is true," she continued; "but I want to hear your plans before I decide, Mr. Darcy. Philip," nodding to her nephew, "has interested me in this scheme; but I must know what it promises before I take the risk."

Jack was confused a little by the bright, penetrating glance; and he had not quite overcome his boyish trick of blushing. Often as he had gone over the plan with Howell, Fawcett, and other political economists at his tongue's end, all his troupe of fine ideas seemed to desert him. He laughed at his own embarrassment: she smiled and nodded, and that made them friends.

"I don't know that I can put it any better," he began earnestly, "than to say that I want to take up the lever of work, and put the wheels of labor in motion, to bring the starving workmen and the halting capital together again. It is all very well for us to rush every dollar into government-bonds; but if there is no business, what is to augment our revenue, and where then shall we be finally, with our mills and workshops shut up, and our people begging? If I had enough of my own to bridge over the chasm, I would ask no one's help," he went on a little proudly. "The mills at Yerbury stand in sad silence, with ruin before them; our men are idle and dispirited, turning into tramps and vagabonds, because they hate to sit still and starve. And here am I, of no real use to the world, and the eight years back of me that I have spent in perfecting myself of no account either, unless I find something upon which to employ my ability and training. If I purchase the mills, we must hire capital to work them with, and everybody would be shy of us. We can get together the capital if we could be sure of the place for five years, at a moderate rental."

"But would not a joint-stock company answer the purpose better, and carry more weight?" she asked, listening with a sort of intent wariness.

"I want to enlist the workmen, so that we shall be reasonably sure of co-operation in other things beside money, industry, thrift, faithfulness, and a common interest in success. If times are hard, we shall all make sacrifices: if they improve, we shall benefit by the earnestness of our endeavors. Maverick and I have made a little draft, based on the workings of the best French and English societies. If you will look it over"—and he took it out of his memorandum.

She studied it with a keen, rapid glance.

"It is what I should call an industrial partnership," Darcy continued. "We should own the mill; but, as we cannot, that must go in the working expenses. As the men choose, and are able, they can hold shares; but at present this will be obtained—say from a dozen perhaps. Nothing now will bring in twenty or even ten per cent, and we must be satisfied with whatever we can make. We have had our good times, and now we must take the evil; but if there is any better way than sitting down resignedly, and folding both hands, I, for one, want to find it."

She was taking in the combinations of emotion and purpose that flitted over his face. A man who would do something if he could get that hardest of all things, a foothold to stand upon.

"I think you might make more money," she said with pointed brevity.

"Which would not be co-operation," with his frank, genial laugh that went to her heart. "I want to try the experiment. Not that I expect to solve all the difficulties between labor and capital; but I shall try to make them better friends, so that, when you have weathered a hard gale, pinching yourselves to keep on the workmen, they will not strike for higher wages on the first stir of improvement, as they will be certain of their share."

"You are a philanthropist, Mr. Darcy. Can you depend upon the temper of your men? They may do very well just now when they are starving; but, when times improve, are they going to wait one year or five years for the sum they consider part of their wages? And if there should be no surplus, but losses, as has often happened in manufacturing? Your workman will

'Fork out his penny, and pocket your shilling,'

fast enough; but when the tables are turned, what then?"

"There must be a different feeling when men are banded together in a mutual business interest. The very spirit of association appeals to what is best and noblest in human nature. As it has been in Yerbury, for example, the workmen contributed of their ability and strength to support one family in princely luxury, pay one extravagant salary, and several others that were out of all proportion to the wages earned, and an extensive defalcation. No one is at all the gainer now, unless it be the thief," his face scarlet with indignation at the remembrance of Eastman. "The men have been hit the hardest of all. No wonder they feel bitter and discouraged. We make many an Ishmael by sending him out with his jug of water, while there are feasting and revelry within."

"But you cannot make all human nature noble or sensible or grateful. There is the grand co-operation of the forty years in the wilderness, when food was provided, and clothing lasted miraculously; yet under these favorable circumstances, and with the sure promise at the end, there was not a heavenly unity."

Jack laughed heartily.

"We must keep from golden calves and such folly," he said. "We are likely enough to have our waters of Marah. But it seems to me the best way to ennoble labor, give it its true dignity, and show the possibilities for the workmen, is concerted action. As matters stand now, few poor men can ever acquire sufficient capital to start any business; and perhaps this is not best when we consider the cost of machinery, and the ever-appearing new inventions. The small capitalist could not compete with the large one. Yet capital often takes as its right the best strength of the workman, the years of maturity and ability, and throws him off in his old age. I know labor retorts by carelessness, wastefulness, and utter indifference to the employer's welfare. One is a machine to grind labor into money; the other, to grind all he can out of capital. Perhaps my design is Utopian, but it seems as if something ought to be done before we train a whole generation of men to be paupers and thieves. Better that we should spend our money in labor experiments than supporting poorhouses and prisons."

Jack had lost his embarrassment now. There was a glow on his cheek, and a steady fire in his eye, the lines about the mouth sharply drawn, and indicating not only masterly strength, but a kind of pitying patience, that would never degenerate into sentimentality. It was a very manly, trusty face; and his sterling honesty impressed Miss McLeod, long trained to reading faces, while his sturdy good sense promised much.

"I should like Mr. Hildreth to see this paper," turning it in her still supple fingers. "What if some of your men insist upon going out after a year or two, Mr. Darcy?"

"There will be some kind of forfeiture, of course. The true business capital must remain intact the whole five years: the direct proceeds of labor may be subject to some changes, but in any event the business interests must not be jeopardized."

There was a moment's interruption of a servant; then dinner was brought in, and arranged for three. The bright-eyed old lady made a charming hostess. She poured their tea with a quaint dignity, and made them feel quite as if she were dispensing hospitality in her own house.

She was the kind of woman whom young people, past the lunacies of sixteen, invariably like. The feminine portion told her their love troubles, the young wives came to her with tangles and little jealousies; and, if she could not always straighten them out, she had a marvellous way of comforting. Young men drifted toward her by some species of magnetism, though she had none of the fussy motherliness of some old ladies. With faculties still keen and bright, a great fund of good-humor that had the sparkle of champagne rather than any insipid sweetness, she never wearied or palled on any one. She kept herself well informed of the world's progress, she knew of the principal stars in the literary, dramatic, and artistic world, and to be asked to her house was a compliment.

The conversation was more general now; and, though Maverick had told every thing of note about Yerbury, she was not indisposed to listen to it again. They discussed the panic and its causes, and ventured upon guesses as to its duration. They all agreed that there had been too much haste to be rich, too much greed of speculation, too much personal greatness, and not enough national greatness. No generous striving together to build up what the war had pulled down, but every man for himself and for gold. If women had been frivolous and vain, and dazzled by the glare of newly acquired wealth, men had not been quite free from faults. The terrible lowering of morals, the dishonesty and fraud easily condoned, and laughed over as a kind of shrewdness, were sad examples to set before the next generation.

In her way Miss McLeod was quite a politician, having been so much in that circle. Her views of men and measures were keen and discriminating; and her bits of trenchant wisdom quite dazzled Jack, who at the last, proposed laughingly, as his panacea, that every man should undertake the mending of himself, when the world would soon be righted.

Afterward a coupe came, and they drove to the Park. There evening and the bonny new moon overtook them; but the streets and country roads were so inviting, they did not return until quite late.

"Consider yourselves my guests for the night," she said as they drove back to the hotel, and Maverick was too wise to demur.

"I have been thinking this matter over," she said as they were separating. "My part will be purchasing the mills, and I shall take so much in the shape of rent. I want you to consider what per cent you can pay, and not straiten yourselves too much. I frankly confess that I am greatly interested in you, Mr. Darcy; and as this young man," touching Maverick's shoulder, "prefers to 'gang his ain gait,' he leaves me quite free to waste my money as I like. Be fair to yourself. Good-night."

"It's all right with you, Jack," began Maverick after they had been shown to their room. "Aunt Jean is a trump! I almost forgive her Miss Lothrop. But I suppose women would be less than women, if they did not want to dip their fingers into destiny. It is their mental chessboard."

"But you do love her? your aunt, I mean."

"Why, of course. Still, I should never dangle in any woman's train;" with a curl of the lip.

Miss McLeod was going back to Narragansett the next morning. They discussed their last item of agreement; and Jack said, with modest decision, "that such real estate could not possibly pay more than three per cent to any owner in the course of the next few years. He would rather offer her that, and a share contingent on the amount of business done at the end of five years, than assume any greater risk just now."

"Thank you for your honesty and your good sense," she replied. "If you had offered higher, I should have had some doubts of your financial clear-headedness. It will be an equitable bargain. And will you be kind enough to make some arrangements for me in Yerbury? I shall come on the 18th, with a companion and a maid; and Mr. Hildreth will follow the next morning. Get your plans in shape by that time. I am glad to have met you, Mr. Darcy, and I wish you success in your undertaking."

They shook hands cordially, and went their ways. Jack could hardly believe his good fortune, and now he was afraid some other parties might step in and take the mills.

"Much likelihood," laughed Maverick.

Jack took Cameron in hand first, as he had been the real suggester of the plan. He, Darcy, could use his ten thousand; and, if ten more could be subscribed, they would not need to hire outside. As time went on, this capital might be equalized and increased. Hurd offered two thousand and himself; and just then one of the old hands who had succeeded in getting rid of a good bit of property that had weighted him heavily, and picked up a little money here and there, subscribed five thousand. Yardley had none of his own, but persuaded his wife's sister to invest a thousand. The other, Miss Barry offered, if no workman came to hand. Winston was a handy Jack-of-all-trades. He could repair machinery, or do any kind of wood-work: he had sold cloth on commission, bartered and traded, and had a good deal of shrewdness and good sense, and pluck. He and Darcy would do the buying and selling; Cameron would take charge of supplies, deal them out, and see that nothing went to waste; Hurd and Yardley would be overlookers as before. Every man could weave his yard of cloth with the best. They would constitute the managing force.

The days passed rapidly; and to Jack's great satisfaction no purchaser appeared, no curious soul even sauntered about the mills. Miss McLeod came at the appointed time, accompanied by Miss Lothrop, who was as distant to Maverick as if this were their first meeting. The ladies were to stay with Mrs. Darcy, and the best in the house was placed at their disposal with simple courtesy. They were taken to the mills, where they made a tour of inspection; Jack explaining machinery, looms, shuttles, and spindles, with an enthusiasm that amazed even himself. There was a new interest in the thought of having a voice in the direction of that great engine now so silent, and the work it was to do.

"We shall not use half our looms in the beginning," he said; "but I hope, before the five years are ended, we shall be doing our utmost."

They all hoped so for his sake. "If any man can make the plan work, he will," thought Miss McLeod, who liked him better every hour.

Miss Barry and Sylvie came to call on the ladies in the evening.

"I suppose that is Mr. Darcy's sweetheart," Miss Lothrop remarked afterward. "She is a pretty, enthusiastic little thing, and she takes so much interest in his affairs. I can just fancy how they will work together, and the earnest, useful lives they will lead. What butterflies we are!" looking down at her white helpless hands. "Not you, but the young women of the day in general. You are a busy bee, and still keep storing up your honey."

"And sting occasionally," laughed the sharp, bright old lady.

The sale took place the next morning at ten, at the Court House. There was quite a number of spectators, though the ladies, with Maverick and Darcy, were in a private office. Hamilton Minor had come up, resolved that it should not go for less than the mortgage, but desirous of ending his responsibility. There were but two bids. The auctioneer lingered a long while on Mr. Hildreth's bid, commenting on the enormous sacrifice, but he could move no one's interest. It was reluctantly knocked down, the purchase-money paid, and the deed made out to Miss McLeod.

Then the company's agreement was put in lawful, legal shape. The managing board of five men were to have sole charge of buying, selling, and manufacturing. They were to give all their time and ability, to watch the state of the market, and conduct every thing for the benefit of the whole corporation. Darcy was to prepare a balance-sheet semi-annually, showing profit and loss; and this was to be open to the inspection of the firm.

The parties to the second part, the workmen, were to work ten hours a day, six days in the week, under the supervision of Hurd and Yardley. The wages of the men and the salaries of the managers were to be put at the minimum rate, and both parties were to draw two-thirds of this sum weekly. At the end of the year, the profits on labor and capital were to be evenly divided; one half apportioned to the capital, the other half divided pro rata; but only half of this sum to be drawn out yearly, the other turned over to the capital stock, and placed to each man's credit. If any operative should become dissatisfied, and leave, his share of the profits was to be forfeited to a fund for sick or disabled workmen. Any member of the association guilty of misconduct was to be twice reprimanded, and for a third offence expelled. A standing committee of the workmen, with one chairman, was to investigate and settle such matters. Shares of capital as low as fifty dollars would be within reach of the workmen. A clause was inserted, that no ale, beer, or spirituous liquors were to be brought into the mill during working hours. It had been one of the old-time rules, but often transgressed. Each man was to use his best endeavors to promote the interests of the firm.