“You never took a better contract, sir, than when you agreed to keep Margaret’s basket filled.  It is an investment in real estate—­hereafter.”

“I hope so,” answered Mr. Slocum, “and I know it’s a good thing now.”

Of the morals of Stillwater at this time, or at any time, the less said the better.  But out of the slime and ooze below sprang the white flower of charity.

The fifth day fell on a Sabbath, and the churches were crowded.  The Rev. Arthur Langly selected his text from St. Matthew, chap. xxii, v. 21:  “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.”  But as he did not make it quite plain which was Caesar,—­the trades-union or the Miantowona Iron Works,—­the sermon went for nothing, unless it could be regarded as a hint to those persons who had stolen a large piece of belting from the Dana Mills.  On the other hand, Father O’Meara that morning bravely told his children to conduct themselves in an orderly manner while they were out of work, or they would catch it in this world and in the next.

On the sixth day a keen observer might have detected a change in the atmosphere.  The streets were thronged as usual, and the idlers still wore their Sunday clothes, but the holiday buoyancy of the earlier part of the week had evaporated.  A turn-out on the part of one of the trades, though it was accompanied by music and a banner with a lively inscription, failed to arouse general enthusiasm.  A serious and even a sullen face was not rare among the crowds that wandered aimlessly up and down the village.

On the seventh day it required no penetration to see the change.  There was decidedly less good-natured chaffing and more drunkenness, though Snelling had invoked popular contumely and decimated his bar-room by refusing to trust for drinks.  Bracket had let his ovens cool, and his shutters were up.  The treasury of the trades-union was nearly drained, and there were growlings that too much had been fooled away on banners and a brass band for the iron men’s parade the previous forenoon.  It was when Brackett’s eye sighted the banner with “Bread or Blood” on it, that he had put up his shutters.

Torrini was now making violent harangues at Grimsey’s Hall to largely augmented listeners, whom his words irritated without convincing.  Shut off from the tavern, the men flocked to hear him and the other speakers, for born orators were just then as thick as unripe whortleberries.  There was nowhere else to go.  At home were reproaches that maddened, and darkness, for the kerosene had given out.

Though all the trades had been swept into the movement, it is not to be understood that every workman was losing his head.  There were men who owned their cottages and had small sums laid by in the savings-bank; who had always sent their children to the district school, and listened themselves to at least one of Mr. Langly’s sermons or one of Father O’Meara’s discourses every Sunday.  These were anchored to good order; they neither frequented the bar-room nor attended the conclaves at Grimsey’s Hall, but deplored as deeply as any one the spirit that was manifesting itself.  They would have returned to work now—­if they had dared.  To this class belonged Stevens.