The Nine-Tenths

inting in the dawn-whitened sea, risen, indeed, through man into triumphant cities and works, and running like a pulse through his spirit. San Francisco is shattered, and there is d

with an April power that flushes a con

ew exhilarating sense of life; a new creative power that made him eager for action. His heart was cleansed, and with the exquisite

she could only watch him and wonder at the change. He seemed very busy again, and she did not disturb him in these sensitive days of growth; she waited the inevitable time when he would come to her and tell her what he was going to

fade, a nightmare scattered by the radiance of new morning. One could only trust that from those fair and unpolluted bodies had sprung a new wave of human br

g from the burned rubbish proofs and contracts, attend the jury, and help provide for his men. One sunny morning he

exclaimed, "if here ai

ery symbol of Joe's ten years of business. On its side ther

CK

needs good thinking, new ideas (no ma

printery's head-things you would not talk of face to face, as bus

n and write what you think in pl

BL

rty looked

y,

rty?" The big f

you're going to set things up

miled

t know,

e to Mart

llers say? Ah, now, y

ek or two, Marty-t

e to reach the boarding-house for supper and he remembered that John Rann's baby was sick. So he turned and hurried across the golden glamor of Third Avenue, on Eightieth Street, and just beyond climbed up three flights of

der a nicely globed light sat John Rann in his woolen undershirt. John was smoking a pipe and reading the e

John!" s

amiably, a

o you

. Before he had time to rise the two young girls leaped up with shrieks of joy and rushed to Joe. Joe at

ell!" cr

most?" asked th

loves me mo

hey both

father. "Such tomboys they're getti

man, whose pale face was made emphatic by large steel-rimmed glasses that shrank e

," she said, "by the w

oke ea

in, Mrs. Rann, to a

ago come Thanksgiving, and he died like that. But the doctor you sent over is that kind and cut

. Rann to the inner room. In a little crib a youngster, just recovered from co

Johnn

!" cried

purred wi

Uncle Joe. Did you e

med wit

e hasn't forgott

little rubber doll that whistled

appeared b

ou haven't had y

ry!" mutt

fried eggs, browned on both, and a c

laug

shamed to ask for anything home

ed with Mrs. Rann's regard. But Joe was always a favorite with mothers. Possibly because he was so fond of their babies. Possibly because mothers love a good so

ery soon be run

ed Joe, and went out. Bu

hy, joyous life and calling to every man to enlist in the ranks of the creators; and then there was woman, the undying splendor of the world, the beauty that drenches life with meaning and magic, that stirs the elemental in a man, that wakens the race instinct

his work would lead into peril, dirt, disaster, and that he could not ask a delicate, high-strung woman to go with him. The woman coul

clear terror he

again.... I belong

breast for his aching head, she had in her hands a thousand darling household things, she had in her the possibilities of his own children ... who should bring a wind of laughter into his days and a strange domestic tender

hs under the wild and sun-soaked foliage, with many vistas every way of luring mystery, and over all the earth the rich opulent mother-bli

nd read and think and lash himself to a fury of speculation till

e. He sat down and wrote to

you, I must yet wait a little while. B

ur

O

n she r

-Can't I

Y

whole afternoon

yet-

O

erturning, demolishing, almost erasing and contradicting everything that Joe had taken for granted, a

erything, there being more laborers than jobs, or if not, at least recurrent "panics" and "hard times" when the mills and the mines shut down. And these wage slaves had practically no voice in one of the chief things of their life-their work. So millions were penned in places of danger and disease and dirt, lived and toiled

rial center. He poked into the Ghetto, into Chinatown, Greenwich Village, and Little Italy; he peered into jails, asylums, and workhouses; he sneaked through factories and hung

ng into their hands the necessities of life: oil, meat, coal, water-power, wool; seizing on the railroads, those only modern means of social exchange; snatching strings of banks wherein the people's money wa

trial city, the modern mill. The very things that should have set man free, the enormous powers he snatched from nature and harnessed to do his work, powers with the strength of a nation of men-these very things had been

ork was finished the toilers, the millions, would arise and seize the organization and use it thereafter for the good of all. Indeed, this was wha

these lives might grow richer in knowledge, richer in art, richer in health, richer in festival, richer in opportunity, that Joe had dedicated his life. And so arose that wonderful and inexpressible vision-a picture as it were of the far future-a glimpse of an earth singing with uplifted crowds of humanity, on one half of the globe going out to meet the sunrise, on the other, the stars. He heard the music of that Hymn of Human Victory, which from millions of throats lift

the night, and c

oing to help c

lutch of a convulsive child; seized him now and again like a m

ws, he wanted to cry the intimations from the housetops, he wanted to proselytize, convert. He was filled with Shelley's passion for refor

ears of the printery-told him that the world is a complex mix-up, and that there are many visions; mome

ill into action, that would bear him along, whether or no. But what should he do, and how? He was unfitted, and did not think he cared, for settlement work. He knew nothing and cared less fo

nd times better go. He must talk with his mother, he must thresh the matter out with her, he must not delay longer to clear the issue. And yet he hesitated. Would she

nger. He must go to his mother at once, he must tell all. As he walked down the lamp-lit street, under all the starriness of a tranquil autumn nigh

ddle-class associates of the boarding-house, tired, brainless, and full of small talk, the lonesome evenings, the long days. He became more agitated, and climb

n!" she

and the window. The neat, fragrant room seemed to be sleeping, but the clear-eyed, upright woman was very much awake. She glanced up from h

and murmur

osite her, tilting back to accommodate hi

, trying to be care

t," she s

hough her heart was begin

e that was full of leaks, "and thinking...." He leaned forward and spok

y excited, but an

. There are a few decent

rian ... and I have

t on, clumsily, "but

she felt that she could speak no furthe

, mo

ans

the

," d

sounded

I've been doing some thi

es

about ... study

es

you of ... It's-well, I want to do something with my mone

e were smothering. But s

sharply came a dry sob. "And for all th

lliant eyes, and saw only an overgrown, rather ignorant boy. This

ou mean the books

he mu

weakly, "I've been

ooked at her as if she had

uickly. "I found t

felt then that he had nev

to tell you a little about the war....

America, when high literature was in the air, when the poets had great fame and every one, even the business man, was a poet. She had seen or met some of the great men. Once Whittier was pointe

dare

ht with tw

onial house where once Washington had lived; the poet's square room with its round table and its high standing desk in which he sometimes wrote; the sloping lawn; the great trees; and, better than anyt

give up all and go to the front. It was like tearing her own heart in two, and, possibly at a word, Blaine would have remained in Boston and helped in some other way. But she fought it out with him one night on Boston Commons, and she wished then that she was a man and could go herself. On that clear, mild night, the blue luminous tinge of whos

the black and terrible years set in-years in w

skant th

ess dreams hundred

of the battles and pie

h

yon through the smoke

hreds left on the staff

s all splinte

-corpses, my

eletons of young

débris of all the sla

y were not as

re fully at rest,

d and suffer'd, th

e child and the mus

s that remain

s at stake, until finally that day in New York when she saw the remnant returning, marching

s, young, yet very old, worn,

d sick man. Then had followed, as Joe knew, the marriage, the hard pioneer

a right to s

Joe, I ought to understand.... I

where he had been all these years, and how he had been so blind. He felt very young t

the floor, and s

ou send me off,

d scarce

ere

go down in a tenement

said, quietly, "

most adding, "an old woman"

him with the

get the

she should. It was her right, won by years of actual want and struggle and service. More, it was her escape from a flat, stale, meaningless bo

said, in a s

ight,

ed, and mused

ld manage to keep