The Fruit of the Tree

claims, the recurring necessity of fresh compromises and adjustments. He hated rant, demagogy, the rash formulating of emotional theories; and his contempt for bad logic and subje

to him one of the great wrongs of the new industrial situation. That the breach must be farther widened by the ultimate substitution of the stock-company for the individual employer--a fact obvious to any student of economic tendencies--presented to Amherst's mind one of the most painful problems in the scheme of social readjustment. But it was characteristic of him to dwell rather on the removal of immediat

ered him a seat at her side, leaving others to follow. This culmination of his hopes--the unlooked-for chance of a half-hour alone with her--left Amherst oppressed with the swiftness of the minutes. He had so much t

in such rich depths of fur, the pearls in her ears have given back the light from such pure curves, if thin shoulders in shapeless gingham had not bent, day in, day out, above the bobbins and carders, and weary ears throbbed even at night with the tumult of the looms. Amherst, however, felt no sensational

hich dismally linked the mill-village to Hanaford. Bessy looked out on the ruts, the hoardings, the starved tre

nd the words called up thrilling memories of his own college days, when he had ridden

glow of understanding. "You

saddle for years. Factory managers d

in his haste to correct this impression he added: "If I regretted anything in my other life, it would certainl

this avowal; but her prompt response showed him, a moment l

nk me very ignorant--my husband and I came here so seldom...I f

uck. "Won't you try to--now you're here? There's

e than displeasure. "I'm very stupid--I've no h

ew leaves out. Financially, I don't suppose your mills could be better run; but there are over seve

in her tone. "I have always understoo

personal rebuff. "Do you leave it to your little

o is put to the trouble of defending her dignity. "Really, I don't see--" she began with distant

Of course I want to do whatever I can. I s

re he went he would have brought this exquisite creature face to face with the wrongs from which her luxuries were drawn, and set in motion the regenerating impulses of indignation and pity. He did not stop to weigh the permanent advantage of this course. His only feeling was that the chance would never again be given him--t

give her even a glimpse of the

k of enquiry, "because later--tomorrow even--I might not have the chance. There are some things--a good many--in the management of the mills that Mr. Truscomb doesn't see as I do. I don't mean business questions: wages and dividends and so on--those are out of my province. I speak merely

is life with his mother; but her self-effacement made him the more alive to his own obligations, and having placed her in a difficult situation he had always been careful not to increase its difficulties by any imprudence in his conduct toward his employers. Yet, grave as these considerations were, they were really less potent than his personal desire to remain at Westmore. Lightly as he had just resolved to risk the chance of dismissal, all his future was bound up in the hope of retaining his place. His heart was in the work at Westmore, and the fear of not being able to get other employment was a small factor in his intense desire to keep his post. What he really wanted was to speak out, and yet escape the consequences: by some miraculous reversal of probability to retain his position and yet effect Truscomb's removal. The idea was so fantastic that he felt it merely as a quickening of all his activities, a tremendous pressure of will along u

o his last appeal, said with a graceful eagerness: "Yes, you must come tonight. I want to hear

t," was the vow he passionately registered as the car

consider, for in another moment the rest of the party had entered the fa

lege had drawn him to the courses least in the line of his destined profession; and it always seized on him afresh when he was face to face with the monstrous energies of the mills. It was not only the sense of power that thrilled him--he felt a beauty in the ordered activity of the whole intricate organism, in the rhythm of dancing bobbins and revolving cards, the swift contin

ruscomb was given to favoritism--shirked the duties of their departments. But it was of the essence of Truscomb's policy--and not the least of the qualities which made him a "paying" manager--that he saved money scrupulously where its outlay would not have resulted in larger earnings. To keep the floors scrubbed, the cotton-dust swept up, the rooms freshly whitewashed and well-ventilated, far from adding the smallest fraction to the quarterly dividends, would have deducted from them the slight cost of this additional labour; and Truscomb therefore economized on scrubbers, sweepe

nt awaited him. He was still under the spell of their last moments in the carriage, when her face and voice had promised so much, when she had seemed so deeply, if vaguely, stirred by his appeal. But as they passed from one resounding room to the o

to a different note, so that while one set of nerves was torn as with pincers by the dominant scream of the looms, others were thrilled with a separate pain by the ceaseless accompaniment of drumming, hissing, grating and crashing that shook the great building. Amherst felt this tumult only as part of the atmosphere o

lk in silence through interminable ranks of meaningless machines, to which the human workers seemed mere automatic appendages, she lost all perception of what the scene meant. He had forgotten, too, that the swift appre

small incisive profile rose before him; but the next moment he caught the light on Mrs. Westmo

nd drive to Mrs. Amherst's, where he might leave her to call while the others were completing their rounds. It was one of Mrs. Ansell's gifts to detect the first symptoms of _ennui_

smile would leave his daughter open to gentler influences. Mr. Tredegar, meanwhile, was projecting his dry glance over the scene, trying to converse by signs

hange of employer was not likely to make any change in their lot: their welfare would probably continue to depend on Truscomb's favour. The men hardly raised their heads as Mrs. Westmore passed; the women stared, but with curiosity rather than interest; and Amherst could not tell whether their sullenness reacted on Mrs. Westmore, or whether they were unconsciously chilled by her indifference. The result was the same: the distance between them seeme

of the buildings, that he might remove his eyes from the face he had so vainly wa

lf-way down its long central passage, when Mr. Tredegar,

a ragged strip of black cloth tied co

who, at Amherst's signal, had attached himself to the party, stop

," he exclaimed, making an ineffectual attemp

on the mills. The more distant workers at once left their posts to catch up the hats and coats heaped untidily in the corner

he token signified, and the sight stirred his pity; but it also jarred o

oes thi

of the hands, a thin bent man with m

at for Dill

exclaimed, while the overseer, drawing out his pen-knife, ripped off the c

er hand; and a deep "That's so" of corro

. Westmore's eyes. "What has happened? What

: a man got caught in the card behind hi

ote of command. "How serious is the ac

--ask the manager," the overseer in

t noticing the overseer's reply, said to Mr. Tredegar: "He's at the

flame the quick passions of the workers: he had meant to make light of the accident, and dismiss the operatives with a sharp word of reproof. But Mrs. Westmore

ble to work again!" she exclaimed, in all the horror of a

ry girlhood. For the first time Mrs. Westmore seemed to feel the bond of blood between herself and these dim creatures of the underworld: as Amherst watched her the lov

does it matter whose fault it was?" she cried, her questions

from the operatives; and suddenly a voice exclaimed "Here's his wife now," and the crowd divided to make way f

guessed the identity of the lady at his side, and flushed up to her haggard forehead. Mrs. Dillon had been good-looking in her earlier yout

t--there ain't a steadier man living. T

ore moved forward with an answering exclamation. "You poor creature...you poor creature...." Sh

"But why are you here? How is it that you have had to leave your children?" She freed herself to turn a repr

red. "The manager took her back to-day at her own request, th

ne indignantly. "Earn so

Mr. Tredegar, who had stepped

--that you will look into the case, and do all you can to alle

m with an appealin

met, "that you had better let me dismiss t

said quietly: "You have heard Mrs. Westmore's promise; now

rm through his; but as he began to move away she t

r. Truscomb," she said in a reassuring whisper; then, through her tears, she smiled a

unfenced grass-plot between the mills and the manager's office. I

d, rousing herself; and as Amherst opened the carriage-door

oo proud of his mother to feel any doubt of the impression she would produce; but what would Mrs. Westmore think of their way of living, of the cheap jauntiness of the cottage, and the smell of cooking penetrating all its thin partitions? Duplain, too, would be coming in for dinner; and Amherst, in spite of his liking for the young overseer, became conscious of a rather overbearing freedom in his manner, the kind of misplaced ease which the new-made American affects as the readiest sign of equality. All these trifles, usually non-existent or supremely indifferent to Am

Mrs. Westmore. He noticed the shabby yellow paint of the palings, the neglected garden of their neighbour, the week's wash flaunting itself indecently through the denuded shrubs about th

ad been washing his hands in the sink was made evident by his rolled-back shirt-sleeves

at the same moment the frowsy maid-of-all-work, crimson from stooping over the kitchen stove, thrust her