when hugh o'hara came to the door of harvey bradley, he was in his best dress—the same that he wore to church on sundays. aunt maria met him on the threshold, and, in tremulous tones, thanked him. then she led the way to the back parlor, where the young superintendent awaited him. the moment he entered, there came a flash of sunshine and a merry exclamation, and with one bound, little dollie (none the worse, apparently, for her adventure the night before) landed in the iron-like arms and kissed the shaggy-bearded fellow, who laughingly took a chair and held her a willing captive on his knee.
harvey sat smiling and silent until the earthquake was over. then, as his chief foreman looked toward him, he said:
"as i said last night, hugh, the service you have done is beyond payment. you know what a storm set in just after dollie was brought home, she never could have lived through that."
"it would have gone hard with her, i'm afraid," replied the embarrassed visitor; "does the little one feel no harm?"
"we observe nothing except a slight cold, which the doctor says is of no account. i have made up my mind to give to you, hugh——"
the latter raised his hand in protest. he could accept money for any service except that of befriending the blue-eyed darling on his knee.
"never refer to that again."
harvey laughed.
"i looked for something of the kind; i have a few words to add. i found out this morning that there was a mortgage of $600 against your little home in the village. i don't believe in mortgages, and that particular one has now no existence. if you see any way to help undo what i have done go ahead, but i beg you not to refuse another small present that i have prepared for you."
and harvey turned as if about to take something from his desk, but stopped when he saw hugh shake his head almost angrily.
"i would do a good deal to oblige you, mr. bradley, but you must not ask that. i would have been better pleased had you let the mortgage alone; my wife and little one are under the sod, and it matters nought to me whether i have a place to lay my head. but," he added with a faint smile, "what's done can't be undone, and, since you have asked me, i will drop the matter, but nothing more, i pray you, on the other subject."
"hugh," said the superintendent, like one who braces himself for a duty that has its disagreeable as well as its pleasant features, "you know that i had sent to vining for men to take the places of those who are on strike?"
"i heard something of the kind, sir."
"they were to start for bardstown to-night and are due to-morrow."
"yes, sir."
"i countermanded the order by telegraph this morning; not a man will come."
"yes, sir."
"the whistle will blow to-morrow as usual, ten minutes before 7 o'clock, and i shall expect every one of you to be in place; i have agreed to your terms."
hugh looked at the superintendent a moment and then asked a singular question:
"is it because i found dollie that you agree to our terms?"
"why do you ask that?"
"because, if that is the reason, i will not accept the terms, for you would be doing out of gratitude an act which your judgment condemned."
harvey bradley felt his respect for this man increase tenfold. such manliness was worthy of all admiration. he hastened to add:
"there's where, i am glad to say, you are in error. now you know as well as i do that in order to keep discipline the employer must insist upon his rights. if he were to give all that is asked his business would be destroyed. but, on the other hand, labor has rights as well as capital, and the two can never get along together until this truth is respected by both. in all disputes, there should be an interchange of views, a full statement of grievances by those who are dissatisfied, and a fair consideration of them by the party against whom they exist."
o'hara was not afraid to look his employer in the face and say:
"that has been my opinion all along, mr. bradley, and had it been yours this lock-out would never have come."
"i admit it. you came to me from the employes and asked for a discussion of the differences between us. i thought you insolent, and refused to listen to you. therein i did you all an injustice, for which i apologize."
"it gives me joy to hear you speak thus, mr. bradley."
"seeing now my mistake, there is but the one course before me. i am convinced that in all cases of trouble like ours the court of first resort should be arbitration. the wish to be just is natural to every one, or at least to the majority of mankind. if the parties concerned cannot agree, they should appeal to those in whom both have confidence to bring about an agreement between them; that is according to the golden rule. employer and employed, labor and capital, should be friends, and arbitration is the agent that shall bring about that happy state of things."
"but i do not see that there has been any arbitration in this dispute."
"but there has been all the same."
"where is the arbitrator?"
"she sits on your knee wondering what all this talk means. i tell you, hugh, there is a good deal more in those little heads than most people think. yesterday morning, when dollie sat in her high chair at the breakfast-table, she heard her aunt and me talking about the strike. though she could not understand it all, she knew there was trouble between me and my employes. i was out of patience and used some sharp words. she listened for a few minutes while busy with her bread and milk, and then what do you think she said?"
"i am sure i have no idea," replied o'hara, patting the head of the laughing child, "but whatever it was, it was something nice."
"she says, 'brother harvey, when i do anything wrong, you take me on your knee and talk to me and that makes me feel so bad that i never do that kind of wrong again. why don't you take those bad men on your knee and talk to them, so they won't do so again?' i showed her that such an arrangement was hardly practicable, and then she fired her solid shot that pierced my ship between wind and water: 'brother harvey, maybe it's you that has done wrong; why don't you sit down on their knees and let them give you a talking to? then you won't be bad any more."
hugh and harvey broke into laughter, during which dollie, who had become tired of sitting still full two minutes, slid off o'hara's knee and ran out of the room.
"we smile at the odd conceits of the little ones," continued harvey, "but you know that the truest wisdom has come from the mouths of babes. i hushed her, but what she said set me thinking—'why don't you let them give you a good talking to?' that was the very thing you had asked and i had refused. i set out to take a long walk, and was absent most of the day. her question kept coming up to me, and i tried to drive it away. the effort made me angry and ended in a decision to be sterner than ever. i would not yield a point; i would import a body of men at large expense and keep them at work, just because i was too proud to undo what i knew was wrong.
"still my conscience troubled me, but for all that i don't think i would have yielded. pride, the greatest of all stumbling-blocks, was in my way. reaching home, i learned that dollie was lost; then, of course, every other thought went from my head. nothing else could be done until she was found."
harvey was about to tell his guest his suspicion that he had had a hand in the abduction of the child, but he was ashamed, and really there was no call for such a confession.
"well, it was you who found her. i repeat that my debt to you can never be paid. and yet i do not believe that that obligation would have led me to yield, where i felt that a principle was at stake. it was the words of dollie, spoken yesterday, that stuck to me. they kept me awake most of the night and played a part in the dreams that i had about her being lost in the woods and eaten up by panthers and all sorts of creatures. when i awoke this morning, the mists had cleared away. i saw my error, and fully made up my mind to do all i could to correct it. i went to the telegraph office before breakfast and sent a message to vining countermanding the order for the men. then i came back and had just finished my meal when a message was brought to my house. odd, wasn't it?"
"i see nothing odd in a telegram for you."
"i mean in the telegram itself."
"i could not answer that unless i saw it."
"of course," said harvey with a laugh, wheeling about in his chair and picking up one of the yellow slips of paper which the western union furnishes its patrons gratis.
"there, read that," he added, passing it to hugh o'hara, who looked at it with no little curiosity.
it was dated in the city of new york and signed by johnson w. bradley, father of harvey, and president of the rollo mills company. this was the body of the telegram:
"don't lose sight of the interests of your men. before hiring other hands try arbitration."
"that is rather odd," said hugh; leaning forward, so as to hand the telegram back to his employer, "but it is sound wisdom all the same."
"undoubtedly; but are you convinced that i agree to your terms not because of gratitude, but because i believe them right?"
"i am satisfied," said hugh; "have you sent the notice to the hands?"
"yes. i wonder that you did not hear of it on the way here."
hugh smiled.
"of course i heard of it. i knew it long ago, but i did not know why you had decided to restore our time to what it was and to pay the same wages; that i have learned from yourself. and now that you have done your part so well," added hugh, rising to leave, "i assure you that we shall do ours; we shall give you the best service we can. no one shall misinterpret your action or try to take advantage of it."
the superintendent was wise enough to avoid a mistake to which persons, placed as was he, are liable—that is, he did not overdo his part. he was so happy over the return of his little sister that he was willing not only to give the old wages and time asked for by his employes, but he felt like adding to them. he meant to make the pay of o'hara greater than before, but changed his purpose at the last moment.
had he added to the pay of his chief foreman it would have changed the ratio between that and the wages of the others, unless theirs, too, was increased. in that event, a reproof was likely to come from the directors, and he would find it hard to retrace his steps.
justice called for him to do just what he had done; it would be weak to do more. "hugh," said he, also rising to his feet, "i am not quite through with you; i am now going to ask you to do me a favor."
"i guess it's safe to promise in advance that i will do it—that is, of course, if it be in my power to do it."
"it is in your power. last night, when i was in the woods near your cabin, i noticed a strange odor in the air; i could not imagine its cause, but i know now what it was."
"what was it?" asked o'hara, turning crimson.
"you and some of your friends have been illicitly making whiskey. you have a distillery somewhere in the mountains, and, while working in the mills during the day, you have taken turns in running the still at night. i will not ask you to tell me how long you have been doing this, but you know as well as i that it is a crime."
the two men were silent a moment and then hugh, without any appearance of agitation, said:
"you have spoken the truth; the still was not more than a hundred feet from the cabin, and caused the smell you noticed."
"how could you three attend to it when you were in the cabin?"
"some one was generally close by. the pipe that carried off the fumes ran into the chimney of our cabin and mixed with the smoke. we took turns in looking after it. tom and i had been there earlier in the evening, and jack was to look in now and then against our coming back. but," added hugh, "you said you had a favor to ask of me."
"so i have; i ask you to destroy that still, root and branch, and never take a hand in anything of the kind again."
"i cannot do that."
"why not? you are engaged in breaking the laws of your country, for which there is a severe penalty. now that you will have steady work, you cannot make the plea that would have been yours if the strike continued. why can't you do as i ask you to do?"
"because it has already been done. after i got back to the cabin last night, tom and jack and i went out and wound up the business. the worm has been thrown down the rocks, where it can never be found, the mash has been scattered to the four winds, and everything smashed to general flinders. it took us nearly to daylight to finish it, but we stuck to it till the job was done."
"i am delighted to hear that, what was the cause of all this?"
"i guess it must have been the little arbitrator," said o'hara, with a smile; "they say that when a man does a bad act he feels like doing others. that may or may not be true, but i know that when a man does a good deed, the impulse to do more is awakened, and whatever good there is in him is strengthened. i have been a bad man; i grew desperate after the death of jennie; but when i held your dollie in my arms it seemed that some of her goodness found its way into my heart. i resolved with the help of heaven to be a better man. the first step toward becoming so was to stop the unlawful work in which i had been engaged only a short time.
"i thought that tom and jack would make trouble, but i didn't care, for i could manage them. to my surprise, however, they seemed to feel just as i did. so they fell to work with a will, and the job couldn't have been done more thoroughly. now, if you will allow me to kiss dollie, who has come back, i will bid you both good day."
harvey bradley shook hands with his visitor, during which he handed him a liberal sum of money for tom hansell, who had taken part in the search for dollie. he sent naught to jack, for he deserved none. then he went with hugh to the outer door, giving him a number of encouraging words on the way.
the whistle of the rollo mills never screeched more cheerily than it did the next morning, and there was never a happier band of employes than the 300, young and old, who took their places again in the works.
a short time afterward harvey bradley opened and furnished a room where the best of reading was given free to all who chose to accept the privilege. still later in the season a night school was started, and the skilled teacher who took charge was liberally paid by the board of directors, who never made a better investment of money.
the interest shown by the superintendent in the welfare of his employes proved to be seed sowed in good ground. all wrought faithfully and well, and when on the 1st of january the balance sheet was made up, lo! the net profits of the rollo mills were greater than ever before.
