Poor White: A Novel Page 7

  CHAPTER VII

  Modern men and women who live in industrial cities are like mice thathave come out of the fields to live in houses that do not belong tothem. They live within the dark walls of the houses where only a dimlight penetrates, and so many have come that they grow thin and haggardwith the constant toil of getting food and warmth. Behind the wallsthe mice scamper about in droves, and there is much squealing andchattering. Now and then a bold mouse stands upon his hind legs andaddresses the others. He declares he will force his way through thewalls and conquer the gods who have built the house. "I will kill them,"he declares. "The mice shall rule. You shall live in the light and thewarmth. There shall be food for all and no one shall go hungry."

  The little mice, gathered in the darkness out of sight in the greathouses, squeal with delight. After a time when nothing happens theybecome sad and depressed. Their minds go back to the time when theylived in the fields, but they do not go out of the walls of the houses,because long living in droves has made them afraid of the silence oflong nights and the emptiness of skies. In the houses giant children arebeing reared. When the children fight and scream in the houses and inthe streets, the dark spaces between the walls rumble with strange andappalling noises.

  The mice are terribly afraid. Now and then a single mouse for a momentescapes the general fear. A mood comes over such a one and a lightcomes into his eyes. When the noises run through the houses he makes upstories about them. "The horses of the sun are hauling wagon loads ofdays over the tops of trees," he says and looks quickly about to see ifhe has been heard. When he discovers a female mouse looking at him heruns away with a flip of his tail and the female follows. While othermice are repeating his saying and getting some little comfort from it,he and the female mouse find a warm dark corner and lie close together.It is because of them that mice continue to be born to dwell within thewalls of the houses.

  When the first small model of Hugh McVey's plant-setting machine hadbeen whittled out by the half-wit Allie Mulberry, it replaced the famousship, floating in the bottle, that for two or three years had been lyingin the window of Hunter's jewelry store. Allie was inordinately proud ofthe new specimen of his handiwork. As he worked under Hugh's directionsat a bench in a corner of the deserted pickle factory, he was like astrange dog that has at last found a master. He paid no attentionto Steve Hunter who, with the air of one bearing in his breast somegigantic secret, came in and went out at the door twenty times a day,but kept his eyes on the silent Hugh who sat at a desk and made drawingson sheets of paper. Allie tried valiantly to follow the instructionsgiven him and to understand what his master was trying to do, and Hugh,finding himself unembarrassed by the presence of the half-wit, sometimesspent hours trying to explain the workings of some intricate part ofthe proposed machine. Hugh made each part crudely out of great pieces ofboard and Allie reproduced the part in miniature. Intelligence began tocome into the eyes of the man who all his life had whittled meaninglesswooden chains, baskets formed out of peach stones, and ships intendedto float in bottles. Love and understanding began a little to do for himwhat words could not have done. One day when a part Hugh had fashionedwould not work the half-wit himself made the model of a part that workedperfectly. When Hugh incorporated it in the machine, he was so happythat he could not sit still, and walked up and down cooing with delight.

  When the model of the machine appeared in the jeweler's window, a feverof excitement took hold of the minds of the people. Every one declaredhimself either for or against it. Something like a revolution tookplace. Parties were formed. Men who had no interest in the success ofthe invention, and in the nature of things could not have, were readyto fight any one who dared to doubt its success. Among the farmers whodrove into town to see the new wonder were many who said the machinewould not, could not, work. "It isn't practical," they said. Going offby themselves and forming groups, they whispered warnings. A hundredobjections sprang to their lips. "See all the little wheels and cogs thething has," they said. "You see it won't work. You take now in a fieldwhere there are stones and old tree roots, maybe, sticking in theground. There you'll see. Fools'll buy the machine, yes. They'll spendtheir money. They'll put in plants. The plants'll die. The money'll bewasted. There'll be no crop." Old men, who had been cabbage farmers inthe country north of Bidwell all their lives, and whose bodies were alltwisted out of shape by the terrible labor of the cabbage fields,came hobbling into town to look at the model of the new machine. Theiropinions were anxiously sought by the merchant, the carpenter, theartisan, the doctor--by all the townspeople. Almost without exception,they shook their heads in doubt. Standing on the sidewalk before thejeweler's window, they stared at the machine and then, turning to thecrowd that had gathered about, they shook their heads in doubt. "Huh,"they exclaimed, "a thing of wheels and cogs, eh? Well, so young Hunterexpects that thing to take the place of a man. He's a fool. I alwayssaid that boy was a fool." The merchants and townspeople, their ardora little dampened by the adverse decision of the men who knewplant-setting, went off by themselves. They went into Birdie Spinks'drugstore, but did not listen to the talk of Judge Hanby. "If themachine works, the town'll wake up," some one declared. "It meansfactories, new people coming in, houses to be built, goods to bebought." Visions of suddenly acquired wealth began to float in theirminds. Young Ed Hall, apprentice to Ben Peeler the carpenter, grewangry. "Hell," he exclaimed, "why listen to a lot of damned old calamityhowlers? It's the town's duty to get out and plug for that machine. Wegot to wake up here. We got to forget what we used to think about SteveHunter. Anyway, he saw a chance, didn't he? and he took it. I wish I washim. I only wish I was him. And what about that fellow we thought wasmaybe just a telegraph operator? He fooled us all slick, now didn't he?I tell you we ought to be proud to have such men as him and Steve Hunterliving in Bidwell. That's what I say. I tell you it's the town's dutyto get out and plug for them and for that machine. If we don't, I knowwhat'll happen. Steve Hunter's a live one. I been thinking maybe he was.He'll take that invention and that inventor of his to some other town orto a city. That's what he'll do. Damn it, I tell you we got to get outand back them fellows up. That's what I say."

  On the whole the town of Bidwell agreed with young Hall. The excitementdid not die, but grew every day more intense. Steve Hunter had acarpenter come to his father's store and build in the show window facingMain Street, a long shallow box formed in the shape of a field. This hefilled with pulverized earth and then by an arrangement of strings andpulleys connected with a clockwork device the machine was pulled acrossthe field. In a receptacle at the top of the machine had been placedsome dozens of tiny plants no larger than pins. When the clockworkwas started and the strings pulled to imitate applied horse power, themachine crept slowly forward, an arm came down and made a hole in theground, the plant dropped into the hole and spoon-like hands appearedand packed the earth about the plant roots. At the top of the machinethere was a tank filled with water, and when the plant was set, aportion of water, nicely calculated as to quantity, ran down a pipe andwas deposited at the plant roots.

  Evening after evening the machine crawled forward across the tiny field,setting the plants in perfect order. Steve Hunter busied himself withit; he did nothing else; and rumors of a great company to be formed inBidwell to manufacture the device were whispered about. Every eveninga new tale was told. Steve went to Cleveland for a day and it was saidthat Bidwell was to lose its chance, that big moneyed men had inducedSteve to take his factory project to the city. Hearing Ed Hall beratea farmer who doubted the practicability of the machine, Steve took himaside and talked to him. "We're going to need live young men who knowhow to handle other men for jobs as superintendent and things likethat," he said. "I make no promises. I only want to tell you that I likelive young fellows who can see the hole in a bushel basket. I like thatkind. I like to see them get up in the world."

  Steve heard the farmers continually expressing their skepticism aboutmaking the plants that had been set by the machine grow into maturity
,and had the carpenter build another tiny field in a side window of thestore. He had the machine moved and plants set in the new field. Helet these grow. When some of the plants showed signs of dying he camesecretly at night and replaced them with sturdier shoots so that theminiature field showed always a brave, vigorous front to the world.

  Bidwell became convinced that the most rigorous of all forms of humanlabor practiced by its people was at an end. Steve made and had hung inthe store window a large sheet showing the relative cost of planting anacre of cabbage with the machine, and by what was already called "theold way," by hand. Then he formally announced that a stock company wouldbe formed in Bidwell and that every one would have a chance to get intoit. He printed an article in the weekly paper in which he said that manyoffers had come to him to take his project to the city or to other andlarger towns. "Mr. McVey, the celebrated inventor, and I both want tostick to our own people," he said, regardless of the fact that Hugh knewnothing of the article and had never been taken into the lives of thepeople addressed. A day was set for the beginning of the taking of stocksubscriptions, and in private conversations Steve whispered of hugeprofits to be made. The matter was talked over in every household andplans were made for raising money to buy stock. John Clark agreed tolend a certain percentage on the value of the town property and Stevesecured a long-time option on all the land facing Turner's Pike cleardown to Pickleville. When the town heard of this it was filled withwonder. "Gee," the loiterers before the store exclaimed, "old Bidwellis going to grow up. Now look at that, will you? There are going to behouses clear down to Pickleville." Hugh went to Cleveland to see abouthaving one of his new machines made in steel and wood and in a size thatwould permit its actual use in the field. He returned, a hero in thetown's eyes. His silence made it possible for the people, who could notentirely forget their former lack of faith in Steve, to let their mindstake hold of something they thought was truly heroic.

  In the evening, after going again to see the machine in the windowof the jewelry store, crowds of young and old men wandered down alongTurner's Pike to the Wheeling Station where a new man had come toreplace Hugh. They hardly saw the evening train when it came in. Likedevotees before a shrine they gazed with something like worship in theireyes at the old pickle factory, and when by chance Hugh came among them,unconscious of the sensation he was creating, they became embarrassedas he was always embarrassed by their presence. Every one dreamed ofbecoming suddenly rich by the power of the man's mind. They thought ofhim as thinking always great thoughts. To be sure, Steve Hunter might bemore than half bluff and blow and pretense, but there was no bluff andblow about Hugh. He didn't waste his time in words. He thought, and outof his thought sprang almost unbelievable wonders.

  In every part of the town of Bidwell, the new impulse toward progresswas felt. Old men, who had become settled in their ways and who hadbegun to pass their days in a sort of sleepy submission to the idea ofthe gradual passing away of their lives, awoke and went into Main Streetin the evening to argue with skeptical farmers. Beside Ed Hall, who hadbecome a Demosthenes on the subject of progress and the duty of the townto awake and stick to Steve Hunter and the machine, a dozen other menheld forth on the street corners. Oratorical ability awoke in the mostunexpected places. Rumors flew from lip to lip. It was said that withina year Bidwell was to have a brick factory covering acres of ground,that there would be paved streets and electric lights.

  Oddly enough the most persistent decrier of the new spirit in Bidwellwas the man who, if the machine turned out to be a success, would profitmost from its use. Ezra French, the profane, refused to be convinced.When pressed by Ed Hall, Dr. Robinson, and other enthusiasts, he fellback upon the word of that God whose name had been so much upon hislips. The decrier of God became the defender of God. "The thing, yousee, can't be done. It ain't all right. Something awful'll happen. Therains won't come and the plants'll dry up and die. It'll be like itwas in Egypt in the Bible times," he declared. The old farmer with thetwisted leg stood before the crowd in the drug-store and proclaimed thetruth of God's word. "Don't it say in the Bible men shall work and laborby the sweat of their brows?" he asked sharply. "Can a machine like thatsweat? You know it can't. And it can't do the work either. No, siree.Men've got to do it. That's the way things have been since Cain killedAbel in the Garden of Eden. God intended it so and there can't notelegraph operator or no smart young squirt like Steve Hunter--fellowsin a town like this--set themselves up before me to change the workingsof God's laws. It can't be done, and if it could be done it would bewicked and ungodly to try. I'll have nothing to do with it. It ain'tright. That's what I say and all your smart talk ain't a-going to changeme."

  It was in the year 1892 that Steve Hunter organized the first industrialenterprise that came to Bidwell. It was called the Bidwell Plant-SettingMachine Company, and in the end it turned out to be a failure. A largefactory was built on the river bank facing the New York Central tracks.It is now occupied by an enterprise called the Hunter Bicycle Companyand is what in industrial parlance is called a live, going concern.

  For two years Hugh worked faithfully trying to perfect the first of hisinventions. After the working models of the plant-setter were broughtfrom Cleveland, two trained mechanics were employed to come to Bidwelland work with him. In the old pickle factory an engine was installedand lathes and other tool-making machines were set up. For a long timeSteve, John Clark, Tom Butterworth, and the other enthusiastic promotersof the enterprise had no doubt as to the final outcome. Hugh wanted toperfect the machine, had his heart set on doing the job he had set outto do, but he had then and, for that matter, he continued during hiswhole life to have but little conception of the import in the lives ofthe people about him of the things he did. Day after day, with twocity mechanics and Allie Mulberry to drive the team of horses Steve hadprovided, he went into a rented field north of the factory. Weak placesdeveloped in the complicated mechanism, and new and stronger partswere made. For a time the machine worked perfectly. Then other defectsappeared and other parts had to be strengthened and changed. The machinebecame too heavy to be handled by one team. It would not work when thesoil was either too wet or too dry. It worked perfectly in both wet anddry sand but would do nothing in clay. During the second year andwhen the factory was nearing completion and much machinery had beeninstalled, Hugh went to Steve and told him of what he thought were thelimitations of the machine. He was depressed by his failure, but inworking with the machine, he felt he had succeeded in educating himselfas he never could have done by studying books. Steve decided that thefactory should be started and some of the machines made and sold. "Youkeep the two men you have and don't talk," he said. "The machine may yetturn out to be better than you think. One can never tell. I have made itworth their while to keep still." On the afternoon of the day on whichhe had his talk with Hugh, Steve called the four men who were associatedwith him in the promotion of the enterprise into the back room of thebank and told them of the situation. "We're up against somethinghere," he said. "If we let word of the failure of this machine get out,where'll we be? It is a case of the survival of the fittest."

  Steve explained his plan to the men in the room. After all, he said,there was no occasion for any of them to get excited. He had taken theminto the thing and he proposed to get them out. "I'm that kind of aman," he said pompously. In a way, he declared, he was glad things hadturned out as they had. The four men had little actual money invested.They had all tried honestly to do something for the town and he wouldsee to it that everything came out all right. "We'll be honest withevery one," he said. "The stock in the company has all been sold. We'llmake some of the machines and sell them. If they're failures, as thisinventor thinks, it will not be our fault. The plant, you see, willhave to be sold cheap. When that times comes we five will have to saveourselves and the future of the town. The machinery we have bought, is,you see, iron and wood working machinery, the very latest kind. It canbe used to make some other thing. If the plant-setting machine is afailure we'll si
mply buy up the plant at a low price and make somethingelse. Perhaps it'll be better for the town to have the entire stockcontrol in our hands. You see we few men have got to run things here.It's going to be on our shoulders to see that labor is employed. A lotof small stock-holders are a nuisance. As man to man I'm going to askeach of you not to sell his stock, but if any one comes to you and asksabout its value, I expect you to be loyal to our enterprise. I'll beginlooking about for something to replace the plant-setting machine, andwhen the shop closes we'll start right up again. It isn't every day menget a chance to sell themselves a fine plant full of new machinery as wecan do in a year or so now."

  Steve went out of the bank and left the four men staring at each other.Then his father got up and went out. The other men, all connected withthe bank, arose and wandered out. "Well," said John Clark, somewhatheavily, "he's a smart man. I suppose after all it is up to us to stickwith him and with the town. As he says, labor has got to be employed. Ican't see that it does a carpenter or a farmer any good to own a littlestock in a factory. It only takes their minds off their work. They havefoolish dreams of getting rich and don't attend to their own affairs. Itwould be an actual benefit to the town if a few men owned the factory."The banker lighted a cigar and going to a window stared out into themain street of Bidwell. Already the town had changed. Three new brickbuildings were being erected on Main Street within sight of the bankwindow. Workmen employed in the building of the factory had come to townto live, and many new houses were being built. Everywhere things wereastir. The stock of the company had been oversubscribed, and almostevery day men came into the bank and spoke of wanting to buy more.Only the day before a farmer had come in with two thousand dollars. Thebanker's mind began to secrete the poison of his age. "After all, it'smen like Steve Hunter, Tom Butterworth, Gordon Hart, and myself thathave to take care of things, and to be in shape to do it we have to lookout for ourselves," he soliloquized. Again he stared into Main Street.Tom Butterworth went out at the front door. He wanted to be by himselfand think his own thoughts. Gordon Hart returned to the empty back roomand standing by a window looked out into an alleyway. His thoughts ranin the same channel as those that played through the mind of the bankpresident. He also thought of men who wanted to buy stock in the companythat was doomed to failure. He began to doubt the judgment of Hugh McVeyin the matter of failure. "Such fellows are always pessimists," he toldhimself. From the window at the back of the bank, he could see over theroofs of a row of small sheds and down a residence street to where twonew workingmen's houses were being built. His thoughts only differedfrom the thoughts of John Clark because he was a younger man. "A few menof the younger generation, like Steve and myself will have to take holdof things," he muttered aloud. "We'll have to have money to work with.We'll have to take the responsibility of the ownership of money."

  At the front of the bank John Clark puffed at his cigar. He felt like asoldier weighing the chances of battle. Vaguely he thought of himself asa general, a kind of U. S. Grant of industry. The lives and happinessof many people, he told himself, depended on the clear working of hisbrain. "Well," he thought, "when factories start coming to a town andit begins to grow as this town is growing no man can stop it. Thefellow who thinks of individual men, little fellows with their savingsinvested, who may be hurt by an industrial failure, is just a weakling.Men have to face the duties life brings. The few men who see clearlyhave to think first of themselves. They have to save themselves in orderthat they may save others."

  * * * * *

  Things kept on the stir in Bidwell and the gods of chance played intothe hands of Steve Hunter. Hugh invented an apparatus for lifting aloaded coal-car off the railroad tracks, carrying it high up into theair and dumping its contents into a chute. By its use an entire car ofcoal could be emptied with a roaring rush into the hold of a ship or theengine room of a factory. A model of the new invention was made anda patent secured. Then Steve Hunter carried it off to New York. Hereceived two hundred thousand dollars in cash for it, half of which wentto Hugh. Steve's faith in the inventive genius of the Missourian wasrenewed and strengthened. He looked forward with a feeling almostapproaching pleasure to the time when the town would be forced to facethe fact that the plant-setting machine was a failure, and the factorywith its new machinery would have to be thrown on the market. He knewthat his associates in the promotion of the enterprise were secretlyselling their stock. One day he went to Cleveland and had a long talkwith a banker there. Hugh was at work on a corn-cutting machine andalready he had secured an option on it. "Perhaps when the time comes tosell the factory there'll be more than one bidder," he told Ernestine,the soap maker's daughter, who had married him within a month after thesale of the car-unloading device. He grew indignant when he told herof the disloyalty of the two men in the bank, and the rich farmer,Tom Butterworth. "They're selling their shares and letting the smallstock-holders lose their money," he declared. "I told 'em not to doit. Now if anything happens to spoil their plans they'll not have me toblame."

  Nearly a year had been spent in stirring up the people of Bidwell to thepoint of becoming investors. Then things began to stir. The ground wasbroken for the erection of the factory. No one knew of the difficultiesthat had been encountered in attempting to perfect the machine and wordwas passed about that in actual tests in the fields it had provenitself entirely practical. The skeptical farmers who came into town onSaturdays were laughed at by the town enthusiasts. A field, that hadbeen planted during one of the brief periods when the machine findingideal soil conditions had worked perfectly, was left to grow. As when heoperated the tiny model in the store window, Steve took no chances. Heengaged Ed Hall to go at night and replace the plants that did not live."It's fair enough," he explained to Ed. "A hundred things can cause theplants to die, but if they die it'll be blamed on the machine. Whatwill become of the town if we don't believe in the thing we're going tomanufacture here?"

  The crowds of people, who in the evenings walked out along Turner's Piketo look at the field with its long rows of sturdy young cabbages, movedrestlessly about and talked of the new days. From the field they wentalong the railroad tracks to the site of the factory. The brick wallsbegan to mount up into the sky. Machinery began to arrive and was housedunder temporary sheds against the time when it could be installed. Anadvance horde of workmen came to town and new faces appeared on MainStreet in the evening. The thing that was happening in Bidwell happenedin towns all over the Middle West. Out through the coal and iron regionsof Pennsylvania, into Ohio and Indiana, and on westward into the Statesbordering on the Mississippi River, industry crept. Gas and oil werediscovered in Ohio and Indiana. Over night, towns grew into cities. Amadness took hold of the minds of the people. Villages like Lima andFindlay, Ohio, and like Muncie and Anderson in Indiana, became smallcities within a few weeks. To some of these places, so anxious were thepeople to get to them and to invest their money, excursion trains wererun. Town lots that a few weeks before the discovery of oil or gas couldhave been bought for a few dollars sold for thousands. Wealth seemed tobe spurting out of the very earth. On farms in Indiana and Ohio giantgas wells blew the drilling machinery out of the ground, and the fuel soessential to modern industrial development rushed into the open. A wit,standing in the presence of one of the roaring gas wells exclaimed,"Papa, Earth has indigestion; he has gas on his stomach. His face willbe covered with pimples."

  Having, before the factories came, no market for the gas, the wells werelighted and at night great torches of flame lit the skies. Pipes werelaid on the surface of the ground and by a day's work a laborer earnedenough to heat his house at tropical heat through an entire winter.Farmers owning oil-producing land went to bed in the evening poor andowing money at the bank, and awoke in the morning rich. They movedinto the towns and invested their money in the factories that sprangup everywhere. In one county in southern Michigan, over five hundredpatents for woven wire farm fencing were taken out in one year,and almost every patent was a magnet
about which a company for themanufacture of fence formed itself. A vast energy seemed to come outof the breast of earth and infect the people. Thousands of the mostenergetic men of the middle States wore themselves out in formingcompanies, and when the companies failed, immediately formed others.In the fast-growing towns, men who were engaged in organizing companiesrepresenting a capital of millions lived in houses thrown hurriedlytogether by carpenters who, before the time of the great awakening, wereengaged in building barns. It was a time of hideous architecture, a timewhen thought and learning paused. Without music, without poetry, withoutbeauty in their lives or impulses, a whole people, full of the nativeenergy and strength of lives lived in a new land, rushed pell-mellinto a new age. A man in Ohio, who had been a dealer in horses, made amillion dollars out of a patent churn he had bought for the price of afarm horse, took his wife to visit Europe and in Paris bought a paintingfor fifty thousand dollars. In another State of the Middle West, a manwho sold patent medicine from door to door through the country begandealing in oil leases, became fabulously rich, bought himself threedaily newspapers, and before he had reached the age of thirty-fivesucceeded in having himself elected Governor of his State. In theglorification of his energy his unfitness as a statesman was forgotten.

  In the days before the coming of industry, before the time of the madawakening, the towns of the Middle West were sleepy places devoted tothe practice of the old trades, to agriculture and to merchandising. Inthe morning the men of the towns went forth to work in the fields orto the practice of the trade of carpentry, horse-shoeing, wagon making,harness repairing, and the making of shoes and clothing. They readbooks and believed in a God born in the brains of men who came out of acivilization much like their own. On the farms and in the houses in thetowns the men and women worked together toward the same ends in life.They lived in small frame houses set on the plains like boxes, butvery substantially built. The carpenter who built a farmer's housedifferentiated it from the barn by putting what he called scroll work upunder the eaves and by building at the front a porch with carved posts.After one of the poor little houses had been lived in for a long time,after children had been born and men had died, after men and women hadsuffered and had moments of joy together in the tiny rooms under the lowroofs, a subtle change took place. The houses became almost beautifulin their old humanness. Each of the houses began vaguely to shadow forththe personality of the people who lived within its walls.

  In the farmhouses and in the houses on the side streets in the villages,life awoke at dawn. Back of each of the houses there was a barn for thehorses and cows, and sheds for pigs and chickens. At daylight a chorusof neighs, squeals, and cries broke the silence. Boys and men cameout of the houses. They stood in the open spaces before the barns andstretched their bodies like sleepy animals. The arms extended upwardseemed to be supplicating the gods for fair days, and the fair dayscame. The men and boys went to a pump beside the house and washed theirfaces and hands in the cold water. In the kitchens there was the smelland sound of the cooking of food. The women also were astir. The menwent into the barns to feed the animals and then hurried to the housesto be themselves fed. A continual grunting sound came from the shedswhere pigs were eating corn, and over the houses a contented silencebrooded.

  After the morning meal men and animals went together to the fields andto the doing of their tasks, and in the houses the women mended clothes,put fruit in cans against the coming of winter and talked of woman'saffairs. On the streets of the towns on fair days lawyers, doctors, theofficials of the county courts, and the merchants walked about in theirshirt sleeves. The house painter went along with his ladder on hisshoulder. In the stillness there could be heard the hammers of thecarpenters building a new house for the son of a merchant who hadmarried the daughter of a blacksmith. A sense of quiet growth awoke insleeping minds. It was the time for art and beauty to awake in the land.

  Instead, the giant, Industry, awoke. Boys, who in the schools had readof Lincoln, walking for miles through the forest to borrow his firstbook, and of Garfield, the towpath lad who became president, began toread in the newspapers and magazines of men who by developingtheir faculty for getting and keeping money had become suddenly andoverwhelmingly rich. Hired writers called these men great, and there wasno maturity of mind in the people with which to combat the force of thestatement, often repeated. Like children the people believed what theywere told.

  While the new factory was being built with the carefully saved dollarsof the people, young men from Bidwell went out to work in other places.After oil and gas were discovered in neighboring states, they went tothe fast-growing towns and came home telling wonder tales. In the boomtowns men earned four, five and even six dollars a day. In secret andwhen none of the older people were about, they told of adventures onwhich they had gone in the new places; of how, attracted by the floodof money, women came from the cities; and the times they had been withthese women. Young Harley Parsons, whose father was a shoemaker and whohad learned the blacksmith trade, went to work in one of the new oilfields. He came home wearing a fancy silk vest and astonished hisfellows by buying and smoking ten-cent cigars. His pockets were bulgingwith money. "I'm not going to stay long in this town, you can bet onthat," he declared one evening as he stood, surrounded by a group ofadmirers before Fanny Twist's Millinery Shop on lower Main Street. "Ihave been with a Chinese woman, and an Italian, and with one from SouthAmerica." He took a puff of his cigar and spat on the sidewalk. "I'mout to get what I can out of life," he declared. "I'm going back andI'm going to make a record. Before I get through I'm going to be with awoman of every nationality on earth, that's what I'm going to do."

  Joseph Wainsworth the harness maker, who had been the first man inBidwell to feel the touch of the heavy finger of industrialism, couldnot get over the effect of the conversation had with Butterworth, thefarmer who had asked him to repair harnesses made by machines in afactory. He became a silent disgruntled man and muttered as he wentabout his work in the shop. When Will Sellinger his apprentice threwup his place and went to Cleveland he did not get another boy but fora time worked alone in the shop. He got the name of being disagreeable,and on winter afternoons the farmers no longer came into his place toloaf. Being a sensitive man, Joe felt like a pigmy, a tiny thing walkingalways in the presence of a giant that might at any moment and by awhim destroy him. All his life he had been somewhat off-hand with hiscustomers. "If they don't like my work, let 'em go to the devil," hesaid to his apprentices. "I know my trade and I don't have to bow downto any one here."

  When Steve Hunter organized the Bidwell Plant-Setting Machine Company,the harness maker put his savings, twelve hundred dollars, into thestock of the company. One day, during the time when the factory wasbuilding, he heard that Steve had paid twelve hundred dollars for a newlathe that had just arrived by freight and had been set on the floor ofthe uncompleted building. The promoter had told a farmer that the lathewould do the work of a hundred men, and the farmer had come into Joe'sshop and repeated the statement. It stuck in Joe's mind and he came tobelieve that the twelve hundred dollars he had invested in stock hadbeen used for the purchase of the lathe. It was money he had earned ina long lifetime of effort and it had now bought a machine that would dothe work of a hundred men. Already his money had increased by a hundredfold and he wondered why he could not be happy about the matter. On somedays he was happy, and then his happiness was followed by an odd fit ofdepression. Suppose, after all, the plant-setting machine wouldn't work?What then could be done with the lathe, with the machine bought with hismoney?

  One evening after dark and without saying anything to his wife, he wentdown along Turner's Pike to the old factory at Pickleville where Hughwith the half-wit Allie Mulberry, and the two mechanics from the city,were striving to correct the faults in the plant-setting machine. Joewanted to look at the tall gaunt man from the West, and had some notionof trying to get into conversation with him and of asking his opinion ofthe possibilities of the success of the new machine. The man
of theage of flesh and blood wanted to walk in the presence of the man whobelonged to the new age of iron and steel. When he got to the factoryit was dark and on an express truck in front of the Wheeling Station thetwo city workmen sat smoking their evening pipes. Joe walked past themto the station door and then returned along the platform and got againinto Turner's Pike. He stumbled along the path beside the road andpresently saw Hugh McVey coming toward him. It was one of the eveningswhen Hugh, overcome with loneliness, and puzzled that his new positionin the town's life did not bring him any closer to people, had goneto town to walk through Main Street, half hoping some one would breakthrough his embarrassment and enter into conversation with him.

  When the harness maker saw Hugh walking in the path, he crept into afence corner, and crouching down, watched the man as Hugh had watchedthe French boys at work in the cabbage fields. Strange thoughts cameinto his head. He thought the extraordinarily tall figure before him insome way terrible. He became childishly angry and for a moment thoughtthat if he had a stone in his hand he would throw it at the man, theworkings of whose brain had so upset his own life. Then as the figure ofHugh went away along the path another mood came. "I have worked all mylife for twelve hundred dollars, for money that will buy one machinethat this man thinks nothing about," he muttered aloud. "Perhaps I'llget more money than I invested: Steve Hunter says maybe I will. Ifmachines kill the harness-making trade what's the difference? I'll beall right. The thing to do is to get in with the new times, to wakeup, that's the ticket. With me it's like with every one else: nothingventure nothing gain."

  Joe crawled out of the fence corner and went stealthily along the roadbehind Hugh. A fervor seized him and he thought he would like to creepclose and touch with his finger the hem of Hugh's coat. Afraid to tryanything so bold his mind took a new turn. He ran in the darkness alongthe road toward town and, when he had crossed the bridge and come to theNew York Central tracks, turned west and went along the tracks until hecame to the new factory. In the darkness the half completed walls stuckup into the sky, and all about were piles of building materials. Thenight had been dark and cloudy, but now the moon began to push its waythrough the clouds. Joe crawled over a pile of bricks and through awindow into the building. He felt his way along the walls until he cameto a mass of iron covered by a rubber blanket. He was sure it must bethe lathe his money had bought, the machine that was to do the work of ahundred men and that was to make him comfortably rich in his old age.No one had spoken of any other machine having been brought in on thefactory floor. Joe knelt on the floor and put his hands about the heavyiron legs of the machine. "What a strong thing it is! It will not breakeasily," he thought. He had an impulse to do something he knew would befoolish, to kiss the iron legs of the machine or to say a prayer ashe knelt before it. Instead he got to his feet and crawling out againthrough the window, went home. He felt renewed and full of new couragebecause of the experiences of the night, but when he got to his ownhouse and stood at the door outside, he heard his neighbor, DavidChapman, a wheelwright who worked in Charlie Collins' wagon shop,praying in his bedroom before an open window. Joe listened for a momentand, for some reason he couldn't understand, his new-found faith wasdestroyed by what he heard. David Chapman, a devout Methodist, waspraying for Hugh McVey and for the success of his invention. Joe knewhis neighbor had also invested his savings in the stock of the newcompany. He had thought that he alone was doubtful of success, but itwas apparent that doubt had come also into the mind of the wheelwright.The pleading voice of the praying man, as it broke the stillness of thenight, cut across and for the moment utterly destroyed his confidence."O God, help the man Hugh McVey to remove every obstacle that standsin his way," David Chapman prayed. "Make the plant-setting machine asuccess. Bring light into the dark places. O Lord, help Hugh McVey, thyservant, to build successfully the plant-setting machine."

  BOOK THREE