Miss Eleanor Leigh had observed for some time that her father was more than usually grave and preoccupied. She knew the cause, for her father discussed many matters with her. It was often his way of clarifying his own views. And when he asked her what she thought of them she felt that it was the highest compliment she ever received—not that he took her advice, she knew, but this did not matter; he had consulted her. The fact gave her a self-reliance wholly different from mere conceit. It steadied her and furnished her a certain atmosphere of calm in which she formed her judgment in other matters. Of late, in the shadow of the clash with his operatives, which appeared to be growing more and more imminent, he had not advised with her as formerly and the girl felt it. Was it due to the views which she had been expressing of late touching the suppression of the laboring class? She knew that her father held views as to this quite the opposite of those she had been vaguely groping toward, and while he treated her views with amused indulgence he considered the whole line of thought as the project of selfish demagogues, or, at best, of crack-brained doctrinaires. It might suit for the millennium, but not for a society in which every man was competing with every other man. In fact, however, the principal reason for Mr. Leigh's silence was the growing differences between himself and Mrs. Argand. The struggle had grown until it involved the very existence of his house. He knew that if his daughter ever realized the truth, that her aunt's interest had been thrown against him and in favor of men whose methods he reprobated, it would mean the end of all between them, and he was unwilling that a breach should come between his daughter and her mother's sister.

The status of the present relation with his men was, however, growing steadily worse and more threatening. The influences at work were more and more apparent. The press was giving more and more space to the widening breach, and the danger of a strike on a vast scale that should exceed anything ever known heretofore was steadily increasing.

Eleanor knew that this was the cloud that left its shadow on her father's brow and she determined to make an effort to assist him. She had revolved the scheme in her little head and it appeared the very thing to do.

The approach of Thanksgiving offered an opportunity for an act of good-will which she felt sure would bear fruit. She had talked it over with John Marvel and he had glowed at the suggestion. So one day at the table she broke in on her father's reverie.

"Father, how many men have you in the mills and on the railway?"

Her father smiled as he nearly always did when she spoke to him, as, indeed, most people smiled, with sheer content over the silvery voice and sparkling eyes.

"Why, roughly, in the mills about eleven hundred—there may be a few more or a few less to-day; to-morrow there will not be one."

"Oh! I hope they won't do that. I have such a beautiful plan."

"What is it? To give them all they demand, and have them come back with a fresh and more insolent demand to-morrow?"

"No, to give them—every one who has a family, a Thanksgiving basket—a turkey."

Her father burst out laughing. "A turkey? Better give them a goose. What put that idea into your little head? Why, they would laugh at you if they did not fling it back in your face."

"Oh! no, they would not. I never saw any one who did not respond to kindness."

"Better wait till after to-morrow and you will save a lot of turkeys."

"No, I am serious. I have been thinking of it for quite a while and I have some money of my own."

"You'd better keep it. You may come to need it."

"No, I want to try my plan. You do not forbid it?"

"Oh, no! If you can avert the strike that they are preparing for, your money will be a good investment."

"I don't do it as an investment," protested the girl. "I do it as an act of kindness."

"All right, have your way. It can't do any harm. If you succeed, I shall be quite willing to foot the bills."

"No, this is my treat," said the girl, "though I shall put your name in too."

So, that day Miss Eleanor Leigh spent inspecting and getting prices on turkeys, and by night she had placed her order with a reliable man who had promised to provide the necessary number of baskets, and, what is more, had gotten interested in her plan. She had enlisted also the interest of John Marvel, who worked like a Trojan in furtherance of her wishes. And I, having learned from John of her charitable design, gave my assistance with what I fear was a less unselfish philanthropy. Happily, disease is not the only thing that is contagious. It was impossible to work shoulder to shoulder with those two and not catch something of John Marvel's spirit, not to mention the sweet contagion of Eleanor Leigh's charming enthusiasm. I learned much in that association of her cleverness and sound sterling sense as she organized her force and set them to work. And I was fortunate enough to get one of her charming smiles. It was when she said, "I want one of the best baskets for Mrs. Kenneth McNeil," and I replied, "I have already sent it." Thus, in due time, on the day before Thanksgiving Day, a score of wagons were busily at work carrying not only the turkeys ordered by Miss Leigh, as a Thanksgiving present for each family in her father's employ, but with each one a basket of other things.

It happened that that night a great meeting of the operatives was held.

It was largely attended, for though the object had not been stated in the call, it was well known that it was to consider a momentous subject; nothing less than an ultimatum on the part of the men to the Company, and this many of the men felt was the same thing with a strike. The name of David Wringman, the chief speaker, was a guaranty of this. He was a man who had forged his way to the front by sheer force, mainly sheer brute force. From a common laborer he had risen to be one of the recognized leaders in what had come to be known as the workingmen's movement. He had little or no education, and was not known to have technical training of any kind. Some said he had been a machinist; some a miner; some a carpenter. His past was, in fact, veiled in mystery. No one knew, indeed, where he came from. Some said he was Irish; some that he was Welsh; some that he was American. All that was known of him positively was that he was a man of force, with a gift of fluent speech and fierce invective, which rose at times and under certain conditions to eloquence. At least, he could sway an assemblage of workingmen, and, at need, he was not backward in using his fists, or any other weapon that came to hand. Speaking of Wringman, Wolffert once said that not the least of the misfortunes of the poor was the leaders they were forced to follow. His reputation for brute strength was quite equal to his reputation as a speaker, and stories were freely told of how, when opposition was too strong for him in a given meeting, he had come down from the platform and beaten his opponents into submission with his brawny fists. It was rumored how he had, more than once, even waylaid his rivals and done them up, but this story was generally told in undertones; for Wringman was now too potent and dangerous a man for most men of his class to offend personally without good cause. His presence in the city was in itself a sign that some action would be taken, for he had of late come to be known as an advanced promoter of aggressive action. To this bold radicalism was due much of his power. He was "not afraid of the capitalists," men said. And so they established him in his seat as their leader. To his presence was due a goodly share of the shadow that had been gathering over the workingmen's part of the section of the town which I have noted.

Thus, the meeting on the evening I speak of was largely attended. For an hour before the time set for it the large hall in the second story of a big building was crowded, and many who could not get in were thronging the stairways and the street outside. A reek of strong tobacco pervaded the air and men with sullen brows talked in undertones, broken now and then by a contentious discussion in some group in which possibly some other stimulant than tobacco played a part.

Wolffert and Marvel had both been trying to avert the strike, and had, I heard, made some impression among the people. Marvel had worked hard all day aiding Miss Leigh in her friendly efforts, and Wolffert had been arguing on rational grounds against a strike at the beginning of winter. I had been talking over matters with some of my mill-friends who had invited me to go with them; so I attended the meeting. I had been struck for some time with the change that had been going on in the workingmen's districts. As wretched as they had been before they were now infinitely more so.

The meeting began, as the meetings of such bodies usually begin, with considerable discussion and appearance of deliberation. There was manifest much discontent and also much opposition to taking any steps that would lead to a final breach. A number of men boldly stood forth to declare for the half-a-loaf-better-than-no-bread theory, and against much hooting they stood their ground. The question of a resolution of thanks for Miss Leigh's baskets aroused a little opposition, but the majority were manifestly for it, and many pleasant things were said about her and her father as well, his liberal policy being strongly contrasted with the niggard policy of the other roads. Then there appeared the real leader of the occasion, to hear whom the meeting had been called: Wringman. And within ten minutes he had everything his own way. He was greeted with cheers as he entered, and he shouldered his way to the front with a grim look on his face that had often prepared the way for him. He was undoubtedly a man of power, physical and mental. Flinging off his heavy overcoat, he scarcely waited for the brief introduction, undertaken by the Chairman of the occasion, and, refusing to wait for the cheers to subside, he plunged at once into the midst of his subject.

"Workingmen, why am I here? Because, like you, I am a working man." He stretched out his long arm and swept it in a half circle and they cheered his gesture and voice, and violent action, though had they considered, as they might well have done, he had not "hit a lick" with his hands in a number of years. Unless, indeed, a rumor which had begun to go the rounds was true, that he had once at least performed work for the government in an institution where the labor was not wholly voluntary.

Then came a catalogue of their grievances and wrongs, presented with much force and marked dramatic ability, and on the heels of it a tirade against all employers and capitalists, and especially against their employer, whom he pictured as their arch enemy and oppressor, the chief and final act of whose infamy, he declared to be his "attempt to bribe them with baskets of rotten fowls." Who was this man? He would tell them. He held in his hand a paper which pictured him in his true character. Here he opened a journal and read from the article I had written for Kalender—the infamous headlines of the editor which changed the whole. This was the man with whom they had to deal—a man who flung scraps from his table for famishing children to wrangle over with dogs. There was but one way to meet such insolence, he declared, to fling them back in his face and make him understand that they didn't want favors from him, but justice; not rotten fowls, but their own hard-earned money. "And now," he cried, "I put the motion to send every basket back with this message and to demand an increase of twenty-five per cent. pay forthwith. Thus, we shall show them and all the world that we are independent American workmen earning our own bread and asking no man's meat. Let all who favor this rise and the scabs sit still."

It was so quickly and shrewdly done that a large part of the assembly were on their feet in a second, indeed, many of them were already standing, and the protest of the objectors was lost in the wild storm of applause. Over on the far side I saw little McNeil shouting and gesticulating in vehement protest; but as I caught sight of him a dozen men piled on him and pulled him down, hammering him into silence. The man's power and boldness had accomplished what his reasoning could never have effected.

The shouts that went up showed how completely he had won. I was thrown into a sort of maze. But his next words recalled me. It was necessary, he went on, that he should still maintain his old position. His heart bled every moment; but he would sacrifice himself for them, and if need were, he would die with them; and when this time came he would lead them through flaming streets and over broken plutocrats to the universal community of everything. He drew a picture of the rapine that was to follow, which surpassed everything I had ever believed possible. When he sat down, his audience was a mob of lunatics. Insensible to the folly of the step I took, I sprang to my chair and began to protest. They hushed down for a second. I denounced Wringman as a scoundrel, a spy, a hound. With a roar they set upon me and swept me from my feet. Why I was not killed instantly, I hardly know to this day. Fortunately, their very fury impeded them. I knew that it was necessary to keep my feet, and I fought like a demon. I could hear Wringman's voice high above the uproar harking them on. Suddenly a cry of "put him out" was raised close beside me. A pistol was brandished before my face; my assailants fell back a little, and I was seized and hustled to the door. I found a man I had noticed near me in the back part of the hall, who had sat with his coat collar turned up and his hat on, to be my principal ejector. With one hand he pushed me toward the entrance whilst, brandishing his revolver with the other, he defended me from the blows that were again aimed at me. But all the time he cursed me violently.

"Not in here; let him go outside. Leave him to me—I'll settle him!" he shouted—and the crowd shouted also. So he bundled me to the door and followed me out, pushing others back and jerking the door to after him.

On the outside I turned on him. I had been badly battered and my blood was up. I was not afraid of one man, even with a pistol. As I sprang for him, however, he began to put up his weapon, chuckled, and dropped his voice.

"Hold on—you've had a close call—get away from here."

It was Langton, the detective. He followed me down the steps and out to the street, and then joined me.

"Well?" he laughed, "what do you think of your friends?"

"That I have been a fool."

He smiled with deep satisfaction. "What were you doing in there?" I asked.

"Looking after my friends. But I don't feel it necessary to invite them to cut my throat. One good turn deserves another," he proceeded. "You keep away from there or you'll find yourself in a bad way. That Wringman——"

"Is a scoundrel."

"Keep a lookout for him. He's after you and he has powerful friends. Good night. I don't forget a man who has done me a kindness—And I know that fellow."

He turned into a by-street.

The next morning the papers contained an account of the proceedings with glaring headlines, the account in the Trumpet being the fullest and most sympathetic and giving a picture of the "great labor-leader, Wringman, the idol of the workingman," who had, by "his courage and character, his loftiness of purpose and singleness of aim, inspired them with courage to rise against the oppression of the grinding corporation which, after oppressing them for years, had attempted by a trick to delude them into an abandonment of the measures to secure, at least, partial justice, just as they were about to wring it from its reluctant hand."

It was a description which might have fitted an apostle of righteousness. But what sent my heart down into my boots was the republication of the inserted portion of my article on the delayed train attacking Mr. Leigh. The action of the meeting was stated to be unanimous, and in proof it was mentioned that the only man who opposed it, a young man evidently under the influence of liquor, was promptly flung out. I knew that I was destined to hear more of that confounded article, and I began to cast about as to how I should get around it. Should I go to Eleanor Leigh and make a clean breast of it, or should I leave it to occasion to determine the matter? I finally did the natural thing—I put off the decision.

Miss Eleanor Leigh, who had worked hard all the day before despatching baskets to the hundreds of homes which her kind heart had prompted her to fill with cheer, came down to breakfast that morning with her heart full of gratitude and kindness toward all the world. She found her father sitting in his place with the newspapers lying beside him in some disorder and with a curious smile on his face. She divined at once that something had happened.

"What is it?" she asked, a little frightened.

For answer Mr. Leigh pushed a paper over to her and her eye fell on the headlines:

HONEST LABORING MEN RESENT BRAZEN
ATTEMPT AT BRIBERY
LABOR LEADER'S GREAT APPEAL FOR JUSTICE
LABOR DEMANDS ITS DUES

"Oh, father!" With a gasp she burst into tears and threw herself in her father's arms.

"That is the work of Canter and his partner, McSheen," said Mr. Leigh grimly.

It was not the only house in which the sending back of her baskets caused tears. In many a poor little tenement there was sore weeping because of the order—in not a few a turkey had not been known for years. Yet mainly the order was obeyed.

Next day Mr. Leigh received in his office a notification that a deputation of the operatives on his road demanded to see him immediately. He knew that they were coming; but he had not expected them quite so soon. However, he was quite prepared for them and they were immediately admitted. They were a deputation of five men, two of them elderly men, one hardly more than a youth, the other two of middle age. At their head was a large, surly man with a new black hat and a new overcoat. He was the first man to enter the room and was manifestly the leader of the party. Mr. Leigh invited them to take seats and the two older men sat down. Two of the others shuffled a little in their places and turned their eyes on their leader.

"Well, what can I do for you?" inquired Mr. Leigh quietly. His good-humored face had suddenly taken on a cold, self-contained expression, as of a man who had passed the worst.

Again there was a slight shuffle on the part of the others and one of the older men, rising from his seat and taking a step forward, said gravely: "We have come to submit to you——"

His speech, however, was instantly interrupted by the large man in the overcoat. "Not by a d——d sight!" he began. "We have come to demand two things——"

Mr. Leigh nodded.

"Only two? What may they be, please?"

"First, that you discharge a man named Kenneth McNeil, who is a non-union man——"

Mr. Leigh's eyes contracted slightly.

"—and secondly, that you give a raise of wages of fifteen per cent. to every man in your employ—and every woman, too."

"And what is the alternative, pray?"

"A strike."

"By whom?"

"By every soul in your employ, and, if necessary, by every man and woman who works in this city—and if that is not enough, by a tie-up that will paralyze you, and all like you."

Mr. Leigh nodded. "I understand."

A slight spark came into his eyes and his lips tightened just a shade, but when he spoke his voice was level and almost impersonal.

"Will nothing less satisfy you?" he inquired.

"Not a cent," said the leader and two of the others looked at him with admiration. "We want justice."

Mr. Leigh, with his eye steadily on him, shook his head and a smile came into his eyes. "No, you don't want justice," he said to the leader, "you want money."

"Yes, our money."

Again Mr. Leigh shook his head slowly with his eyes on him. "No, not your money—mine. Who are you?" he demanded. "Are you one of the employees of this road?"

"My name is Wringman and I am the head of this delegation."

"Are you an employee of this Company?"

"I am the head of this delegation, the representative of the Associated Unions of this city, of which the Union on this road constitutes a part."

"I will not deal with you," said Mr. Leigh, "but I will deal with you," he turned to the other men. "I will not discharge the man you speak of. He is an exceptionally good man. I happen to know this of my own personal knowledge, and I know the reason he is not a Union man. It is because you kept him out of the Union, hoping to destroy him as you have destroyed other honest men who have opposed you." He turned back to the leader.

Wringman started to speak, but Mr. Leigh cut him short.

"Not a word from you. I am dealing now with my own men. I know you. I know who your employer is and what you have been paid. You sold out your people in the East whom you pretended to represent, and now you have come to sell out these poor people here, on whose ignorance and innocence you trade and fatten. You have been against McNeil because he denounced you in the East. Your demand is preposterous," he said, turning to the others. "It is an absolute violation of the agreement which you entered into with me not three months ago. I have that agreement here on my desk. You know what that says, that the scale adopted was to stand for so long, and if by any chance, any question should arise, it was to be arbitrated by the tribunal assented to by yourselves and myself. I am willing to submit to that tribunal the question whether any question has arisen, and if it has, to submit it for adjudication by them."

"We did not come here to be put off with any such hyp—" began the leader, but before he had gotten his word out, Mr. Leigh was on his feet.

"Stop," he said. And his voice had the sharp crack of a rifle shot. "Not a word from you. Out of this office." He pointed to the door and at the same moment touched the bell. "Show that man the door," he said, "instantly, and never admit him inside of it again."

"Ah, I'm going," sneered Wringman, putting on his hat, "but not because you ordered me."

"Yes, you are—because I ordered you, and if you don't go instantly I will kick you out personally."

He stepped around the desk and, with his eyes blazing, walked quickly across the floor, but Wringman had backed out of the door.

"For the rest of you," he said, "you have my answer. I warn you that if you strike you will close the factories that now give employment to thousands of men and young women. You men may be able to take care of yourselves; but you should think of those girls. Who will take care of them when they are turned out on the street? I have done it heretofore—unless you are prepared to do it now, you had better consider. Go down to my box-factory and walk through it and see them, self-supporting and self-respecting. Do you know what will become of them if they are turned out? Go to Gallagin's Gallery and see. Go back to your work if you are men of sense. If not, I have nothing further to say to you."

They walked out and Mr. Leigh shut the door behind them. When he took his seat a deep gravity had settled on him which made him look older by years.

The following day an order for a general strike on the lines operated by Mr. Leigh was issued, and the next morning after that not a wheel turned on his lines or in his factories. It was imagined and reported as only a question of wages between an employer and his men. But deep down underneath lay the secret motives of McSheen and Canter and their set who had been plotting in secret, weaving their webs in the dark—gambling in the lives of men and sad-eyed women and hungry children. The effect on the population of that section of the city was curious. Of all sad things on earth a strike is the saddest. And like other battles, next to a defeat the saddest scene is the field of victory.

The shadow had settled down on us; the sunshine was gone. The temper of every one appeared to have been strained. The principle of Unionism as a system of protection and defence had suddenly taken form as a system of aggression and active hostility. Class-feeling suddenly sprang up in open and armed array, and next came division within classes. The talk was all of force; the feeling all one of enmity and strife. The entire population appeared infected by it. Houses were divided against themselves; neighbors who had lived in friendliness and hourly intercourse and exchanged continual acts of kindness, discussed, contended, quarrelled, threatened, and fought or passed by on the other side scowling and embittered. Sweetness gave place to rancor and good-will to hate.

Among those affected by the strike was the family of my old drummer. The change was as apparent in this little home, where hitherto peace and content had reigned supreme with Music to fill in the intervals and make joy, as in the immediate field of the strike.

The whole atmosphere of happiness underwent a change, as though a deadly damp had crept in from the outside, mildewing with its baleful presence all within, and turning the very sunlight into gloom. Elsa had lost her place. The box-factory was closed. The house was filled with contention. The musicians who came around to smoke their big pipes and drink beer with old Loewen were like the rest, infected. Nothing appeared to please any longer. The director was a tyrant; the first violin a charlatan; the rest of the performers mostly fools or worse; and the whole orchestra "a fake."

This was the talk I heard in the home when I stopped by sometimes of an evening on my way to my room, and found some of his friends arguing with him over their steins and pipes, and urging a stand against the director and a demand that he accede to their wishes. The old drummer himself stood out stoutly. The director had always been kind to him and to them, he insisted. He was a good man and took pride in the orchestra, as much pride as he himself did. But I could see that he was growing soured. He drank more beer and practised less. Moreover, he talked more of money, which once he had scarcely ever mentioned. But the atmosphere was telling; the mildew was appearing. And in this haunt of peace, peace was gone.

I learned from Loewen one evening that in the event of the strike not being settled soon, there was a chance of a sympathetic strike of all trades, and that even the musicians might join in it, for they had "grievances also."

"But I thought Music was not a trade, but a profession, an art?" I said, quoting a phrase I had overheard him use. He raised his shoulders and threw out his hands palm upward.

"Ach! it vas vonce."

"Then why is it not now?"

"Ach! Who knows? Because they vill not haf it so. Ze music iss dead—ze harmony iss all gone—in ze people—in ze heart! Zere iss no more music in ze souls of ze people. It iss monee—monee—monee—fight, fight, fight, all ze time! Who can gife ze divine strain ven ze heart is set on monee always?"

Who, indeed? I thought, and the more I thought of it the more clearly I felt that he had touched the central truth.