第98章
They appeared a very bedlam of chaos,instead of the triumph of order,organization and human skill.Mr.Scherer was very proud of it all,and ours was a sort of triumphal procession,accompanied by superintendents,managers and other factotums.I thought of my childhood image of Shadrach,Meshach and Abednego,and our progress through the flames seemed no less remarkable and miraculous.
Maude,with alarm in her eyes,kept very close to me,as I supplemented the explanations they gave her.I had been there many times before.
"Why,Hugh,"she exclaimed,"you seem to know a lot about it!"Mr.Scherer laughed.
"He's had to talk about it once or twice in court--eh,Hugh?You didn't realize how clever your husband was did you,Mrs.Paret?""But this is so --complicated,"she replied."It is overwhelming.""When I found out how much trouble he had taken to learn about my business,"added Mr.Scherer,"there was only one thing to do.Make him my lawyer.Hugh,you have the floor,and explain the open-hearth process."I had almost forgotten the Huns.I saw Maude gazing at them with a new kind of terror.And when we sat at home that evening they still haunted her.
"Somehow,I can't bear to think about them,"she said."I'm sure we'll have to pay for it,some day.""Pay for what?"I asked.
"For making them work that way.And twelve hours!It can't be right,while we have so much,and are so comfortable.""Don't be foolish,"I exclaimed."They're used to it.They think themselves lucky to get the work--and they are.Besides,you give them credit for a sensitiveness that they don't possess.They wouldn't know what to do with such a house as this if they had it.""I never realized before that our happiness and comfort were built on such foundations;"she said,ignoring my remark.
"You must have seen your father's operatives,in Elkington,many times a week.""I suppose I was too young to think about such things,"she reflected.
"Besides,I used to be sorry for them,sometimes.But these men at the steel mills--I can't tell you what I feel about them.The sight of their great bodies and their red,sullen faces brought home to me the cruelty of life.Did you notice how some of them stared at us,as though they were but half awake in the heat,with that glow on their faces?It made me afraid--afraid that they'll wake up some day,and then they will be terrible.I thought of the children.It seems not only wicked,but mad to bring ignorant foreigners over here and make them slaves like that,and so many of them are hurt and maimed.I can't forget them.""You're talking Socialism,"I said crossly,wondering whether Lucia had taken it up as her latest fad.
"Oh,no,I'm not,"said Maude,"I don't know what Socialism is.I'm talking about something that anyone who is not dazzled by all this luxury we are living in might be able to see,about something which,when it comes,we shan't be able to help."I ridiculed this.The prophecy itself did not disturb me half as much as the fact that she had made it,as this new evidence that she was beginning to think for herself,and along lines so different from my own development.
While it lasted,before novelists,playwrights,professors and ministers of the Gospel abandoned their proper sphere to destroy it,that Golden Age was heaven;the New Jerusalem--in which we had ceased to believe--would have been in the nature of an anticlimax to any of our archangels of finance who might have attained it.The streets of our own city turned out to be gold;gold likewise the acres of unused,scrubby land on our outskirts,as the incident of the Riverside Franchise--which I am about to relate--amply proved.
That scheme originated in the alert mind of Mr.Frederick Grierson,and in spite of the fact that it has since become notorious in the eyes of a virtue-stricken public,it was entered into with all innocence at the time:most of the men who were present at the "magnate's"table at the Boyne Club the day Mr.Grierson broached it will vouch for this.He casually asked Mr.Dickinson if he had ever noticed a tract lying on the river about two miles beyond the Heights,opposite what used to be in the old days a road house.
"This city is growing so fast,Leonard,"said Grierson,lighting a special cigar the Club kept for him,"that it might pay a few of us to get together and buy that tract,have the city put in streets and sewers and sell it in building lots.I think I can get most of it at less than three hundred dollars an acre."Mr.Dickinson was interested.So were Mr.Ogilvy and Ralph Hambleton,and Mr.Scherer,who chanced to be there.Anything Fred Grierson had to say on the question of real estate was always interesting.He went on to describe the tract,its size and location.
"That's all very well,Fred,"Dickinson objected presently,"but how are your prospective householders going to get out there?""Just what I was coming to,"cried Grierson,triumphantly,"we'll get a franchise,and build a street-railroad out Maplewood Avenue,an extension of the Park Street line.We can get the franchise for next to nothing,if we work it right."(Mr.Grierson's eye fell on me),"and sell it out to the public,if you underwrite it,for two million or so.""Well,you've got your nerve with you,Fred,as usual,"said Dickinson.
But he rolled his cigar in his mouth,an indication,to those who knew him well,that he was considering the matter.When Leonard Dickinson didn't say "no"at once,there was hope."What do you think the property holders on Maplewood Avenue would say?Wasn't it understood,when that avenue was laid out,that it was to form part of the system of boulevards?""What difference does it make what they say?"Ralph interposed.
Dickinson smiled.He,too,had an exaggerated respect for Ralph.We all thought the proposal daring,but in no way amazing;the public existed to be sold things to,and what did it matter if the Maplewood residents,as Ralph said;and the City Improvement League protested?