Mary Minds Her Business Part 29

Mary saw them and they greeted her like old friends. It didn't take long to confirm the news of the strike's extension.

"How many men are out now?" one of them asked.

"About fifteen hundred."

"What are you going to do when you have used up all your local women?"

asked another.

"What would you do?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied. "I guess I'd advertise for women in other cities-cities where they did this sort of thing during the war."

"Bridgeport, for instance," suggested another.

"Pittsburgh--there were a lot of women doing machine work there--"

"St. Louis," said a fourth. "Some of the shops in St. Louis were half full of women--" With the help they gave her, Mary made up a list.

"Even if you could fill the places locally," said the first, "I think I'd get a few women from as many places as possible. It spreads the idea--makes a bigger story--rounds out the whole scheme."

After they had gone Mary sat thoughtful for a few minutes and then returned to the drawing room. When she entered, Helen and Wally were seated on the music bench, and it seemed to Mary that they suddenly drew apart--or if I may express a distinction, that Wally suddenly drew apart while Helen played a chord upon the piano.

"Poor Wally," thought Mary a little later. "I wish he wouldn't look like that when he sings.... Perhaps he feels like I felt this spring.... I wonder if Ma'm was right.... I wonder if people do fall in love with love...."

Her reflections took a strange turn, half serious, half humorous.

"It's like a trap, almost, when you think of it that way," she thought.

"When a man falls in love, he can climb out again and go on with his work, and live his life, and do wonderful things if he has a chance. But when a woman falls in the trap, she can never climb out and live her own life again. I wonder if the world wouldn't be better off if the women had been allowed to go right on and develop themselves, and do big things like the men do....

"I'm sure they couldn't do worse....

"Look at the war--the awfullest thing that ever happened: that's a sample of what men do, when they try to do everything themselves.... But they'll have to let the women out of their traps, if they want them to help....

"I wonder if they ever will let them out....

"I wonder if they ought to come out....

"I wonder...."

To look at Mary as she sat there, tranquil of brow and dreamy-eyed, you would never have guessed that thoughts like these were pa.s.sing through her mind, and later when Helen took Wally into the next room to show him something, and returned with a smile that was close to owners.h.i.+p, you would never have guessed that Mary's heart went heavy for a moment.

"Helen," she said, when their visitor had gone, "do you really love Wally--or are you just amusing yourself?"

"I only wish that Burdon had half his money."

"Helen!"

"Oh, it's easy for you to say 'Helen'! You don't know what it is to be poor.... Well, good-night, beloved--

"Good-night, good-night My love, my own--"

she sang. "I've a busy day ahead of me tomorrow."

Mary had a busy day, too.

Nearly two hundred women responded to her new advertis.e.m.e.nt in the morning, and as many more at noon. Fortunately some of these were familiar with the work, and the most skilful were added to the corps of teachers. In addition to this, new nurses were telephoned for to take care of the rapidly growing nursery, temporary tables were improvised in the canteen, another battery of ranges was ordered from the gas company, and preparations were made for Archey's arrival with the laundry equipment.

Yes, it was a busy day and a busy week for Mary; but somehow she felt a glory in every minute of it--even, I think, as Molly Pitcher gloried in her self-appointed task so many years ago. And when at the close of each day, she locked her desk, she grew into the habit of glancing up and nodding at the portraits on the walls--a glance and a nod that seemed to say, "That's us!"

For myself, I like to think of that long line of Josiah Spencers, holding ghostly consultations at night; and if the spirits of the dead can ever return to the scenes of life which they loved the best, they must have spent many an hour together over the things they saw and heard.

Steadily and surely the places left vacant by the men were filled with women, naturally deft of hand and quick of eye; but the more apparent it became that the third phase of the strike was being lost by the men, the more worried Archey looked--the oftener he peeped into the future and frowned at what he saw there.

"The next thing we know," he said to Mary one day, "every man on the place will walk out, and what are we going to do then?"

She told him of the reporter's suggestion.

"A good idea, too," he said. "If I were you, I'd start advertising in those other cities right away, and get as many applications on file as you can. Don't just ask for women workers. Mention the kind you want: machine tool hands, fixers, tool makers, temperers, finishers, inspectors, packers--I'll make you up a list. And if you don't mind I'll enlarge the canteen, and change the loft above it into a big dining room, and have everything ready this time--"

A few days later Spencer & Son's advertis.e.m.e.nt appeared for the first time outside of New Bethel, and soon a steady stream of applications began to come in.

Although Mary didn't know it, her appeal had a stirring note like the peal of a silver trumpet. It gripped attention and warmed imagination all the way from its first line "A CALL TO WOMEN" to its signature, "Josiah Spencer & Son, Inc. Mary Spencer, President."

"That's the best yet," said Archey, looking at the pile of applications on the third day. "I sha'n't worry about the future half as much now."

"I don't worry at all any more," said Mary, serene in her faith. "Or at least I don't worry about this," she added to herself.

She was thinking of Helen again.

The night before Helen had come in late, and Mary soon knew that she had been with Burdon. Helen was quiet--for her--and rather pale as well.

"Did you have a quarrel?" Mary had hopefully asked.

"Quarrel with Burdon Woodward?" asked Helen, and in a low voice she answered herself, "I couldn't if I tried."

"... Do you love him, Helen?"

To which after a pause, Helen had answered, much as she had spoken before, "I only wish he had half of Wally's money...." And would say no more.

"I have warned her so often," said Mary. "What more can I say?" She uneasily wondered whether she ought to speak to her aunts, but soon shook her head at that. "It would only bother them," she told herself, "and what good could it do?"

Next day at the factory she seemed to feel a shadow around her and a weight upon her mind.

"What is it?" she thought more than once, pulling herself up short. The answer was never far away. "Oh, yes--Helen and Burdon Woodward. Well, I'm glad she's going out with Wally today. She's safe enough with him."

It had been arranged that Wally should drive Helen to Hartford to do some shopping, and they were expected back about nine o'clock in the evening.

But nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock and midnight came--and still no sign of Wally's car.

"They must have had an accident," thought Mary, and at first she pictured this as a slight affair which simply called for a few hours' delay at a local garage--perhaps the engine had overheated, or the battery had failed.