Carmen Ariza Part 181

"This morning," she finished, "s.h.i.+elded by the One who is both Father and Mother to me."

"That One surely ought to love you, Carmen--"

"He does," she answered softly.

"Well!" put in Haynerd, torn with anger and fear. "What are we going to do now?"

"Everything, Ned, that error seems to tell us not to do," replied the girl.

She reached over to the little table that stood near, and took from it a Bible. Opening it, she read aloud, very slowly, the entire fourteenth chapter of Exodus. Then she concluded by reading the last two verses of the eighth chapter of Romans.

"Now," she said, looking up, "we know what we are going to do, don't we? We are going right on, as 'seeing Him who is invisible' to men like Mr. Ames."

They sat looking at her in silence.

"There is no curse, whether of the Church, or of business, or of any department of human thought, that can overthrow legitimate business; and we are in the legitimate business of reflecting G.o.d to the world.

If the physical sense of supply is now lost, we are fortunate, for now we are obliged to acquire a higher sense. All that we have comes from G.o.d. And we become aware of it in our own consciousness. It is there that we interpret His supply. Mr. Ames interprets it one way; we, in a very different way. G.o.d has always been able to prepare a table in the wilderness of human thought. If we look for supply from without, we shall not find it, for everything is within. And the very fact that there is a legitimate demand shows that there is the supply to meet it, for--though the world hasn't learned this yet--_it is the supply itself that really creates the demand_!"

"But money makes the wheels go!" retorted Haynerd.

"Money, Ned, is the counterfeit of G.o.d. He is our only supply. He is our Principle--infinite, inexhaustible. He is our credit--without limit! We are facing a crisis, but, like every seeming disturbance of the infinite harmony, it will vanish in a little while if we but cling to the divine Mind that is G.o.d for guidance."

Hitt folded the telegram and returned it to his pocket. "Are you going to Avon to-morrow?" he abruptly asked of the girl.

"Yes, why not?"

"We can't afford it now!" cried Haynerd.

Hitt reflected a moment. Then he rose. "And we sit here lamenting!" he exclaimed. "And when we have in our midst this girl, who has borne, without one word of complaint or reviling, the world's most poignant sorrows! I--I really regret that I told you of--of this telegram. I seemed for a moment to be overwhelmed. But I am on my feet again now!"

He reached into a pocket and took out some bills, which he handed to Carmen. "That will see you through for a day or so down there. If you need more, wire me. I'll get it from some source! Come," he added, beckoning to Haynerd, "the Express will be issued to-morrow as usual, and we must get to bed. I've really had quite a strenuous day!" He turned, then paused and looked at Carmen.

The girl caught the meaning in his glance, and went directly to the piano. Hitt followed and bent over her.

"Don't," he said, "if you do not feel like it. This day has been a hard one for you, I know. And--"

"But I do feel like it," she answered, smiling up at him. "I want to sing for you. And," her voice dropped low, "I want to sing to--Him."

Hitt gulped down something in his throat. "The bravest little girl in the whole wide world!" he muttered through his set teeth.

The carnage at Avon was not incidental; it was the logical effect of definite mental causes. It was the orderly sequence of an endless train of hatred of man for man, bred of greed and the fear of starvation. And starvation is the externalized human belief that life is at the caprice of intelligent matter. But that is an infraction of the first Commandment, given when the human race was a babe.

When the mill hands left their looms at evening of the day following Ames's rejection of their demands, the master closed the doors behind them and locked them out. Were not these mills his?

No, they were a sacred trust a.s.set.

Bah! The parrot-cry of the maudlin sentimental!

But, four thousand men, women, and little children, with never a dollar beyond their earnings of the day, thrust out into the blasts of the bitterest winter the New England states had known in years!

True; but why, then, did they strike? For, you see, that of itself proved the soundness of Ames's single reply to all further appeal: "There is nothing whatever to arbitrate."

In the garden of the human mind waves many a flower, both black and red, fanned by the foul winds of carnal thought. There grow the brothel, the dive, the gin-shop, the jail. About these hardier stems twine the hospital, the cemetery, the madhouse, the morgue. And Satan, "the man-killer from the beginning," waters their roots and makes fallow the soil with the blood of fools. But of those for whom the gardener waits, there is none whose blood is so life-giving to these noxious plants as that type of the materially rich who, like Ames, have waxed gross upon the flesh of their own brothers.

Ames was a gambler in human lives. They were his chips, by which he gained or lost, and of themselves were void of intrinsic value. The world was the table whereon he played; the game _rouge et noir_, with the whirl of predatory commercialism as the wheel, and the ball weighted to drop where he might direct. He carried millions on margin, and with them carried the destinies, for weal or for woe, of millions of his fellow-men, with not one thought that he did so at the cost of their honor and morality, not less than their life-blood.

It had been his custom to close his mills for several months each year, in order to save expense when times were dull. And he did this as casually as he closed the doors of his stables, and with much less thought for the welfare of those concerned. It is doubtful if he had ever really considered the fact that these four thousand human beings were wholly dependent upon him for their very existence. For he was a business man, and gold was far weightier in the scale of values than human flesh, and much less easily obtained. Cain's comforting philosophy was quite correct, else would the business world not have been so firmly established upon it. Besides, he was terribly busy; and his life was lived upon a plane high, high above that upon which these swarming toilers groveled with their snouts in the dust.

And now, with the doors of his mills barred against the hungry hordes, he would frame the terms upon which they should be reopened. The eight-hour law must not be enforced. Perhaps he could influence the Supreme Court to declare it unconst.i.tutional, as depriving the mill hands of the right to labor as long as they pleased. Wages should not be raised. And the right to organize and band together for their common good would be contemptuously denied the ignorant rats who should be permitted to toil for him once more. If they offered violence, there was the state militia, armed and impatient to slay.

Also, this was an excellent opportunity to stamp out trade-unionism within the confines of his activities. He would win the plaudits of the whole industrial world by so doing. He therefore immediately got in touch with the Governor, a Tammany puppet, and received that loyal henchman's warm a.s.surances of hearty support for any measures which the great magnate might wish to enforce. He then approached the officers of the state guard, and secured them to a man. Times were hard, and they welcomed his favor. He finally posted armed guards in all his buildings at Avon, and bade them remember that property rights were of divine inst.i.tution. Then he sat down and dictated the general policy to be followed by the Amalgamated Spinners' a.s.sociation throughout the country in support of his own selfish ends.

His activity in these preparations, as in everything, was tremendous.

His agents swarmed over the state like ants. The Catholic Archbishop was instructed that he must remove Father Danny from Avon, as his influence was pernicious. But the objection was made that the priest was engaged only in humanitarian labors. It availed not; Ames desired the man's removal. And removed he was. The widow Marcus likewise had been doing much talking. Ames's lawyer, Collins, had her haled into court and thoroughly reprimanded. And then, that matters might be precipitated, and Congress duly impressed with the necessity of altering the cotton schedule in favor of the Spinners' a.s.sociation, Ames ordered his agents to raise the rents of his miserable Avon tenements. There were few, he knew, who dared even attempt to meet the raise; and those who could not, he ordered set into the streets.

It was a wild winter's day that the magnate chose for the enforcement of this cruel order. A driving blizzard had raged throughout the night, and the snow had banked up in drifts in places many feet deep.

The temperature was freezing, and the strong east wind cut like a knife. It was Ames's desire to teach these sc.u.m a needed lesson, and he had chosen to enlist the elements to aid him in the righteous task.

For a week, ever since the strike was declared, Carmen had lived among these hectored people. Daily her reports of the unbearable situation had gone to Hitt. And through them the editor had daily striven to awaken a nation's conscience. Ames read the articles, and through the columns of the Budget sought to modify them to the extent of s.h.i.+fting the responsibility to the shoulders of the mill hands themselves, and to a dilatory Congress that was criminally negligent in so framing a cotton tariff as to make such industrial suffering possible. Nor did he omit to foully vilify the Express and calumniate its personnel.

Amid curses, screams, and despairing wails, the satanic work of ejecting the tenement dwellers went on that day. Ames's hirelings, with loaded rifles, a.s.sisted the constables and city police in the miserable work, themselves cursing often because of the keen blasts that nipped their ears and numbed their well-cased limbs. More than one tiny, wailing babe was frozen at the breast that dull, drab afternoon, when the sun hung like a ghastly clot of human blood just above the horizon, and its weird, yellow light flitted through the snow-laden streets like gaunt spectres of death. More than one aged, toil-spent laborer, broken at the loom in the service of his insatiable master, fell p.r.o.ne in the drifts and lay there till his thin life-current froze and his tired heart stopped. More than one frenzied, despairing father, forgetful for the moment of the divine right of property, rushed at a guard and madly strove with him, only to be clubbed into complaisance, or, perchance, be left in a welter of crimson on the drifting snow. Carmen saw it all. She had been to see Pillette that same morning, and had been laughed from his presence.

She did not understand, she was told, what miserable creatures these were that dared ask for bread and human rights. Wait; they themselves would show their true colors.

And so they did. And the color was red. And it spurted like fountains from their veins. And they saw it with dimming eyes, and were glad, for it brought sweet oblivion. That night there were great fires built along the frozen creek. Shacks and tents were hastily reared; and the s.h.i.+vering, trembling women and babes given a desperate shelter. Then the men, sullen and grim, drew off into little groups, and into the saloons and gambling halls of the town. And when the blizzard was spent, and the cold stars were dropping their frozen light, these dull-witted things began to move, slowly at first, circling about like a great forming nebula, but gaining momentum and power with each revolution. More than a thousand strong, they circled out into the frozen streets of the little town, and up along the main thoroughfare. Their dull murmurs slowly gained volume. Their low curses welled into a roar. And then, like the sudden bursting of pent-up lava, they swept madly through the town, carrying everything to destruction before them.

Stores, shops, the bank itself, burst open before this wave of maddened humanity. Guns and pistols were thrown from laden shelves to the cursing, sweating mob below. Axes and knives were gathered by armfuls, and borne out into the streets to the whirling ma.s.s. Great barrels of liquor were rolled into the gutters and burst asunder.

Bread and meat were dragged from the shops and savagely devoured. The police gathered and planted themselves with spitting pistols before the human surge. They went down like gra.s.s under stampeded cattle.

Frightened clerks and operators rushed to the wires and sent wild, incoherent appeals for help to New York. Pandemonium had the reins, the carnal mind was unleashed.

On rolled the mob, straight on to the ma.s.sive stone house of Pillette, the resident manager of the great Ames mills. On over the high iron fence, like hungry dock rats. On through the battered gate. On up the broad drive, shouting, shooting, moaning, raving. On over the veranda, and in through broken windows and shattered doors, swarming like flies over reeking carrion, until the flames which burst through the peaked roof of the mansion drove them forth, and made them draw sullenly, protestingly away, leaving the tattered bodies of Pillette and his wife and daughters to be consumed in the roaring furnace.

Oh, ye workers, ye toilers at loom and forge, it is indeed you who bear the world's burdens! It is you who create the rich man's wealth, and fight his battles. So ye fought in the great war between North and South, and protected the rich man at home, hovering in fright over his money bags. It is you who put into his hands the bayonet which he turns against you to guard his wealth and maintain his iniquitous privilege. It is indeed in your hands that the destinies of this great nation lie; but what will ye do with your marvelous opportunity?

What, with your stupendous, untried strength? Will ye once more set up the golden calf, and prostrate yourselves before it? Will ye again enthrone ecclesiastical despotism, and grovel before image of Virgin and Saint? Will ye raise high the powers of mediaeval darkness, and bend your necks anew to the yoke of ignorance and stagnation? But think you now that flames and dynamite will break your present bonds?

Aye, America may be made a land without a pauper, without a millionaire, without industrial strife. But fire and sword will not effect the transformation. Yes, perhaps, as has been said, our "comfortable social system and its authority will some day be blown to atoms." But shall we then be better off than we are to-day? For shall we know then how to use our precious liberty?

Blood-drunk and reeling, the mob turned from the flaming wreckage and flowed down toward the mills. There were some among them, saner, and prescient of the dire consequences of their awful work, who counseled restraint. But they were as chips in a torrent. Down into the creek bottom rolled the seething tide, with a momentum that carried it up the far side and cras.h.i.+ng into the heavily barred oak doors of the great mills. A crus.h.i.+ng hail of bullets fell upon them, and their leaders went down; but the ma.s.s wavered not. Those within the buildings knew that they would become carrion in the maws of the ravening wolves outside, and fought with a courage fed with desperation.

In the solemn hush of death Socrates said, "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways, I to die and you to live. Which is better, G.o.d only knows." And mankind through the ages in their last hours have echoed this sentiment of the gentle philosopher. For all human philosophy leads to a single end--resignation.

But hunger transforms resignation into madness. And madness is murder.

The frenzied hordes swarming about the Ames mills knew in their heart of hearts that death was preferable to life in death under the goad of human exploitation. But such knowledge came only in rational moments.

Now they were crazed and beyond reason.

In the distance, across the swale, the sky glowed red where the souls of the agent of predatory wealth and his family had gone out in withering heat. In the stricken town, men huddled their trembling loved ones about them and stood with loaded muskets. Somewhere on the steel bands that linked this scene of carnage with the great metropolis beyond, a train plunged and roared, leaping over the quivering rails at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, bringing eager militiamen and their deadly instruments of civilization. For the Ames mills were private property. And that was a divine inst.i.tution.

In his luxurious office in the tower of the Ames building the master sat that black night, surrounded by his laboring cohorts. Though they strained under the excitement of the hour, Ames himself remained calm and determined. He was in constant communication with the Governor at Albany, and with the munic.i.p.al officers of both New York and Avon. He had received the tidings of the destruction of the Pillette family with a grim smile. But the smile had crystallized into an expression of black, malignant hatred when he demanded of the Governor that the New York contingent of the state guard be sent at once to protect his property, and specified that the bullets used should be of the "dum-dum" variety. For they added to the horrors of death. Such bullets had been prohibited by the rules of modern warfare, it was true. But this was a cla.s.s war. And Ames, foreseeing it all, had purchased a hundred thousand rounds of these h.e.l.lish things for the militia to exchange for those which the Government furnished. And then, as an additional measure of precaution, he had sent Hood and Collins into the United States District Court and persuaded the sitting judge to issue an injunction, enjoining any possible relief committees from furnis.h.i.+ng food and shelter to such as might enter the industrial conflict being waged against him.