« le,” agreed the superintendent, ic Wald EER. Bows BY P. GRAY M LET US BE KIND TO EACH OTHER. We are basking to-day in prosperity’s smile And have ceased our political strife ; ; Come, let us forget, if we can for awhile The roughness and harshness of life. If we've more than enough 1ét us give from our store To the neighbor whose larder is bare. And let us be thankful, we who have no more Than enough to eat and to wear. Let us cultivate love, put all hatreds away, And urge with the tongue and the pen That the motto for all on our next Christmas ay = Be, ‘Peace and good will toward men.” Dear Banta Claus, I've got to go To bed—it’s late you see— So listen, please, for you must know Just what to bring to me. I want a pair of skates, a knife, A pony that can trot ; I want a nice big drum and fife, And all the books you've got. I want a kite, with miles of string, And several Christmas trees 3 But when you come this year don’t bring Another baby, please. em —————— MR. RUTHVEN'S BLACK-LIST. BY OCTAVE THANET. The superintendent had written him that the strike was broken, and he had come down to see for himself. The _ day before Christmas to a man whose family is in Europe is 2 mockery, and he could run over to his sister's that same evening, He was ready to start the works, and be bad enough applica- tions sent to him from men outside and from the strikers themselves to open any day that he wished. He had orders enough for a beginning ; indeed, they were beginning to press a little, and he did not like ruuning his other plant (which had not struck) night and day. So he had decided (as was his habit to decide) quickly, had taken the train, landed four hours later in the little Illinois town, and, ten minutes after his feet touched the platform, was in the office, his top-coat off, his elbow on a desk, and his eyes busy not only with the pile of type-written papers, but with every detail in the room and every flicker of expression on Barclay's face. David Ruthven had not made a for- tune before he was forty without learn- ing to eee a great many more things than were held up for his view. “So you think the strikers are sick of it, do you ?'* said he, smoothing his mustache. Ie was only forty-eight, but it was already gray—almost as gray as his thick short hair. "‘Dead-sick,” eaid the superinten- d .t “Do you think there is much actual suffering here 2" “I don’t think there is much starv- ing or freezing ; I think there are a good many houses where they are keeping up only one fire, ard have, maybe, only one real meal a day.” While he spoke the superintendent smiled in an embarrassed way ; he was a new man, who had come in since the strike—a man with a gift for improve. ments in machinery, who had risen from the ranks himself. This position had been a great advancement to him, and he was risking it by his plain speaking : but he did not cuta word : he only looked frightened. To his sar- prise, Ruthven smiled—eso0 warm and pleasant a smile that it transformed the manufacturer's keen impassive face ag if an electric light had flashed it out, Barclay recalled how he had been told that Ruthven’s few close friends had an enthusiastic affection for him. “I used to live on a meal a day once about Christmas time,” the rich man was saying, with the unconscious melt- ing of the voice thathappens in the re- counting of the vanished and conquer- ed trials of youth. “I wenttwo weeks once on a meal a day, and without an overcoat, but I brought back my moth- er the last payment on our house, and she had an overcoat ready for me that she had made herself. I never shall have an overcoat 88 warm as that was.’ He checked an involuntary sigh, thinking but not saying that this happened the year before his mother died ; she bad not lived to know his prosperity, and he never ceased to re- gret it. He continued in a different tone : “I started in, a lad in an office, at a dollar and seventy-five cents a week and keep myself. I was glad to get it, too ! But to get back to busi- ness : I guess they will come back fast enough if you blow the whistle Tues- day and tell them to come up and ap- ply ; if they don’t we can fill up the works with new men and teach them a lesson.” “Perhaps they'll come back. I hope eo,” said the superintendent. “It's a awful thing for several -hundred men to be out of work, and winter coming on. Will—will you let them all come back ?” “Hardly,” said Ruthven. “These fellows think they can strike and put me in a hole, and theo, when they are tired of doing nothing, come back as if nothing had bappened. Well, they can't Not one of their committee— not a man that made speecher—"" “I know they were abusive,” the sua- perintendent began ; but Ruthven cut him short with : “I don’t care a rap for that ; I'd have been flayed about as badly if I ran for Congress. It’s a matter of busi- ness with me. I want to make myself safe in‘the future. And I don’t mean any busybodies or committees shall run my business for me. I've got a list here—I'll show it to you before I ‘£0. Not one of thcse men, mind! Now, how about the plans for protecting the new men ? I sent them to you, You think the police force ample?” “Quite ample ; there'll be no troub- “Bat any- it isn’t likely they'll make much, there never was a decenter set of how 3 men than we have, and that's a fact, | i by an attraction stronger than he had Mr. Ruthven. And Davis has kept them very steady. He's trying to get Vol. 10 BE STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION. LLEFONTE, PA., DEC. 20, 1895. NO. 50._ them to declare the strike off now and take their chances with you—" “But he’s the chairman ; it’s Aa- thony Davis, isn't it ? He must know he can’t get back.” “He don’t expect it, sir. He's sent his wife home to her folks, and he is going to go off in search of a job as 800n as the strike is over. You don’t think it would be possible to forgive Tony? He is a fine fellow, and a splendid blacksmith.” “Heli have the better chance of a job, then,” said Ruthven, rising and shrugging himself into this great-coat. “There were two or three of the com- mittee, particularly Finnerty and Ve- sey, I know, didn’t approve of the strike—" “Why did they give in, then ? no use, Barclay—it’s settled.” “Yes, sir,” said Barclay, mildly. But in a second, as Ruthven reached the door, he ventured, “If you knew the men as | have learned to know them, sir—"" “That wouldn't make any difference. Good-by ; I'm going to see the town a little by myself.” Barclay looked after him, a slim, erect figure, walking with the firm, light step of a young man, and he sighed. “Confound it! I didn’t do a bit of good,” said he; “maybe made him madder !" There were no traces of anger, how- ever, on the president's countenance as he moved down the street. Zoar was not a familiar town to him. The factory was newly established— barely two years old; and Ruthven’s knowledge of the place was no more than could be gleaned in walks from the station to the shops and .from the shops back to the station. He looked about with a degree of fresh interest, deciding the town to have a grim leok, with ite leafless maples, and its raw hill-sides sliced down to the level of the streets. Factory chimneys bristled on the river bank. Thesmoke volley- ed out of the near ones; but down to the left was a dismally clean group, above which the brilliant western sun had not a stain—his own. He had taken the main street, the principal business channel of the town. Was it It's his fancy that the little shops were not J 80 gay as in former years? There was | the customary Christmas garniture in the windows ; the mistletoe and holly trimmings, and the grotesque figures of the good old saint; but there seemed more fowls and fewer turkeys sprawling stiff yellow legs in the grocers’ win- dows ; the toys were cheaper, though they made a brave display, and the butcher shops did not crowd the side- walks as he remembered. There was, too, an abnormal look about the streets: | they were too full of men for the hour, Neither did the men look cheerful, as befitted the season. lessly through the streets, their hands in their pockets, and their shoulders | under their thin coats hunched with | the chill. There was no snow on the ground—in its place a stiffening black | mud that made the shoes of the dreary | crowd shapeless and ugly, and drab- bled the sidewalks and the floors of the stores. And Ruthven coticed that the people did not stumble under a cheer. ful burden of bundles, but carried very few. The men looked sullen, and the women’s faces were sharp and anxious. They cheapened the toys and fruits in shrill voices, complaining incessantly of the hard times. Ruthven found himself listening to one colloquy, himselt sheltered by a great fir tree : “Well, all I ask is to keep out of debt,” said one man ; “it’s terrible to be in debt. I don't owe anything, but I'm on my last five dollars. I spent two of it, too. My wife says, let the children have a good time—" “They are the only ones, then,” a red-faced man interrupted, violently, “and not all them ; 1 got four to my house, and not a bite for them tomor- row," “All the same I seen you coming out of Jerry's place yesterday,” a woman who stood close to the first speaker struck in, “and ‘twas past walking de- cent you was!” “I got me drunk for nothin’, then ; eo what harm did it do the children 2” the man demanded, sulkily. “Ye know well, Mrs. Finnerty, I'd wint widout me beer if I couldn't git it on credit—" “Ard that’s so, too,” the woman agreed, mollified; “but don’t git so down-hearted, and don’t try to cheer up with whiskey, if it is free, for it will be leaving the headache for you and the heartache for your wife the next morning ; and they're free tov, God knows | “Say, Michael, you come with Finnerty and me ; come home | We've a chicken more’n we want, and Tony's left ye some potatoes and onions. I seen him. Come /ome.” “Yes,” said Finnerty, slipping his big laud into the man’s arm ; “she’s right—come home.” “I won't take your chicken, then,’ cried the man ; but he choked in the middle ot his denials, and rubbed his sleeve over his eyes. And they led him away. “Them Finnertys do be charitable people,” one of the bystanders obsery- ed to another ; “and it ain’t much they got theirselves by now, I'm thinking.” “That's so,” said the other. Ruthven waited, chained to the 8pot ever felt in any theatre. Presently all They drifted aim- the people went, except a man and a woman. He was a big fellow, with a clean-shaven square jaw that contra dicted the mildness of his gray eye. His clothes were patched and shabby. She was neatly dressed and a comely woman, but she looked tired and thin. When they drev Ruthven’s attention she was counting over some nickles in the palm of her hand. “Twenty for the butter, and five for candy”—Ruth- ven could make out the words distinct- ly—*Jim don’t you think we could do jest as well with fifteen cents’ worth of butter, and: have ten cents for the candy? It'll be all we can do for the children !” The man seemed to agree, and they entered the store together, Ruthven following. Not for the first time that afternoon he wished that he could give something, but he did not dare. He did manage in this case to have a pri- vate word with the grocer’s clerk,which resulted in an astonishingly bountiful measure and some oranges for the children. “We're going to give oranges to the kids to-day,” said the clerk, with a broad smile. So they were, after that visit of Ruthven's. He took a vast interest in the ami- able stratagem. and reported to Ruth- ven (whom he did not recognize) con- fidentislly, over ‘the candy-barrel: “Yes, they were pretty glad to buy a little on credit—all only come to eighty- five cents ; there’s the memorandum. When they pay up, I'll send it in stamps to you. I wouldn't ask for the cash if I was sure the man would git back. Name's Vesey, and I know him. Houest, sober man, aud if he only gets back he'll pay every cent in- side of three months,” “I guess he'll get back,” said Ruth. ven. “And Finnerty, too.” But the latter eentence was not said aloud. “Fraid oot,” muttered the grocers clerk ; “he’s on the committee. Say, will you give me your address, so's I can return that money ?"’ “Oh, I'll be back,” Ruthven answer- ed, careleasly, as he left the store. He walked for an hour. He listened in butchers’ shops and in bakers’, hear- ing plenty of blunt criticism of him: gelf, but more broken ends of tales of suffering and patience and the poor | helping the poor, as they always have j belped. He heard more than one of | his former men asking that things ' might be “charged,” with a choke in | bis voice, and the cringe of a horse ex | pecting a blow in his eyes. “Heard tell you'd shut down on cred- it,” said a man, sauntering up to a butcher's block with an elaborately careless swagger. “Well, you got it straight,” the butcher stopped whistliog to answer. “I'm as sorry’s the next one for the boys ; but 1 can’t help ’em by failing, and that's what'll happen if I can't! pay up myself." “That's right,” eaid the man, ab- | sently drawing figures on the greasy slab with his thumb nail ; “but —8ay, you ’ain’t got no job of cutting wood or--anything that you'd let mighty low for a roast of pork for to-morrow 9” “I'm sorry,” said the butcher, “but [ ‘aint.’ “Well, good-afternoon, then,” said | the man ; “jest thought I'd. ask you, that’s all.” And he slouched out of the door. In the street Ruthven saw him standing, his hands in his pock- ets, looking drearily about him, as if he were trying to think where he could apply next. : “And I haven't the face to go up to bim and offer him a dollar,” said Ruth- ven. “I wonder, is secon the commit- te€ too?” He roused himself with an effort. “It does make a difference knowing the men,” be muttered ; ‘but why, why will they let themselves be fooled by these Cheap Jacks of labor lead ers?" With that he went off rapidly to- wards a livery-stable, where, in the baste that money can always com. mand, he wag given a dazzling new buggy and a big black horse. For more than an hour he drove rapidly through the countrr roads about the town, his thoughts climbing an obscure and rugged path to a new . point of view. The strike orators were wont to arraign Ruthven asa “cold: blooded arisiocrat.” He was neither an aristocrat nor cold-blooded. Like many very rich men, he hated ostenta- tion, and kept the simple tastes of his youth ; and be had a secret, carefully guarded, self-willed warmth of heart, often impelling him to erratic and ex- pensive bits of kindness. The ice in his relations with his men came not from his temperament, but from the ignorance that circumstances had in- flicted on him. He had risen from the ranks, but it was in the office and not at the beach. He had none of that intimate sympathy which the working: man’s comrade acquires as unconscious- ly as he acquires his hard hands. Ruthven treated his workmen precisely as he treated any men ot whom he bought goods. He bought labor as he bought wood or iron, at the best bar- gain he could make, but willing to pay the highest price for the best article. To pay wages promptly and to keep his word comprised the whole duty of an employer, to his thinking. = He could not afford to pay the wages de: manded by the men, 80 he let them strike, and viewed the defeat that he had foreseen with a little tingle of com- placency. “I'll rub it into those fel- lows,” he said to himself on the train : “they won’t strike on me again in a hurry.” But after his few hours of mingling with the men he was not so sure of his own mind; the working man as a husband and father and veighbor was so different from the working-man as a striker. *The bur- den of his thoughts slipped out in a single sentence uttered as he turned his horse’s head: ‘Yes, Barclay knows them better than I ; I guess the central committee will make enough examples !” . He was oun one of the bleak hill- sides near the factory district. The highway ran along the top of the hill; below were the river filled with float: ing ice and the marsh streaked by sleek black pools of ice, and overgrown with reddishbrown underbrush, like rust on a knife blade. Lean shadows of trees lay across the gray road, and melted into the larger and darker shadows of the hills. ~The electric lights had sprung up, and glared whitely over patches of the road, and red lamps were lighted in the small houses among the hills. Ruthven had none too much time to return and catch his train. But on the beels of this thought there rose a din of mingled rage and supplication from the ravine. Only one word, amid howls and curses, was distinct ; that word was “Scab,” and it was strong enough to get Ruthven out of the buggy and over the hill in an instant. Fodr men were pommel- ling a writhing and yelling heap on the ground. At Kuthven’s shout the heap struggled to its knees, lifiing a face from which the blood was stream. ing, and begged : “Oh, don’t kill me, boys ; 1 got six children—my wife, she is sick—ob, don’t! oh, don’t I” “ll blow your brains out, the whole crowd of you, if you hit him again I” roared Rathven ; and then slipped on an unseen patch of ice among the weeds and literally rolled down on them. He got on to his knees; he did not try to rige further, for an ugly pain stabbed his ankle, and he knew better than to test it ; but, cool as ever, he glanced aleng the shining barrel of his revol- ver. The other men—they were really boys—fell back; bat the leader, scream- ing, “I don’t care a——for your pop made & savage rush. Ruthven’s finger was ou the trigger, yet ye held his fire, for at this moment another maa plung- ed down the hill and fell upon the boys, hitting right aud left, and using his heels with as much agility and vig: | or as his flsts. The fury of his on- slaught more than his blows sent them scattering. Then he ran nimbly to Ruthven’s assailant, whom be clutch- ed by the collar, crying, “Don’t you fire, mister ;” aad in the same breath, addressing the man, “Thank me and the Lord for saving your life, Tom Brady, and more shame to you being in such a mess.” “That's Ruthven,” said the other sul- lenly, but making no attempt at resist- ance ; “I want to lick him!” The new-comer turned on Ruthven a perfectly calm, rather surprised, but not in the least abashed stare. His brows met heavily, and he looked back ccn- temptuously at the speaker. “Drinking agein!” said he; “and you with tke making of such a man in you! You ought to go home and kick yourself.” “I ain’t drunk, and I’m going to lick ” “Lick nobodv !’’ retorted the inter- ferer, whom, for some reason —certainly not his size, since he was a slim man and rather short—the other seemed to Ton with respect under all his brava- o. “You am’t dead gutfer-drunk, but you ain’t sober, or you could see you haven’t a show ; he'd shoot ycu dead before you can bit him a clip, you fool !”’ “Let him ; I wisht he would !” “And you’ve been doing up Lars Larson, too,” continued the reprover. “He was scabbing,” began the man. “What if he was? you ain’t no call to interfere and hit him! I told you this strike would be lost if you did that way | Say” — addressing Ruthven— “what’s the matter with you 2 He spoke with respect, but it was the respect of a working man, which has not many outward forms, not of the personal service to which Ruthven was accustomed. Ruthven himself, howev- er, was feeling red hot pincers in his ankle, and his only desire now was to get back to the office and his train. “I guess vou’ll have to let me help you,” said the man ; ‘you look as if you'd sprained your ankle. Here, Lars, you can’t find them teeth ; quit hunting for them, and help Mr. Ruthven up.” “Maybe they’d grow again if I could find ’em,” begged Lars, indistinctly, still groping ; but on a second call he rose, and helped the speaker lift Ruth- ven to his feet. “Only get me back to my buggy and I shail be all right,’” said Ruthven. He pulled ous his purse. “I don’t want your money,” said the little man roughly. “I mean I'm much obliged, but I ain’t done noth- ing.” Larson, however, with a shamed lcok/took the bank-note that Ruthven tendered. “You won’t ?’ said Ruthven, smil- ing. The man shook his head. ‘Then I'll haveto ask you to help me for nothing,” said Ruthven, smiling again but with a little grimace of pain. Lean- ing on the two men, he was helped up the hill. It wasa climb that sent the blood to his head with the hideous pain of it. The drops stood on his white Ruthven, “I ought to forehead, and his hair was wet. Nev- ertheless, he made no sign beyond the deadly whiteness that succeeded the flush. > “I know we're hurtin’ you awful,” said Lars. “You look jest like Jimmy Wickers did when he spilled the iron on him, and /%e never hollered.” “Jimmy was a sandy man,” said Ruthven, rather grimly. “We're almost up,” said the other Woman. “Now—where’s your bug- gy?” Horse and buggy were gone; but Ruthven merely shrugged his shoulders. “It was too much to expect of the horse to wait,” he said. The question now is, what to do.” The man had been knitting his brows. “I don’t see anything for it,”’ said he, a trace of sullenness in his manner, ‘‘but for you to come to my house and wait till Larson can run over to town for the doctor. You'll have to excuse the house ; my wife’s away—and houses don’t keep so well when the woman’s gone, you know.” “My wife’s away too,” said Ruthven. “It’s a nuisance having your wife away Christmas, isn’t it 2” “Yes, it is,” said the other ; and then he looked at Ruthven with quite a dif- ferent expression. “Lean on me a lit- tle harder, sir,” he said. Ruthven no- ticed the sir” ; he had not used it before. “Before I go to your house,” said know your name.’’ “Don’t you know ?” said the man, with a flip of the eye-brow quite inde- scribable. “I'm Tony Davis.” Beyond a quick glance at Tony, and a slight shifting of his weight to Lar’s shoulder, Ruthven gave no sign of sur- prise. ‘‘He’s thinking can he hobble off with Lars, and he’s made up his mind he can’t,’ thought Tony. Really Ruthven was uneasily con- scious of a little slip of paper in his breast pocket—a slip headed by Tony’s name. : Tony gave Lars minute directions about finding a doctor and a carriage, and Lars went off on a trot. “I guess he won’t stop to hunt for his teeth,” Tony remarked, assisting Ruth- ven to an open gate near by. ‘Lars ain’t so bad, but he's chicken-hearted.” “You men don’t think much of a scab, do you ?”’ said Ruthven. “No, sir. - Well, you don’t think much of a man, do you, that lets other fellers do the fighting for him, and if they win takes the good, and if they fail Ze don’t get hurt, but makes it all | the harder he can for them that’s fight- ing for him ?* “Humph ! I don't call that a fair way to put it,” said Ruthven. ‘We think that a man bas a right to compete with us in business. If we can undersell him we do, but we don’t slug him or beat bim because he can undersell us.” The sentence ended in a little shiver of pain ; and Tony, secing this, threw open the dcor and let Ruthven enter. It was a little brown house with green blinds, wedged against the side of a hill the wreck of a flower garden in front. The room that they entered was chilly, but the flowered cushion in the big arm chair and the red curtains at the win- dow gave a look of comfort, especially after Tony had set the fire smouldring in the base-burner to blaze and had lighted the lamp. “This is a pretty room,” said Ruth- ven. “Ain’t it ?” said Tony brightening. “My wife made them frames out of pine cones, and she pressed them au- tumn leaves in the corner. That's a tidy she worked. Thirmms. don’t look like they do when she’s hothé.” He made Ruthven sit down in the arm-chair, while he bathed the ankle and bandaged it ; and Ruthven uneasily watched him tearing up what he was sure was a shirt in good repair to furn- ish the bandages. Tke relief, however, was so great that he did not speak a word, but leaned back to close his eyes and sigh. Tony looked at the face laid back in his chair. face, with its iron-gray hair and clear complexion—the face of a man, Tony dimly recognized, who lived cleanly and wisely. And that one man who did not look cruel, thought the striker, drearily, could keep five hundred men cold and bungry and heavy-hearted all winter. But he put aside his thoughts, and went into the kitchen adjoining, from which presently came the crackle of burning wood, then a welcome fragrance. The coffee was cheap, and there was boiled milk instead of cream, but never had coffee tasted so delicious to Ruthven sinco his boyhood. He drained the cup. “That’s good,” said he. Tony had tendered his refreshment with certain misgivings. Suppose the boss should scorn the coffee? Coffee was not plentiful with Tony, and he was giving away his Christmas’s sup- ply ic an Arab fashion to his guest. “Never mind,” thought Tony ; “I can drink it myself if he won't” But he smiled outright as he saw the satisfac- tion on Ruthven’s face, and pressed a second cup on him. Then he recom- mended a smoke, and proffered —unless Mr. Ruthven preferred a cigar. “Sorry I ain’t an extra pipe better than this,” said he handing overa clay pipe. “Take one of my cigars in exchange,” said Ruthven ; and directly the presi- dent was pufling a clay pipe, and the strikers’ chairman, with deep gravity, smoking one of Ruthven’s Regalias. They smoked in silence, until sud- denly a perception of the situation struck both in a flash, and they both laughed. “It is queer, isn’t it ?’’ said Ruthven. “Well, I was thinking that myself,” i It was a handsome | A EASIER said Tony. “And I tell you the other thing I was thinking. Says I, ‘Now here’s the boss sitting right in my house and me opposite him; now it’s a chance for him as well as me, though maybe he don’t guess it. I can tell him fair and square about the men, and he can find out more than he can get in - a year, or a doz2n years, of just hearing reports.’ “Well, I guess your're right there,” said Ruthven, “and if you are willing there are some things I'd like to ask. In the first place, you know this strike is-a failure, don’t you—or are you still expecting to. win ?” “No,” said Tony ; I know we’re beat. I’ve been trying to get the boys to come back for a while. Well, some of them know they can’t get ‘back them- selves, and they want to make a big fight, hoping somehow they will win enough to squeeze in.” tBut you know better ?”’ £Oh, yes, I know there ain’t a chance for any of us, and I told the fellers so ; but I don’t believe you’d keep more'n the committee out.” ; “Neither do I, Davis.” Tony nodded, and drew a long breath. Ruthven went on : ““Lel’s start fair Da- vis, and have no misunderstandings. I know you're the head of the committee, and T didn’t intend to let you come back ; but do you suppose I would ever have smoked this’ —taking out his pipe and making a gesture with it—if I badn’t changed my mind ?” The blood rushed to Tony’s brow ; he caught his breath with a jerk. “Come, now, would you? would you drink a man’s coffee and smoke his to- bacco, and then say no to him when he comes around for a job ?” “I would not, then,” said Tony. “Well, don’t you think I can be as decent ag you ? Your old place is ready for you, Davis, if you will come round for it next week, when we open ; and I know you’lldo what you can to get the boys to declare the strike off, and that— you’ll stay with them till they do.” “How doyou know that, sir?” said Tony, in a low voice. “Well, knowing something of you, I guess. Now, you see, we are really on the same side, Tony, and let’s get to work. I have enough applications to start up - without any of the old men, only I want to give them a chance.” “You'd rather we’d come back, sir, wouldn’t you, or—don’t you care 2 “I would very much rather, Davis.” “Tony sounds more natural, sir. Well, I'm glad of that. I'll tell the boys. They are thinking you didn’t care a rap whether they starved or not; that’s why Tom there was so mad at you. He said, too, that you’d—you’d make the men give up the union.” Ruthven shrugged his shouiders. “The union’s a dead cock in the pit; why should I kick it ? But, Tony, why did you strike? You knew I couldn’t pay the wages you asked.” “Well, sir, it was like this . We was afraid the wages was going down furth- er ; and so we struck, not expecting, of course, to get the wages we asked for, but wanting to have a basis of com- promise—like the man asks more fora horse than he expects to get, you know.” “And how’’—Ruthven raised himself up cn one elbow for the question—‘‘how would you have liked me to have pro- posed a bigger cut than I meant to make, for nothing but to be able to raise a httle 2” “Not at all, sir,”” admitted Tony. Then he added : “I guess we made a mistake ; but the cut was too big, and thai’s a fact, Then the way the bosses distributed the cut, it made it worse ; they would take on men who was their own friends that didn’t understand the work, and you know very well, sir, that one man who don’t know the ropes can put the whole work of the shop back.” “Well; I offered to redress any shop grievances if they were brought to me, but yol struck and didn’t give us time—" “That was where we wade the mis- take, sir ; but you see, Monday Nolan was laid off, and Tuesday Hay was laid off =’ “They weren't discharged ; they were - leid off simply, and because there was no work for them to do.” “Yes, sir ; but, you see, the men be- lieved that was only a pretext, and Gaines he comes over and works the men up—"' an “Yes, Gaines is secretary of the trades-union association of the town, a politician, and a shyster of a lawyer. You fellows always choose such bad advisers.” “We thought he meant well,” said Tony, with a sigh. “Fact is, sir, there's so few eympathizes with labor," that if anybody gives us a kind word, we are that grateful we hate to think he's a liar !" Rutbven smoked thoughtfully, and Tony went on with more freedom. “We done the best we could about keeping order,” said he, “but a strike’s a poor business that way ; it sorter brings out all the mad in men, and the decent fellers stay at home, and the ripsuorting young lads that don't know what they do want -go howling about and raising Cain! And it ain't in nature for men to stand being be- trayed ; we agreed to stand together and not try for ourselves till the strike was settled ; but pretty soon the money began to give out, aod then you ask them to send in their names if they wanted to go back to work, and we be- gan to be suspecting each other. I don't know how they got onto Lars writing ; I knew it, but I wasn’t going to tell on the cre'tur ; he’s a wife and six children—seven dreadful good ex- cuses for scabbing. Bat that Tom Brady, be’s that worried be takes to drink. You see, sir, he eaved up woney and he bought him a house and paid for it, aud was living in good circumstances, you may say, when this come, and being straightened for money, the poor man let's his insur ance policy slip, and his house burned down last week but one ; and he’s his wife and his family, and no house, and no money coming in, and all his bit of money saved up gone, and so he’s bitter thinking you to blame, and he takes to drink and gets wild. And them boye—Well, gir, boys is the hardest of all to manage in a strike— young tellers that are all for fight and hurrah, and really mean no harm, but (Concluded on page +.)
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers