Андерсен Ш. Марширующие люди (engl)

ready to renounce my people and my world and to live your life for
your sake." Margaret, standing in the darkness before the huge old
house in Drexel Boulevard, imagined herself with Beaut McGregor--
living with him as his wife in a small apartment over a fish market on
a West Side street. Why a fish market she could not have said.




CHAPTER V


Edith Carson was six years older than McGregor and lived entirely
within herself. Hers was one of those natures that do not express
themselves in words. Although at his coming into the shop her heart
beat high no colour came to her cheeks and her pale eyes did not flash
back into his a message. Day after day she sat in her shop at work,
quiet, strong in her own kind of faith, ready to give her money, her
reputation, and if need be her life to the working out of her own
dream of womanhood. She did not see in McGregor the making of a man of
genius as did Margaret and did not hope to express through him a
secret desire for power. She was a working woman and to her he
represented all men. In her secret heart she thought of him merely as
the man--her man.

And to McGregor Edith was companion and friend. He saw her sitting
year after year in her shop, putting money into the savings bank,
keeping a cheerful front before the world, never assertive, kindly, in
her own way sure of herself. "We could go on forever as we are now and
she be none the less pleased," he told himself.

One afternoon after a particularly hard week of work he went out to
her place to sit in her little workroom and think out the matter of
marrying Margaret Ormsby. It was a quiet season in Edith's trade and
she was alone in the shop serving a customer. McGregor lay down upon
the little couch in the workroom. For a week he had been speaking to
gatherings of workmen night after night and later had sat in his own
room thinking of Margaret. Now on the couch with the murmur of voices
in his ears he fell asleep.

When he awoke it was late in the night and on the floor by the side of
the couch sat Edith with her ringers in his hair.

McGregor opened his eyes quietly and looked at her. He could see a
tear running down her cheek. She was staring straight ahead at the
wall of the room and by the dim light that came through a window he
could see the drawn cords of her little neck and the knot of mouse
coloured hair on her head.

McGregor closed his eyes quickly. He felt like one who has been
aroused out of sleep by a dash of cold water across his breast. It
came over him with a rush that Edith Carson had been expecting
something from him--something he was not prepared to give.

She got up after a time and crept quietly away into the shop and with
a great clatter and bustle he arose also and began calling loudly. He
demanded the time and complained about a missed appointment. Turning
up the gas, Edith walked with him to the door. On her face sat the old
placid smile. McGregor hurried away into the darkness and spent the
rest of the night walking in the streets.

The next day he went to Margaret Ormsby at the settlement house. With
her he used no art. Driving straight to the point he told her of the
undertaker's daughter sitting beside him on the eminence above Coal
Creek, of the barber and his talk of women on the park bench and how
that had led him to that other woman kneeling on the floor in the
little frame house, his fists in her hair and of Edith Carson whose
companionship had saved him from all of these.

"If you can't hear all of this and still want life with me," he said,
"there is no future for us together. I want you. I'm afraid of you and
afraid of my love for you but still I want you. I've been seeing your
face floating above the audiences in the halls where I've been at
work. I've looked at babies in the arms of workingmen's wives and
wanted to see my babe in your arms. I care more for what I am doing
than I do for you but I love you."

McGregor arose and stood over her. "I love you with my arms aching to
close about you, with my brain planning the triumph of the workers,
with all of the old perplexing human love that I had almost thought I
would never want.

"I can't bear this waiting. I can't bear this not knowing so that I
can tell Edith. I can't have my mind filled with the need of you just
as men are beginning to catch the infection of an idea and are looking
to me for clear-headed leadership. Take me or let me go and live my
life."

Margaret Ormsby looked at McGregor. When she spoke her voice was as
quiet as the voice of her father telling a workman in the shop what to
do with a broken machine.

"I am going to marry you," she said simply. "I am full of the thought
of it. I want you, want you so blindly that I think you can't
understand."

She stood up facing him and looked into his eyes.

"You must wait," she said. "I must see Edith, I myself must do that.
All these years she has served you--she has had that privilege."

McGregor looked across the table into the beautiful eyes of the woman
he loved.

"You belong to me even if I do belong to Edith," he said.

"I will see Edith," Margaret answered again.




CHAPTER VI


McGregor left the telling of the story of his love to Margaret. Edith
Carson who knew defeat so well and who had in her the courage of
defeat was to meet defeat at his hands through the undefeated woman
and he let himself forget the whole matter. For a month he had been
trying to get workingmen to take up the idea of the Marching Men
without success and after the talk with Margaret he kept doggedly at
the work.

And then one evening something happened that aroused him. The Marching
Men idea that had become more than half intellectualised became again
a burning passion and the matter of his life with women got itself
cleared up swiftly and finally.

It was night and McGregor stood upon the platform of the Elevated
Railroad at State and Van Buren Streets. He had been feeling guilty
concerning Edith and had been intending to go out to her place but the
scene in the street below fascinated him and he remained standing,
looking along the lighted thoroughfare.

For a week there had been a strike of teamsters in the city and that
afternoon there had been a riot. Windows had been smashed and several
men injured. Now the evening crowds gathered and speakers climbed upon
boxes to talk. Everywhere there was a great wagging of jaws and waving
of arms. McGregor grew reminiscent. Into his mind came the little
mining town and he saw himself again a boy sitting in the darkness on
the steps before his mother's bake shop and trying to think. Again in
fancy he saw the disorganised miners tumbling out of the saloon to
stand on the street swearing and threatening and again he was filled
with contempt for them.

And then in the heart of the great western city the same thing
happened that had happened when he was a boy in Pennsylvania. The
officials of the city, having decided to startle the striking
teamsters by a display of force, sent a regiment of state troops
marching through the streets. The soldiers were dressed in brown
uniforms. They were silent. As McGregor looked down they turned out of
Polk Street and came with swinging measured tread up State Street past
the disorderly mobs on the sidewalk and the equally disorderly
speakers on the curb.

McGregor's heart beat so that he nearly choked. The men in the
uniforms, each in himself meaning nothing, had become by their
marching together all alive with meaning. Again he wanted to shout, to
run down into the street and embrace them. The strength in them seemed
to kiss, as with the kiss of a lover, the strength within himself and
when they had passed and the disorderly jangle of voices broke out
again he got on a car and went out to Edith's with his heart afire
with resolution.

Edith Carson's millinery shop was in the hands of a new owner. She had
sold out and fled. McGregor stood in the show room looking about him
at the cases filled with their feathery finery and at the hats along
the wall. The light from a street lamp that came in at the window
started millions of tiny motes dancing before his eyes.

Out of the room at the back of the shop--the room where he had seen
the tears of suffering in Edith's eyes--came a woman who told him of
Edith's having sold the business. She was excited by the message she
had to deliver and walked past the waiting man, going to the screen
door to stand with her back to him and look up the street.

Out of the corners of her eyes the woman looked at him. She was a
small black-haired woman with two gleaming gold teeth and with glasses
on her nose. "There has been a lovers' quarrel here," she told
herself.

"I have bought the store," she said aloud. "She told me to tell you
that she had gone."

McGregor did not wait for more but hurried past the woman into the
street. In his heart was a feeling of dumb aching loss. On an impulse
he turned and ran back.

Standing in the street by the screen door he shouted hoarsely. "Where
did she go?" he demanded.

The woman laughed merrily. She felt that she was getting with the shop
a flavour of romance and adventure very attractive to her. Then she
walked to the door and smiled through the screen. "She has only just
left," she said. "She went to the Burlington station. I think she has
gone West. I heard her tell the man about her trunk. She has been
around here for two days since I bought the shop. I think she has been
waiting for you to come. You did not come and now she has gone and
perhaps you won't find her. She did not look like one who would
quarrel with a lover."

The woman in the shop laughed softly as McGregor hurried away. "Now
who would think that quiet little woman would have such a lover?" she
asked herself.

Down the street ran McGregor and raising his hand stopped a passing
automobile. The woman saw him seated in the automobile talking to a
grey-haired man at the wheel and then the machine turned and
disappeared up the street at a law-breaking pace.

McGregor had again a new light on the character of Edith Carson. "I
can see her doing it," he told himself--"cheerfully telling Margaret
that it didn't matter and all the time planning this in the back of
her head. Here all of these years she has been leading a life of her
own. The secret longings, the desires and the old human hunger for
love and happiness and expression have been going on under her placid
exterior as they have under my own."

McGregor thought of the busy days behind him and realised with shame
how little Edith had seen of him. It was in the days when his big
movement of The Marching Men was just coming into the light and on the
night before he had been in a conference of labour men who had wanted
him to make a public demonstration of the power he had secretly been
building up. Every day his office was filled with newspaper men who
asked questions and demanded explanations. And in the meantime Edith
had been selling her shop to that woman and getting ready to
disappear.

In the railroad station McGregor found Edith sitting in a corner with
her face buried in the crook of her arm. Gone was the placid exterior.
Her shoulders seemed narrower. Her hand, hanging over the back of the
seat in front of her, was white and lifeless.

McGregor said nothing but snatched up the brown leather bag that sat
beside her on the floor and taking her by the arm led her up a flight
of stone steps to the street.




CHAPTER VII


In the Ormsby household father and daughter sat in the darkness on the
veranda. After Laura Ormsby's encounter with McGregor there had been
another talk between her and David. Now she had gone on a visit to her
home-town in Wisconsin and father and daughter sat together.

To his wife David had talked pointedly of Margaret's affair. "It is
not a matter of good sense," he had said; "one can not pretend there
is a prospect of happiness in such an affair. The man is no fool and
may some day be a big man but it will not be the kind of bigness that
will bring either happiness or contentment to a woman like Margaret.
He may end his life in jail."

* * * * *

McGregor and Edith walked up the gravel walk and stood by the front
door of the Ormsby house. From the darkness on the veranda came the
hearty voice of David. "Come and sit out here," he said.

McGregor stood silently waiting. Edith clung to his arm. Margaret got
up and coming forward stood looking at them. With a jump at her heart
she sensed the crisis suggested by the presence of these two people.
Her voice trembled with alarm. "Come in," she said, turning and
leading the way into the house.

The man and woman followed Margaret. At the door McGregor stopped and
called to David. "We want you in here with us," he said harshly.

In the drawing room the four people waited. The great chandelier threw
its light down upon them. In her chair Edith sat and looked at the
floor.

"I've made a mistake," said McGregor. "I've been going on and on
making a mistake." He turned to Margaret. "We didn't count on
something here. There is Edith. She isn't what we thought."

Edith said nothing. The weary stoop stayed in her shoulders. She felt
that if McGregor had brought her to the house and to this woman he
loved to seal their parting she would sit quietly until that was over
and then go on to the loneliness she believed must be her portion.

To Margaret the coming of the man and woman was a portent of evil. She
also was silent, expecting a shock. When her lover spoke she also
looked at the floor. To herself she was saying, "He is going to take
himself away and marry this other woman. I must be prepared to hear
him say that." In the doorway stood David. "He is going to give me
back Margaret," he thought, and his heart danced with happiness.

McGregor walked across the room and stood looking at the two women.
His blue eyes were cold and filled with intense curiosity concerning
them and himself. He wanted to test them and to test himself. "If I am
clear-headed now I shall go on with the dream," he thought. "If I fail
in this I shall fail in everything." Turning he took hold of the
sleeve of David's coat and pulled him across the room so that the two
men stood together. Then he looked hard at Margaret. As he talked to
her he continued to stand thus with his hand on her father's arm. The
action caught David's fancy and a thrill of admiration ran through
him. "Here is a man," he told himself.

"You thought Edith was ready to see us get married. Well she was. She
is now and you see what it has done to her," said McGregor.

The daughter of the ploughmaker started to speak. Her face was chalky
white. McGregor threw up his hands.

"Wait," he said, "a man and woman can't live together for years and
then part like two men friends. Something gets into them to prevent.
They find they love each other. I've found out that though I want you,
I love Edith. She loves me. Look at her."

Margaret half arose from her chair. McGregor went on. Into his voice
came the harsh quality that made men fear and follow him. "Oh, we'll
be married, Margaret and I," he said; "her beauty has won me. I follow
beauty. I want beautiful children. That is my right."

He turned to Edith and stood staring at her.

"You and I could never have the feeling Margaret and I had when we
looked into each other's eyes. We ached with it--each wanting the
other. You are made to endure. You would get over anything and be
cheerful after a while. You know that--don't you?"

The eyes of Edith came up level with his own.

"Yes I know," she said.

Margaret Ormsby jumped up from her chair, her eyes swimming.

"Stop," she cried. "I do not want you. I would never marry you now.
You belong to her. You are Edith's."

McGregor's voice became soft and quiet.

"Oh, I know," he said; "I know! I know! But I want children. Look at
Edith. Do you think she could bear children to me?"

A change came over Edith Carson. Her eyes hardened and her shoulders
straightened.

"That's for me to say," she cried, springing forward and clutching his
arm. "That is between me and God. If you intend to marry me come now
and do it. I was not afraid to give you up and I'm not afraid that I
shall die bearing children."

Dropping McGregor's arm Edith ran across the room and stood before
Margaret. "How do you know you are more beautiful or can bear more
beautiful children?" she demanded. "What do you mean by beauty anyway?
I deny your beauty." She turned to McGregor. "Look," she cried, "she
does not stand the test."

Pride swept over the woman that had come to life within the body of
the little milliner. With calm eyes she stared at the people in the
room and when she looked again toward Margaret there was a challenge
in her voice.

"Beauty has to endure," she said swiftly. "It has to be daring. It has
to outlive long years of life and many defeats." A hard look came into
her eyes as she challenged the daughter of wealth. "I had the courage
to be defeated and I have the courage to take what I want," she said.
"Have you that courage? If you have take this man. You want him and so
do I. Take his arm and walk away with him. Do it now, here before my
eyes."

Margaret shook her head. Her body trembled and her eyes looked wildly
about. She turned to David Ormsby. "I did not know that life could be
like this," she said. "Why didn't you tell me? She is right. I am
afraid."

A light came into McGregor's eyes and he turned quickly about. "I
see," he said, looking sharply at Edith, "you have also your purpose."
Turning again he looked into the eyes of David.

"There is something to be decided here. It is perhaps the supreme test
of a man's life. One struggles to keep a thought in mind, to be
impersonal, to see that life has a purpose outside his own purpose.
You have perhaps made that struggle. You see I'm making it now. I'm
going to take Edith and go back to work."

At the door McGregor stopped and put out his hand to David who took it
and looked at the big lawyer respectfully.

"I'm glad to see you go," said the ploughmaker briefly.

"I'm glad to be going," said McGregor, understanding that there was
nothing but relief and honest antagonism in the voice and in the mind
of David Ormsby.





BOOK VI



CHAPTER I


The Marching Men Movement was never a thing to intellectualise. For
years McGregor tried to get it under way by talking. He did not
succeed. The rhythm and swing that was at the heart of the movement
hung fire. The man passed through long periods of depression and had
to drive himself forward. And then after the scene with Margaret and
Edith in the Ormsby house came action.

There was a man named Mosby about whose figure the action for a time
revolved. He was bartender for Neil Hunt, a notorious character of
South State Street, and had once been a lieutenant in the army. Mosby
was what in modern society is called a rascal. After West Point and a
few years at some isolated army post he began to drink and one night
during a debauch and when half crazed by the dullness of his life he
shot a private through the shoulder. He was arrested and put on his
honour not to escape but did escape. For years he drifted about the
world a haggard cynical figure who got drunk whenever money came his
way and who would do anything to break the monotony of existence.

Mosby was enthusiastic about the Marching Men idea. He saw in it an
opportunity to worry and alarm his fellow men. He talked a union of
bartenders and waiters to which he belonged into giving the idea a
trial and in the morning they began to march up and down in the strip
of parkland that faced the lake at the edge of the First Ward. "Keep
your mouths shut," commanded Mosby. "We can worry the officials of
this town like the devil if we work this right. When you are asked
questions say nothing. If the police try to arrest us we will swear we
are only doing it for the sake of exercise."

Mosby's plan worked. Within a week crowds began to gather in the
morning to watch the Marching Men and the police started to make
inquiry. Mosby was delighted. He threw up his job as bartender and
recruited a motley company of young roughs whom he induced to practise
the march step during the afternoons. When he was arrested and dragged
into court McGregor acted as his lawyer and he was discharged. "I want
to get these men out into the open," Mosby declared, looking very
innocent and guileless. "You can see for yourself that waiters and
bartenders get pale and stoop-shouldered at their work and as for
these young roughs isn't it better for society to have them out there
marching about than idling in bar rooms and planning God knows what
mischief?"

A grin appeared over the face of the First Ward. McGregor and Mosby
organised another company of marchers and a young man who had been a
sergeant in a company of regulars was induced to help with the
drilling. To the men themselves it was all a joke, a game that
appealed to the mischievous boy in them. Everybody was curious and
that gave the thing tang. They grinned as they marched up and down.
For a while they exchanged gibes with the spectators but McGregor put
a stop to that. "Be silent," he said, going about among the men during
the rest periods. "That's the best thing to do. Be silent and attend
to business and your marching will be ten times as effective."

The Marching Men Movement grew. A young Jewish newspaper man, half
rascal, half poet, wrote a scare-head story for one of the Sunday
papers announcing the birth of the Republic of Labour. The story was
illustrated by a drawing showing McGregor leading a vast horde of men
across an open plain toward a city whose tall chimneys belched forth
clouds of smoke. Beside McGregor in the picture and arrayed in a gaudy
uniform was Mosby the ex-army officer. In the article he was called
the war lord of "The secret republic growing up within a great
capitalistic empire."

It had begun to take form--the movement of the Marching Men. Rumours
began to run here and there. There was a question in men's eyes.
Slowly at first it began to rumble through their minds. There was the
tap of feet clicking sharply on pavements. Groups formed, men laughed,
the groups disappeared only to again reappear. In the sun before
factory doors men stood talking, half understanding, beginning to
sense the fact that there was something big in the wind.

At first the movement did not get anywhere with the ranks of labour.
There would be a meeting, perhaps a series of meetings in one of the
little halls where labourers gather to attend to the affairs of their
unions. McGregor would speak. His voice harsh and commanding could be
heard in the streets below. Merchants came out of the stores and stood
in the doorways listening. Young fellows who smoked cigarettes stopped
looking at passing girls and gathered in crowds below the open
windows. The slow working brain of labour was being aroused.

After a time a few young men, fellows who worked at the saws in a box
factory and others who ran machines in a factory where bicycles were
made, volunteered to follow the lead of the men of the First Ward. On
summer evenings they gathered in vacant lots and marched back and
forth looking at their feet and laughing.

McGregor insisted upon the training. He never had any intention of
letting his Marching Men Movement become merely a disorganised band of
walkers such as we have all seen in many a labour parade. He meant
that they should learn to march rhythmically, swinging along like
veterans. He was determined that the thresh of feet should come
finally to sing a great song, carrying the message of a powerful
brotherhood into the hearts and brains of the marchers.

McGregor gave all of his time to the movement. He made a scant living
by the practice of his profession but gave it no thought. The murder
case had brought him other cases and he had taken a partner, a ferret-
eyed little man who worked out the details of what cases came to the
firm and collected the fees, half of which he gave to the partner who
was intent upon something else. Day after day, week after week, month
after month, McGregor went up and down the city, talking to workers,
learning to talk, striving to make his idea understood.

One evening in September he stood in the shadow of a factory wall
watching a group of men who marched in a vacant lot. The movement had
become by that time really big. A flame burned in his heart at the
thought of what it might become. It was growing dark and the clouds of
dust raised by the feet of the men swept across the face of the
departing sun. In the field before him marched some two hundred men,
the largest company he had been able to get together. For a week they
had stayed at the marching evening after evening and were beginning a
little to understand the spirit of it. Their leader on the field, a
tall square shouldered man, had once been a captain in the State
Militia and now worked as engineer in a factory where soap was made.
His commands rang out sharp and crisp on the evening air. "Fours right
into line," he cried. The words were barked forth. The men
straightened their shoulders and swung out vigorously. They had begun
to enjoy the marching.

In the shadow of the factory wall McGregor moved uneasily about. He
felt that this was the beginning, the real birth of his movement, that
these men had really come out of the ranks of labour and that in the
breasts of the marching figures there in the open space understanding
was growing.

He muttered and walked back and forth. A young man, a reporter on one
of the city's great daily papers, leaped from a passing street car and
came to stand near him. "What's up here? What's this going on? What's
it all about? You better tell me," he said.

In the dim light McGregor raised his fists above his head and talked
aloud. "It's creeping in among them," he said. "The thing that can't
be put into words is getting itself expressed. Something is being done
here in this field. A new force is coming into the world."

Half beside himself McGregor ran up and down swinging his arms. Again
turning to the reporter who stood by a factory wall--a rather
dandified figure he was with a tiny moustache--he shouted:

"Don't you see?" he cried. His voice was harsh. "See how they march!
They are finding out what I mean. They have caught the spirit of it!"

McGregor began to explain. He talked hurriedly, his words coming forth
in short broken sentences. "For ages there has been talk of
brotherhood. Always men have babbled of brotherhood. The words have
meant nothing. The words and the talking have but bred a loose-jawed
race. The jaws of men wabble about but the legs of these men do not
wabble."

He again walked up and down, dragging the half-frightened man along
the deepening shadow of the factory wall.

"You see it begins--now in this field it begins. The legs and the feet
of men, hundreds of legs and feet make a kind of music. Presently
there will be thousands, hundreds of thousands. For a time men will
cease to be individuals. They will become a mass, a moving all-
powerful mass. They will not put their thoughts into words but
nevertheless there will be a thought growing up in them. They will of
a sudden begin to realise that they are a part of something vast and
mighty, a thing that moves, that is seeking new expression. They have
been told of the power of labour but now, you see, they will become
the power of labour."

Swept along by his own words and perhaps by something rhythmical in
the moving mass of men McGregor became feverishly anxious that the
dapper young man should understand. "Do you remember--when you were a
boy--some man who had been a soldier telling you that the men who
marched had to break step and go in a disorderly mob across a bridge
because their orderly stride would have shaken the bridge to pieces?"

A shiver ran over the body of the young man. In his off hours he was a
writer of plays and stories and his trained dramatic sense caught
quickly the import of McGregor's words. Into his mind came a scene on
a village street of his own place in Ohio. In fancy he saw the village
fife and drum corps marching past. His mind recalled the swing and the
cadence of the tune and again as when he was a boy his legs ached to
run out among the men and go marching away.

Filled with excitement he began also to talk. "I see," he cried; "you
think there is a thought in that, a big thought that men have not
understood?"

On the field the men, becoming bolder as they became less self-
conscious, came sweeping by, their bodies falling into a long swinging
stride.

The young man pondered. "I see. I see. Every one who stood watching as
I did when the fife and drum corps went past felt what I felt. They
were hiding behind a mask. Their legs also tingled and the same wild
militant thumping went on in their hearts. You have found that out,
eh? You mean to lead labour that way?"

With open mouth the young man stared at the field and at the moving
mass of men. He became oratorical in his thoughts. "Here is a big
man," he muttered. "Here is a Napoleon, a Caesar of labour come to
Chicago. He is not like the little leaders. His mind is not sicklied
over with the pale cast of thought. He does not think that the big
natural impulses of men are foolish and absurd. He has got hold of
something here that will work. The world had better watch this man."

Half beside himself he walked up and down at the edge of the field,
his body trembling.

Out of the ranks of the marching men came a workman. In the field
words arose. A petulant quality came into the voice of the captain who
gave commands. The newspaper man listened anxiously. "That's what will
spoil everything. The men will begin to lose heart and will quit," he
thought, leaning forward and waiting.

"I've worked all day and I can't march up and down here all night,"
complained the voice of the workman.

Past the shoulder of the young man went a, shadow. Before his eyes on
the field, fronting the waiting ranks of men, stood McGregor. His fist
shot out and the complaining workman crumpled to the ground.

"This is no time for words," said the harsh voice. "Get back in there.
This is not a game. It's the beginning of men's realisation of
themselves. Get in there and say nothing. If you can't march with us
get out. The movement we have started can pay no attention to
whimperers."

Among the ranks of men a cheer arose. By the factory wall the excited
newspaper man danced up and down. At a word of command from the
captain the line of marching men again swept down the field and he
watched them with tears standing in his eyes. "It's going to work," he
cried. "It's bound to work. At last a man has come to lead the men of
labor."




CHAPTER II


John Van Moore a young Chicago advertising man went one afternoon to
the offices of the Wheelright Bicycle Company. The company had both
its factory and offices far out on the west side. The factory was a
huge brick affair fronted by a broad cement sidewalk and a narrow
green lawn spotted with flower beds. The building used for offices was
smaller and had a veranda facing the street. Up the sides of the
office building vines grew.

Like the reporter who had watched the Marching Men in the field by the
factory wall John Van Moore was a dapper young man with a moustache.
In his leisure hours he played a clarinet. "It gives a man something
to cling to," he explained to his friends. "One sees life going past
and feels that he is not a mere drifting log in the stream of things.
Although as a musician I amount to nothing, it at least makes me
dream."

Among the men in the advertising office where he worked Van Moore was
known as something of a fool, redeemed by his ability to string words
together. He wore a heavy black braided watch chain and carried a cane
and he had a wife who after marriage had studied medicine and with
whom he did not live. Sometimes on a Saturday evening the two met at
some restaurant and sat for hours drinking and laughing. When the wife
had gone to her own place the advertising man continued the fun, going
from saloon to saloon and making long speeches setting forth his
philosophy of life. "I am an individualist," he declared, strutting up
and down and swinging the cane about. "I am a dabbler, an experimenter
if you will. Before I die it is my dream that I will discover a new
quality in existence."

For the bicycle company the advertising man was to write a booklet
telling in romantic and readable form the history of the company. When
finished the booklet would be sent out to those who had answered
advertisements put into magazines and newspapers. The company had a
process of manufacture peculiar to Wheelright bicycles and in the
booklet this was to be much emphasised.

The manufacturing process in regard to which John Van Moore was to wax
eloquent had been conceived in the brain of a workman and was
responsible for the company's success. Now the workman was dead and
the president of the company had decided that he would take credit for
the idea. He had thought a good deal of the matter and had decided
that in truth the notion must have been more than a little his own.
"It must have been so," he told himself, "otherwise it would not have
worked out so well."

In the offices of the bicycle company the president, a grey gross man
with tiny eyes, walked up and down a long room heavily carpeted. In
reply to questions asked by the advertising man, who sat at a table
with a pad of paper before him, he raised himself on his toes, put a
thumb in the armhole of his vest and told a long rambling tale of
which he was the hero.

The tale concerned a purely imaginary young workman who spent all of
the earlier years of his life labouring terribly. At evening he ran
quickly from the shop where he was employed and going without sleep
toiled for long hours in a little garret. When the workman had
discovered the secret that made successful the Wheelright bicycle he
opened a shop and began to reap the reward of his efforts.

"That was me. I was that fellow," cried the fat man who in reality had
bought his interest in the bicycle company after the age of forty.
Tapping himself on the breast he paused as though overcome with
feeling. Tears came into his eyes. The young workman had become a
reality to him. "All day I ran about the little shop crying 'Quality!
Quality!' I do that now. It is a fetish with me. I do not make
bicycles for money but because I am a workman with pride in my work.
You may put that in the book. You may quote me as saying that. A big
point should be made of my pride in my work." The advertising man
nodded his head and scribbled upon the pad of paper. Almost he could
have written the story without the visit to the factory. When the fat
man was not looking he turned his face to one side and listened
attentively. With a whole heart he wished the president would go away
and leave him alone to wander in the factory.

On the evening before, John Van Moore had taken part in an adventure.
With a companion, a fellow who drew cartoons for the daily papers, he
had gone into a saloon and there had met another man of the
newspapers.

In the saloon the three men had sat until late into the night drinking
and talking. The second newspaper man--that same dapper fellow who had
watched the marchers by the factory wall--had told over and over the
story of McGregor and his Marchers. "I tell you there is something
growing up here," he had said. "I have seen this McGregor and I know.
You may believe me or not but the fact is that he has found out
something. There is an element in men that up to now has not been
understood--there is a thought hidden away within the breast of
labour, a big unspoken thought--it is a part of men's bodies as well
as their minds. Suppose this fellow has figured that out and
understands it, eh!"

Becoming more and more excited as he continued to drink the newspaper
man had been half wild in his conjectures as to what was to happen in
the world. Thumping with his fist upon a table wet with beer he had
addressed the writer of advertisements. "There are things that animals
know that have not been understood by men," he cried. "Consider the
bees. Have you thought that man has not tried to work out a collective
intellect? Why should man not try to work that out?"

The newspaper man's voice became low and tense. "When you go into a
factory I want you to keep your eyes and your ears open," he said. "Go
into one of the great rooms where many men are at work. Stand
perfectly still. Don't try to think. Wait."

Jumping out of his seat the excited man had walked up and down before
his companions. A group of men standing before the bar listened, their
glasses held half way to their lips.

"I tell you there is already a song of labour. It has not got itself
expressed and understood but it is in every shop, in every field where
men work. In a dim way the men who work are conscious of the song
although if you talk of the matter they only laugh. The song is low
harsh rhythmical. I tell you it comes out of the very soul of labour.
It is akin to the thing that artists understand and that is called
form. This McGregor understands something of that. He is the first
leader of labour that has understood. The world shall hear from him.
One of these days the world shall ring with his name."

In the bicycle factory John Van Moore looked at the pad of paper
before him and thought of the words of the half drunken man in the
saloon. In the great shop at his back there was the steady grinding
roar of many machines. The fat man, hypnotised by his own words,
continued to walk up and down telling of the hardship that had once
confronted the imaginary young workman and above which he had risen
triumphant. "We hear much of the power of labour but there has been a
mistake made," he said. "Such men as myself--we are the power. Do you
see we have come out of the mass? We stand forth."

Stopping before the advertising man and looking down the fat man
winked. "You do not need to say that in the book. There is no need of
quoting me there. Our bicycles are being bought by workingmen and it
would be foolish to offend them but what I say is nevertheless true.
Do not such men as I, with our cunning brains and our power of
patience build these great modern organisations?"

The fat man waved his arm toward the shops from which the roar of
machinery came. The advertising man absentmindedly nodded his head. He
was trying to hear the song of labour talked of by the drunken man. It
was quitting time and there was the sound of many feet moving about
the floor of the factory. The roar of the machinery stopped.

Again the fat man walked up and down talking of the career of the
labourer who had come forth from the ranks of labour. From the factory
the men began filing out into the open. There was the sound of feet
scuffling along the wide cement sidewalk past the flowerbeds.

Of a sudden the fat man stopped. The advertising man sat with pencil
suspended above the paper. From the walk below sharp commands rang
out. Again the sound of men moving about came in through the windows.

The president of the bicycle company and the advertising man ran to
the window. There on the cement sidewalk stood the men of the company
formed into columns of fours and separated into companies. At the head
of each company stood a captain. The captains swung the men about.
"Forward! March!" they shouted.

The fat man stood with his mouth open and looked at the men. "What's
going on down there? What do you mean? Quit that!" he bawled.

A derisive laugh floated up through the window.

"Attention! Forward, guide right!" shouted a captain.

The men went swinging down the broad cement sidewalk past the window
and the advertising man. In their faces was something determined and
grim. A sickly smile flitted across the face of the grey-haired man
and then faded. The advertising man, without knowing just what was
going on felt that the older man was afraid. He sensed the terror in
his face. In his heart he was glad to see it.

The manufacturer began to talk excitedly. "Now what's this?" he
demanded. "What's going on? What kind of a volcano are we men of
affairs walking over? Haven't we had enough trouble with labour? What
are they doing now?" Again he walked up and down past the table where
the advertising man sat looking at him. "We'll let the book go," he
said. "Come to-morrow. Come any time. I want to look into this. I want
to find out what's going on."

Leaving the office of the bicycle company John Van Moore ran along the
street past stores and houses. He did not try to follow the Marching
Men but ran forward blindly, filled with excitement. He remembered the
words of the newspaper man about the song of labour, and was drunk
with the thought that he had caught the swing of it. A hundred times
he had seen men pouring out of factory doors at the end of the day.
Always before they had been just a mass of individuals. Each had been
thinking of his own affairs and each man had shuffled off into his own
street and had been lost in the dim alleyways between the tall grimy
buildings. Now all of this was changed. The men did not shuffle off
alone but marched along the street shoulder to shoulder.

A lump came also into the throat of this man and he like that other by
the factory wall began to say words. "The song of labour is here. It
has begun to get itself sung!" he cried.

John Van Moore was beside himself. The face of the fat man pale with
terror came back into his mind. On the sidewalk before a grocery store
he stopped and shouted with delight. Then he began dancing wildly
about, startling a group of children who with fingers in their mouths
stood with staring eyes watching.




CHAPTER III


All through the early months of that year in Chicago, rumours of a new
and not understandable movement among labourers ran about among men of
affairs. In a way the labourers understood the undercurrent of terror
their marching together had inspired and like the advertising man
dancing on the sidewalk before the grocery were made happy by it. Grim
satisfaction dwelt in their hearts. Remembering their boyhoods and the
creeping terror that invaded their fathers' houses in times of
depression they were glad to spread terror among the homes of the rich
and the well-to-do. For years they had been going through life
blindly, striving to forget age and poverty. Now they felt that life
had a purpose, that they were marching toward some end. When in the
past they had been told that power dwelt in them they had not
believed. "He is not to be trusted," thought the man at the machine
looking at the man at work at the next machine. "I have heard him talk
and at bottom he is a fool."

Now the man at the machine did not think of his brother at the next
machine. In his dreams at night he was beginning to have a new vision.
Power had breathed its message into his brain. Of a sudden he saw
himself as a part of a giant walking in the world. "I am like a drop
of blood running through the veins of labour," he whispered to
himself. "In my own way I am adding strength to the heart and the
brain of labour. I have become a part of this thing that has begun to
move. I will not talk but will wait. If this marching is the thing
then I will march. Though I am weary at the end of the day that shall
not stop me. Many times I have been weary and was alone. Now I am a
part of something vast. This I know, that a consciousness of power has
crept into my brain and although I be persecuted I shall not surrender
what I have gained."

In the offices of the plough trust a meeting of men of affairs was
called. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the movement going
on among the workers. At the plough works it had broken out. No more
at evening did the men shuffle along, like a disorderly mob but
marched in companies along the brick-paved street that ran by the
factory door.

At the meeting David Ormsby had been as always quiet and self-
possessed. A halo of kindly intent hung over him and when a banker,
one of the directors of the company, had finished a speech he arose
and walked up and down, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.
The banker was a fat man with thin brown hair and delicate hands. As
he talked he held a pair of yellow gloves and beat with them on a long
table at the centre of the room. The soft thump of the gloves upon the
table made a chorus to the things he had to say. David motioned for
him to be seated. "I will myself go to see this McGregor," he said,
walking across the room and putting an arm about the shoulder of the
banker. "Perhaps there is as you say a new and terrible danger here
but I do not think so. For thousands, no doubt for millions of years,
the world has gone on its way and I do not think it is to be stopped
now.

"It has been my fortune to see and to know this McGregor," added David
smiling at the others in the room. "He is a man and not a Joshua to
make the sun stand still."

In the office in Van Buren Street, David, the grey and confident,
stood before the desk at which sat McGregor. "We will get out of here
if you do not mind," he said. "I want to talk to you and I would not
like being interrupted. I have a fancy that we talk out of doors."

The two men went in a street car to Jackson Park and, forgetting to
dine, walked for an hour along the paths under the trees. The wind
from the lake had chilled the air and the park was deserted.

They went to stand on a pier that ran out into the lake. On the pier
David tried to begin the talk that was the object of their being
together but felt that the wind and the water that beat against the
piling of the pier made talk too difficult. Although he could not have
told why, he was relieved by the necessity of delay. Into the park
they went again and found a seat upon a bench facing a lagoon.

In the presence of the silent McGregor David felt suddenly embarrassed
and awkward. "By what right do I question him?" he asked himself and