CHAPTER I.
AFTER TWELVE YEARS.
It was a brilliant day towards the lamb-like end of a March, whose beginning had been of a particularly leonine character. The leaf-buds upon the trees showed faint lines of green along their smooth circumference of delicate brown; the dry, dead grass of winter had been replaced by young blades of a tender verdure; yet the air was cool and pleasantly crisp, though the sunshine, as every one said, was warm enough for June.
At the South Micklegard railroad station, a short, jolly-looking gentleman seemed to differ from the prevailing opinion as to the heat; for his hands were in his pockets, and his overcoat buttoned closely over his stout form up to the smooth-shaven chin.
Up and down the sunniest part of the platform he walked briskly, with at every turn so impatient a glance along the track that, by and by, a porter, wheeling up his empty truck to be in readiness for the coming freight, paused to ask him a question.
“It’s not leaving us you are, Father?”
“No, no, Denny, not so bad as that; only waiting for a friend. She’s late to-day?” with a motion of his head towards the point whence the train should have appeared half an hour before. Denny, however, was in no danger of misunderstanding the figuratively feminine pronoun.
“Av it was the furst toime, she’d’ a ’slipped the track,” he said dryly. “That ould tin o’clock niver gits in till noon.”
“Then ye should have telephoned me to that intent,” replied the father, with a twinkle in his eye. “Didn’t I leave me sermon in the midst to hurry down here? And if I miss me dinner to finish it, ’twill be the worse for you sinners, I promise ye, Denny.”
Denny grinned, and pulled his forelock; but at this moment a distant whistle announced the approach of the train, and he wheeled his truck leisurely away, while Father McClosky restored his handkerchief to his pocket, and drew his plump figure into a posture of erect expectancy.
The Rev. Bryan McClosky had been for fifteen years in charge of St. Clement’s Church, a dingy and unbeautiful brick structure on an obscure street in South Micklegard. His congregation were chiefly poor working-people; and the few outsiders who recognized the rare qualities of head and heart which were joined to his unimpressive and somewhat undignified exterior, were disposed to wonder that the authorities of his Church, with all their well-known tact and skill at making the most of their material, should have kept such a man so long in such an obscure position.
Perhaps, however, the authorities, as usual, knew their own business best. Bryan McClosky was by birth one of the people among whom he labored. His father had been an Irish peasant, and Bryan’s first memories of home were of a cabin wherein pigs and chickens were as much members of the household as himself. Natural talent and education had done much to raise him above the level of his former associates, but he was still one of them at heart. By his present congregation he was simply idolized; and, though they stood in no manner of awe of him, the real reverence which they gave and he fully deserved was not at all impaired by his readiness to laugh and joke on all but very improper occasions.
Into his religious opinions there would seem to be no need to inquire, since they were to be found in the doctrinal formulas of a Church which tolerates no private judgment of such matters. Nevertheless, there had not been wanting, in high ecclesiastical quarters, rumors as to the potential heterodoxy of Father McClosky,—a heterodoxy which showed itself in just a little over-charity towards heretics, and a too great readiness to unite with them in schemes for the public welfare. He had even been admonished once or twice—or, if that word be too harsh, gently interrogated—on these matters, but in every case was able to prove himself so clearly right, and within the letter of the law, that the only results were, on the part of the authorities, a conviction that while it was best to keep him where he would do least harm, it would also be wisest not to drive him to extremities; and on his side, a habit of good-humored denunciation of his Protestant friends as heretics, and destined to a considerable amount of future discomfort, which, accompanied by a twist of his mouth and a twinkle of his black eyes, was, as he often remarked, “perfectly orthodox, and hurt nobody.”
The true key to his character was his loyalty to the Church which had fed, clothed, and educated him. She might not be as infallible as she thought herself; it might even be that she had, historically and doctrinally, made mistakes; but if he admitted these to himself, he was too true a son to allow any one else to guess that he did so. Moreover, there was no one in the world for whose comfort and well-being he cared less than for those of the Rev. Bryan McClosky, so he was not likely to resent the lack of ecclesiastical preferment; and as his gravest doubts were whether he should himself be more at home in any other church than that of his birth, or whether he possessed the personal infallibility necessary to start a church of his own, he asked nothing better than to devote his life to the people whose coarse, ignorant, sometimes stupid and brutalized faces were upturned so eagerly Sunday after Sunday to his pulpit, or bowed beneath his benediction from the altar.
The person for whom he had waited so long at last stepped upon the platform, and was greeted as a “thief of the world” and a “blazin’ heretic,” to the grinning amusement of Denny and one or two others. Ernest Clare took the matter very quietly, though there was a gleam in his blue eyes and a certain compression about his mouth, that seemed to show that quietude was rather acquired than innate to a man of his character.
He was considerably above the medium height, and magnificently proportioned; indeed, his muscular development was usually the first item of his personal appearance to attract attention. It was only a second glance, with most people, that noted the calm, pure face, with its smooth, white brow, clear eyes, and firm, steadfast lips. There was something rather wonderful about those eyes, under the straight, dark brows and long, black lashes; they were so soft and utterly still in their calm, blue depths, while over their surface glanced lights of fun or anger, or darkened clouds of sorrow. Some one who loved him had once said that Ernest Clare had two souls,—one which bore the burden and heat of the day, and one which abode ever upon the spiritual mountain-tops, rapt in the contemplation of things ineffable,—and that these two souls were mirrored in his eyes. When she said it, it had been true only at times; now the two souls were one.
“It’s but a step to ‘Prices,’” said Father McClosky; “will ye walk, or ride?”
“Of course, after that delicate hint, I will walk,” replied Mr. Clare, with a smile of amusement.
“Sure, I only meant shank’s mare for ye to ride on, and carry your valise at that. Oh, ye heretic! if you did but know how glad I am to see you, and have a chance to convert ye.”
“I believe that, Bryan; part of it, anyway. Could you get a room for me at this famous co-operative place of yours?”
“Two of them,—bedroom and study.”
“Study? Whew! don’t you know I’m out of a job and poor as a church-mouse?”
“I gathered as much; but the rooms were vacated the very day I got your letter, and, as it’s not often two communicating ones can be had at ‘Prices,’ why, I took them. I know ye’ve some scheme afoot, ye spalpeen, and ye might as well be comfortable while ye carry it out.”
“But”—
“And av ye’ve no money to pay for it, there’s them that has. Things is dirt-cheap at ‘Prices,’ anyway.”
“Oh, I’ve a hundred or so that will keep me going for a while. Tell me something about these Prices of yours.”
“Here’s the place, itself, will tell ye more than I can.”
They had halted before a large block of buildings, not of a particularly fine or imposing architecture. In fact, they had been originally dwelling-houses, then had been turned into stores, and had been applied to their present purpose with as little alteration as was practically possible. The corner house still bore over its entrance the words, “Männerchor Gesangverein;” but above this, in huge golden letters running along as much of the conglomerate building as possible, shone this inscription, “THE PRICES.”
“Will ye go to your rooms—I have the key in me pocket—or will ye see the place first?” asked Father McClosky. “It’s half-past eleven, and dinner is from twelve till two. I take mine at one usually, the way I won’t be interferin’ with the factory hands and teachers and the like, that has only one hour to call their own.”
Ernest Clare smiled. “Factory hands and teachers,—et id genus omne!” he said. “I think I’ll go over the building, Bryan. But do you take all your meals here? I know you’ve a house of your own.”
“Except when I brew me a cup of coffee on my little gas stove of an inclement morning,” replied the little priest, with a twinkle of his black eye. “Sure, it saves me the expense of a housekeeper, and a mighty lot of trouble. I’ve an old woman now to clean and go away peacefully, and one of me acolytes looks after the fires; and av he don’t burn the house down some fine day, he’ll do mighty well.”
“But couldn’t you rent your house, and take a room here? You’d save still more, then.”
“No doubt; but—well, Ernest, I like me little house. It’s quieter and more convenient; besides, it joins the church, and I’d not like to rent it; besides that, I’d get into trouble av I did. But it’s mighty convenient to eat here; though, to be sure, the half of them is blazing heretics, like yourself, and the rest howling infidels and bloody-minded atheists. But heretic food agrees mighty well with a Catholic digestion, I find. Here, ye can leave your gripsack in the janitor’s office.” He led the way as he spoke into the main door, within which a glass door at the side showed a small room, chiefly furnished with shelves, hooks, etc., for the reception of hats, umbrellas, and the like.
“This is Bruno Schaefer, janitor by the divine right of hereditary descent,” said Father McClosky, as a pleasant-looking young man sprang up from his seat beside a table, upon which lay several large books. “His brother Franz was the first under the present régime.”
Bruno smiled broadly at this Irish heredity as he took Mr. Clare’s grip, umbrella, and hat, in exchange for a celluloid check.
“Franz has been studying music in Germany, and now plays first violin in some famous orchestra beyant there; and Bruno is to be a heretic preacher like his father,” continued the priest. “He has a quiet berth of it here, meanwhile, eh, Bruno? ample facilities for study.”
“With a few interruptions thrown in,” replied the young man in a clear, pleasant voice.
“Well, this present interruption is the Reverend Ernest Clare, though why a heretic should be reverend, I can’t say. He has rooms on the fourth floor of the third house, and ye must learn to know him by sight as soon as ye hear him comin’.”
“I couldn’t help doing that,” said Bruno, looking with admiration, not unmixed with confusion, at his visitor’s stalwart physique.
“But I hope Mr. Clare did not understand me to complain”—
“Not at all,” said Ernest Clare, extending his hand and pressing Bruno’s cordially. “I find it harder myself to rejoice in interruptions than in any other minor trial of this life; but in your case I should think them not only an excellent drill in patience, but also a fine opportunity to study human nature.”
“That’s very true, Mr. Clare, thank you, sir,” said the young man.
“Ye villain! but ye’re a true Irishman!” said Father McClosky, as they walked on. “There ye’ve preached that lad a sermon, and given him a staff to help him on, with just a turn of your smooth tongue.”
“A staff? Oh! you mean that suggestion about interruptions. I should rather call that a fly-fan,” said Ernest Clare with a twinkle in his eye and a twist of the corner of his firm lips that made his Irish blood still more evident. He was, indeed, a native-born American; but his father had left rather a different class in Ireland from that to which McClosky père belonged, to be equally hardworking and almost equally poor in America. The sons had spent their early youth together until Bryan had been taken charge of, at his father’s death, by the Church, to be educated for a priest. Later in life they had met again; but if there were any bond between them, formed at that time, and of special strength and tenderness, it was such as would have estranged ordinary men, and even between these was only tacitly understood. Neither had ever put it into words.
“I suppose Herr Bruno is one of your heretics,” continued Mr. Clare; “if I like your Jews, Turks, and Infidels as well in proportion, Bryan”—
“Ah! he’s a fine lad, Bruno! but is it Turks ye say? Thank the pigs, we’re not troubled with the likes of them. Nor the Jews don’t take kindly to us either; but I’ll show you the grandfather of all the infidels presently, so ye’ve good luck.”
He opened as he spoke a large double swing door, which led into a dining-hall, well lit and ventilated, where, at various-sized tables, about two hundred persons could be accommodated. Only about half of these tables, however, were laid for dinner, for which Father McClosky proceeded to account.
“Ye see,” he said, “it’s only them that lives in the house, or works near by, that can spare the time to go and come. Teachers at a distance, or hands in the mills or the pottery, mostly has their dinner sent. I’ll show ye the wagon starting, in five minutes from now. Then, the mothers of families where there’s many little children finds it more convenient to take their dinners at home, too, though most of them come for supper, even the babies.”
“It must be a pretty sight,” said Ernest Clare.
Father McClosky shrugged his shoulders. “It’s Bedlam broke loose,” he said; “but sure they enjoy it, and them that don’t can stay at home. It’s a free country, and no man has a better right at ‘Prices’ than any other.”
“And which costs more—for that is the grand criterion nowadays—to eat here, or have one’s meals sent?”
“Both, and nayther,” replied the priest, “the charge is exactly the same; but of course there’s more wear and tear of property in sending. But, as that comes out of the pockets of the stockholders, it is not supposed that they will incur the loss without necessity.”
“Then all the patrons are stockholders?”
“They must be, to the extent, at least, of one share, which is five dollars. The directors found it necessary to pass a by-law to that intent, or else, as they said, just put up with regular boarding-house grumbles. Now, every one has an interest in saving, and them that can, help with the work. That saves hired labor, and makes the dividends larger.”
“Then you do pay dividends to your stockholders? I thought it was only to the workers, and that stockholders were to receive merely a fair interest on their investment.”
“We’ve two classes of stockholders,” said Father McClosky. “Those who are also patrons, and those who are not. The last named get five per cent on every dollar as promptly as pay-day comes; but the others, since they have a hand in the work,—or a tooth in it, annyhow,—we consider entitled to a share in the profits. We find it’s a good working principle. I’ve a hundred dollars in it meself, that paid me—interest and dividend—about the likes of seven dollars, last year, and sure it’s a great joy to me now when a fast day comes round.”
“So you take self-interest as the moving spring of your work?”
“Ye must take men as ye find them, Ernest, me boy. I’m not speakin’ of meself, that has neither chick nor child, brother nor sister, wife nor husband belonging to me,” said Father McClosky with intense seriousness and earnestness; “for sure it’s little matter to me if I’m full or hungry; but for a man who has little children, to whom a few dollars makes all the difference between comfort and privation,—why, ye can’t blame him if he has an eye to the main chance, as folks call it.”
“But has such a man as that always five dollars in hand to pay for his one necessary share?”
“Sure he don’t need it, av he’s enough to pay for his meals—and, as I said before, it’s but little he needs for that. He comes here and enters his name as an applicant for what we call the patron’s share, and makes arrangements for his meals, as to the number in his family and the cost per day; then he pays ten cents a week extra on his share until the whole five dollars is paid, and, the day he hands in his last instalment, gets his certificate of stock and twenty-five cents interest; for, ye see, fifty weeks is almost a year, and the directors do it as an encouragement to him.”
“Suppose he pays his five dollars down.”
“So he ought, if he’s got it, and he gets his quarter back again, but only on one share. Sure, it’s not a society for the promotion of avarice that we are.”
“I see. And one share is sufficient to enable a whole family to become patrons.”
“Yes, that is, all who are under age or not self-supporting. We find the young folks eager enough to become shareholders when they begin to work for themselves.”
“I dare say. Ah! there is the wagon you spoke of.”
They had been standing near a window overlooking a large, paved yard, into which, as he spoke, a wagon rattled at storming pace, and simultaneously a side door opened and two or three boys appeared, each bearing a tray full of tin pails. Each pail was marked in large red letters, legible to Mr. Clare at his window, with the name of the mill, factory, or schoolhouse to which it was destined, and a small white ticket just above bore that of the individual to whom it belonged. It was marvellous to see the swiftness and ease with which the loading was accomplished and the boys vanished, even though one of them stopped to “give a back” to the others, who “leap-frogged” over it into the open door.
“Boys will be boys,” said Father McClosky, “and, sure, exercise promotes digestion. Now, that wagon,” pointing to where it had just disappeared, “will be back inside of half an hour, ready to fill any other orders. There’s mighty good things in some of them buckets, let me tell ye. Miss Sally never stints on them. She says they use up what would be wasted, corners of pie and ends of cake and the like, stray apples and oranges, too, and always a kind thought for any poor girl that’s away from home, or a bone-tired teacher, with no one belonging to her.”
“Is Miss Sally one of your heretics?”
“She’s an angel, av she don’t look it! Come, I dare say she’ll let us into the kitchen, although it’s the busy time with them, and ye mustn’t expect a word with her; but it’s worth seeing.”
It proved to be. A large room, about half the size of the dining-hall, was lined on two sides with tables, a third row occupying the middle of the floor, with gangways between every two. Another side of the room showed a line of ranges in full blast. Between fifteen and twenty young people of both sexes were working under the direction of Sally Price, twelve years more gaunt and gray than when we last saw her, but with an alert, wide-awake quickness in her manner very different from the listless, quiet despair that long ago had aroused the sympathy of Dora Metzerott. A cook was in charge of each range, and a sub-cook stood ready to wait upon each. Along the fourth side of the room ran a double row of electric bells, each bearing the number of the table with which it was connected, and at a desk beneath them sat Polly, as pretty, and apparently as young as ever, though now, in truth, nearly in her thirtieth year.
“My friend Mr. Clare, Miss Polly,” said the priest. “He wants to see how you send in a meal at ‘Prices.’ We’ll not disturb annybody.”
Polly smiled, but in a pre-occupied way, and observed, with her eye upon the clock, which was upon the stroke of twelve, that if they didn’t mind the bells ringing over their heads, they could get a good view at that end of the room, and be in nobody’s way.
“The orders are left, and the tables engaged at any time during the morning,” explained the priest; “so when a bell rings, they know exactly who it is, and what he wants. The hour also is specified, and av he comes on time, his dinner is dished and ready.”
“Suppose he comes early, or late?”
“Then he don’t get it until the time, or gets it cold. ‘Prices’ believes in military punctuality.”
As he spoke, the clock struck twelve, and an electric bell sounded.
“Number 25. One!” cried Polly, clearly and distinctly. A brisk-looking girl whisked some dishes on a tray, and started for the door, beside which she paused to receive a celluloid check from a girl who sat at a high desk, with a big book, a box of checks of varying values, and a cash-box before her.
“That’s the cashier,” continued the father, who had paused to mutter an “Ave” while this was occurring. “She looks in her big book for the order belonging to 25, and gives the girl a check according. It’s a ready-money business here. The waiters are all numbered as well as the bells, and take their turn in regular rotation.”
“The discipline is truly military,” observed Mr. Clare.
“Ah! ye’re conversant with Sunday schools, and that’s why ye take notice of the same,” said Father McClosky.
“And who of these are volunteer workers?” asked Ernest Clare, watching closely the busy scene before him.
“All of them are that,” returned the father; “but Miss Sally, Miss Polly, the cashier, treasurer, secretary, and six cooks get regular salaries. The man that drives the wagon is an expressman by trade, and owns his team; he is hired by the year, and, being a stockholder and patron, charges very fairly. As for these girls and boys, they enjoy the work. There are regular relays of them; and these are arranged so as to intersperse work with books and healthful play, according to the rhyme. On Saturdays and Sundays, the teachers and some of the factory hands take their turn at cooking—as sub-cooks, that is—and waiting; and, sure, it’s a great diversion to them, especially the teachers, after using their brains all the week.”
“Rest is really only a change of labor, then, to them?”
“It’s purely voluntary, ye know,” said the priest. “None of them need do a hand’s turn av they don’t like, though I won’t say but what public opinion would have some weight; but those that are weak or sickly Miss Sally looks out for, and won’t let them do a stroke more than is good for them.”
“Miss Sally has it in her power to make or mar everything, it seems to me.”
“Ay! ye come to that, after all, Ernest. Didn’t ye say a while ago that the mainspring of this work was self-interest? Well, ye was wrong. Self-interest is only the balance-wheel; the mainspring is love of our neighbor. We couldn’t keep things going a day but for that. The root of the whole business was Christian charity, and the branches partake of the same life.”
“You have simply helped the growth or lessened the friction by making one’s neighbor’s interests identical, for the most part, with one’s own,” said Ernest Clare.
“As they should be. As long as men are individuals they will have individual interests; but one man’s food and clothing were never meant to be gained at the expense of his neighbor, as we can see when the matter is carried to its ultimate conclusion.”
“As how, for instance?”
“Well, in the case of shipwrecked mariners, or them dirty cannibals that ate one another for pleasure,” said the priest. “Sure, aither of them is only the main principle of our modern civilization stripped of its glittering adjuncts.”
Mr. Clare did not answer. There was a glance in his eye and a quiver at the corner of his mouth, very like amusement; yet he realized in the depths of his great loving heart the awful truth of the picture which his friend had drawn in such quaint colors.
“I think,” he said at last, “that I had rather not be a cannibal, that is—rich.”
The carpenter’s shop, tin-shop, jeweller’s, dry-goods, shoemaker’s, and other shops, were all on the first floor, facing upon some one of the four streets that bounded “Prices.” Above these were the dressmaker’s and milliner’s establishments; but there was little here to notice or describe, as the one distinctive feature of each separate business was, that it was owned by the company and managed by salaried workmen. There was one buying agent for the collective establishment, whose business was to fill the orders, transmitted, through the executive committee, from the heads of departments. These, therefore, while they had plenty of work, had little or no anxiety. Their salaries were secure, and their only care the business of the day. Literally, they took no thought for the morrow.
“We find our shops are very popular among the rich folks at the North End,” said Father McClosky; “they say we give good weight and good measure, and every article just what it professes to be, no less. A man—sure, it’s a Christian he calls himself; and he has a fashionable shoe-store up-town, and was mad at us for under-selling him—and says he to me, ‘So you have adopted the maxim “Honesty is the best policy.” How do you find it works?’ says he. ‘Maxim,’ says I; ‘that’s no maxim at all,’ I says; ‘it’s aither a fact or a lie, and mostly the latter,’ says I; ‘but it ought to be the universal fact that it is with us,—sure, I mean universally the fact that we find it,’ says I.”
“And so it will be, some day.”
“It’s always of a hopeful disposition ye were, Ernest. There’s too much cross-grained selfishness in the world for that day to come soon, I’m thinkin’.”
“I did not say, soon,” replied Ernest Clare quietly. “I do not know when it will come, or how; and there are times when one gets discouraged; but I believe it will come, Bryan. However, I am not ready to talk yet about my own beliefs, hopes, or plans. Is this my door?” for they had now reached the lodging department, where rooms were rented singly or in suites, to individuals or families.
“Sure ye’re pretty high up, but, with an elevator, that’s just as convenient as the ground floor. And there’s a fire-escape just beyond, and mighty handy, in case of need; though, for myself, I’d rather burn up alive like a Christian, than break me neck down one of them things,” said the priest as he applied his key to the door.