Part 27

He struck hard on his chisel and a spark flew. A workman, an Italian, laughed.

"That's arll-rright, Jim--fire up!"

"You kape shet," growled McCann. He was unfriendly as a rule to the Dagos. "It's in me blood," was his only excuse.

"An' if it's a firin' ye be after," he continued, "ye'll get it shurre if ye lave off workin' to warm up yer tongue wid such sass.--Shut thim doors!" he shouted again; but a gust of wind failed to carry his voice in the desired direction.

In the swirling roar and the small dust-spout that followed in its wake, Jim and the workmen in his cold section were aware of a man who had been half-blown in with the whirling dust. He took shelter for a moment by the inner wall. The foreman saw him and recognized him for the man who, the manager had just telephoned, was coming over from the office. He came forward to meet him.

"You're the man who has just taken on a job in Shed Number Two?"

"Yes."

The foreman signed to one of the men and told him to bring an extra set of tools.

"Here's your section," he said indicating McCann's; "you can begin on this block--just squaring it for to-night."

The man took his tools with a "Thank you," and went to work. The others watched him furtively, as Jim told Maggie afterwards "from the tail of me eye."

He knew his work. They soon saw that. Every stroke told. The doors were shut at last and the electric lights turned on. Up to the stroke of four the men worked like automatons--_chip-chip-chipping_. Now and then there was some chaffing, good-natured if rough.

The little Canuck, who by dint of running had caught the car, was working nearby. McCann called out to him:

"I say, Antwine, where you'd be after gettin' that cap with the monkey ears?"

"Bah gosh, Ah have get dis à Mo'real--at good marché--sheep." He stroked the small skin earlaps caressingly with one hand, then spat upon his palm and fell to work again.

"Montreal is it? When did you go?"

"Ah was went tree day--le Père Honoré tol' mah Ah better was go to mon maître; he was dead las' week."

"Wot yer givin' us, Antwine? Three days to see yer dead mater an' lavin' yer stiddy job for the likes of him, an' good luck yer come back this afternoon or the new man 'ud 'a' had it."

"Ah, non--ah, non! De boss haf tol' mah, Ah was keep mah shob. Ah, non--ah, non. Ah was went pour l'amour de Père Honoré."

"Damn yer lingo--shpake English, I tell you."

Antoine grinned and shook his head.

"Wot yer givin' us about his Riverince, eh?"

"Le Père Honoré, hein? Ah-h-h-rr, le bon Père Honoré! Attendez--he tol' mah Ah was best non raconter--mais, Ah raconte you, Shim--"

"Go ahead, Johnny Frog; let's hear."

"Ah was been lee'l garçon--lee'l bébé, no père; ma mère was been--how you say?--gypsee à cheval, hein?" he appealed to McCann.

"You mane a gypsy that rides round the counthry?"

Antoine nodded emphatically. "Yah--oui, gypsee à cheval, an' bars--"

"Bears?"

"Mais oui, bruins--bars; pour les faire dancer--"

"You mane your mother was a gypsy that went round the counthry showin' off dancin' bears?"

"Yah-oui. Ah mane so. She haf been seek--malade--how you say, petite vérole--so like de Père Honoré?" He made with his forefinger dents in his face and forehead.

"An' is it the shmall pox yer mane?"

"Yah-oui, shmall pookes. She was haf it, an' tout le monde--how you say?--efferybodyee was haf fear. She was haf nottin' to eat--nottin' to drrink; le Père Honoré was fin' her in de bois--forêt, an' was been tak' ma pauvre mère in hees ahrms, an' he place her in de sugair-house, an' il l'a soignée--how you say?" He appealed to the Italian whose interest was on the increase.

"Nurrsed?"

"Yah--oui, nurrsed her, an' moi aussi--lee'l bébé'--"

"D' yer mane his Riverince nursed you and yer mother through the shmall pox?" demanded McCann. Several of the workmen stopped short with hammers uplifted to hear Antoine's answer.

"Mais oui, il l'a soignée jusqu'à ce qu'elle was been dead; he l'a enterrée--place in de terre--airth, an' moi he haf place chez un farmyer à Mo'real. An' le Père Honoré was tak' la petite vérole--shmall pookes in de sugair-house, an' de farmyer was gif him to eat an' to drrink par la porte--de door; de farmyer haf non passé par de door. Le Père Honoré m'a sauvé--haf safe, hein? An' Ah was been work ten, twenty, dirty year, Ah tink. Ah gagne--gain, hein?--two hundert pièces. Ah been come to de quairries, pour l'amour de bon Père Honoré qui m'a safe, hein? Ah be très content; Ah gagne, gain two, tree pièces--dollaires--par jour."

He nodded at one and all, his gold half-moon earrings twinkling in his evident satisfaction with himself and "le bon Père Honoré."

The men were silent. Jim McCann's eyes were blurred with tears. The thought of his own six-months boy presented itself in contrast to the small waif in the Canada woods and the dying gypsy mother, nursed by the priest who had christened his own little Billy.

"It's a bad night for the lecture," said a Scotchman, and broke therewith the emotional spell that was holding the men who had made out the principal points of Antoine's story.

"Yes, but Father Honoré says it's all about the cathedrals, an' not many will want to miss it," said another. "They say there's a crowd coming down from the quarries to-night to hear it."

"Faith, an' it's Mr. Van Ostend will be after havin' to put on an a trailer to his new hall," said McCann; "the b'ys know a good thing whin they see it, an' we was like to smother, the whole kit of us, whin they had the last pitchers of them mountins in Alasky on the sheet. It's the stairioptican that takes best wid the b'ys."

The four o'clock whistle began to sound. Three hundred chisels and hammers were dropped on the instant. The men hurried to the doors that were opened their full width to give egress to the hastening throngs. They streamed out; there was laughing and chaffing; now and then, among the younger ones, some good-natured fisticuffs were exchanged. Many sought the electrics to The Gore; others took the car to The Corners. From the three sheds, the power-house, the engine-house, the office, the dark files streamed forth from their toil. Within fifteen minutes the lights were turned out, the watchman was making his first round. Instead of the sounds of a vast industry, nothing was heard but the _sz-szz-szzz_ of the vanishing trams, the sputter of an arc-light, the barking of a dog. The gray twilight of a bleak March day shut down rapidly over frozen field and ice-rimmed lake.

V

Champney Googe left the shed with the rest; no one spoke to him, although many a curious look was turned his way when he had passed, and he spoke to no one. He waited for a car to Flamsted. There he got out. He found a restaurant near The Greenbush and ordered something to eat. Afterwards he went about the town, changed almost beyond recognition. He saw no face he knew. There were foreigners everywhere--men who were to be the fathers of the future American race. A fairly large opera house attracted his attention; it was evidently new. He looked for the year--1901. A little farther on he found the hall, built, so he had gathered from the few words among the men in the sheds, by Mr. Van Ostend. The name was on the lintel: "Flamsted Quarries Hall." Every few minutes an electric tram went whizzing through Main Street towards The Bow. Crowds of young people were on the street.

He looked upon all he saw almost indifferently, feeling little, caring little. It was as if a mental and spiritual numbness had possession of every faculty except the manual; he felt at home only while he was working for that short half-hour in the shed. He was not at ease here among this merry careless crowd. He stopped to look in at the windows of a large fine shop for fruits and groceries; he glanced up at the sign:--"Poggi and Company."

"Poggi--Poggi" he said to himself; he was thinking it out. "Luigi Poggi--Luigi--Ah!" It was a long-drawn breath. He had found his clew.

He heard again that cry: "Champney,--O Champney! what has he done to you!" The night came back to him in all its detail. It sickened him.

He was about to turn from the window and seek the quiet of The Bow until the hall should be open--at "sharp seven" he heard the men say--when a woman passed him and entered the shop. She took a seat at the counter just inside the show-window. He stood gazing at her, unable to move his eyes from the form, the face. It was she--Aileen!

The sickening feeling increased for a moment, then it gave place to strange electric currents that passed and repassed through every nerve. It was a sensation as if his whole body--flesh, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, every lobe of his brain, every cell within each lobe, had been, as the saying is of an arm or leg, "asleep" and was now "coming to." The tingling sensation increased almost to torture; but he could not move. That face held him.

He must get away before she came out! That was his one thought. The first torment of awakening sensation to a new life was passing. He advanced a foot, then the other; he moved slowly, but he moved at last. He walked on down the street, not up towards The Bow as he had intended; walked on past The Greenbush towards The Corners; walked on and on till the nightmare of this awakening from a nearly seven-years abnormal sleep of feeling was over. Then he turned back to the town. The town clock was striking seven. The men were entering the hall by tens and twenties.

He took his seat in a corner beneath the shadow of a large gallery at the back, over the entrance.

There were only men admitted. He looked upon the hundreds assembled, and realized for the first time in more than six years that he was again a free man among free men. He drew a long breath of relief, of realization.

At a quarter past seven Father Honoré made his appearance on the platform. The men settled at once into silence, and the priest began without preface:

"My friends, we will take up to-night what we may call the Brotherhood of Stone."

The men looked at one another and smiled. Here was something new.

"That is the right thought for all of you to take with you into the quarries and the sheds. Don't forget it!"

He made certain distinct pauses after a few sentences. This was done with intention; for the men before him were of various nationalities, although he called this his "English night." But many were learning and understood imperfectly; it was for them he paused frequently. He wanted to give them time to take in what he was saying. Sometimes he repeated his words in Italian, in French, that the foreigners might better comprehend his meaning.

"Perhaps some of you have worked in the limestone quarries on the Bay? All who have hold up hands."

A hundred hands, perhaps more, were raised.

"Any worked in the marble quarries of Vermont?"

A dozen or more Canucks waved their hands vigorously.

"Here are three pieces--limestone, marble, and granite." He held up specimens of the three. "All of them are well known to most of you. Now mark what I say of these three:--first, the limestone gets burned principally; second, the marble gets sculptured principally; third, the granite gets hammered and chiselled principally. Fire, chisel, and hammer at work on these three rocks; but, they are all _quarried_ first. This fact of their being quarried puts them in the Brotherhood--of Labor."

The men nudged one another, and nodded emphatically.

"They are all three taken from the crust of the earth; this Earth is to them the earth-mother. Now mark again what I say:--this fact of their common earth-mother puts them in the Brotherhood--of Kin."

He took up three specimens of quartz crystals.

"This quartz crystal"--he turned it in the light, and the hexagonal prisms caught and reflected dazzling rays--"I found in the limestone quarry on the Bay. This," he took up another smaller one, "I found after a long search in the marble quarries of Vermont. This here," he held up a third, a smaller, less brilliant, less perfect one--"I took out of our upper quarry after a three weeks' search for it.

"This fact, that these rocks, although of different market value and put to different uses, may yield the same perfect crystal, puts the limestone, the marble, the granite in the Brotherhood--of Equality.

"In our other talks, we have named the elements of each rock, and given some study to each. We have found that some of their elements are the basic elements of our own mortal frames--our bodies have a common earth-mother with these stones.

"This last fact puts them in the Brotherhood--of Man."

The seven hundred men showed their appreciation of the point made by prolonged applause.

"Now I want to make clear to you that, although these rocks have different market values, are put to different uses, the real value for us this evening consists in the fact that each, in its own place, can yield a crystal equal in purity to the others.--Remember this the next time you go to work in the quarries and the sheds."

He laid aside the specimens.

"We had a talk last month about the guilds of four hundred years ago. I asked you then to look upon yourselves as members of a great twentieth century working guild. Have you done it? Has every man, who was present then, said since, when hewing a foundation stone, a block for a bridge abutment, a corner-stone for a cathedral or a railroad station, a cap-stone for a monument, a milestone, a lintel for a door, a hearthstone or a step for an altar, 'I belong to the great guild of the makers of this country; I quarry and hew the rock that lays the enduring bed for the iron or electric horses which rush from sea to sea and carry the burden of humanity'?--Think of it, men! Yours are the hands that make this great track of commerce possible. Yours are the hands that curve the stones, afterwards reared into noble arches beneath which the people assemble to do God reverence. Yours are the hands that square the deep foundations of the great bridges which, like the Brooklyn, cross high in mid-air from shore to shore! Have you said this? Have you done it?"

"Ay, ay.--Sure.--We done it." The murmuring assent was polyglot.

"Very well--see that you keep on doing it, and show that you do it by the good work you furnish."

He motioned to the manipulators in the gallery to make ready for the stereopticon views. The blank blinding round played erratically on the curtain. The entire audience sat expectant.

There was flashed upon the screen the interior of a Canadian "cabin." The family were at supper; the whole interior, simple and homely, was indicative of warmth and cheerful family life.

The Canucks in the audience lost their heads. The clapping was frantic. Father Honoré smiled. He tapped the portrayed wall with the end of his pointer.

"This is comfort--no cold can penetrate these walls; they are double plastered. Credit limestone with that!"

The audience showed its appreciation in no uncertain way.

"The crystal--can any one see that--find that in this interior?"

The men were silent. Father Honoré was pointing to the mother and her child; the father was holding out his arms to the little one who, with loving impatience, was reaching away from his mother over the table to his father. They comprehended the priest's thought in the lesson of the limestone:--the love and trust of the human. No words were needed. An emotional silence made itself felt.

The picture shifted. There was thrown upon the screen the marble Cathedral of Milan. A murmur of delight ran through the house.

"Here we have the limestone in the form of marble. Its beauty is the price of unremitting toil. This, too, belongs in the brotherhoods of labor, kin, and equality.--Do you find the crystal?"

His pointer swept the hierarchy of statues on the roof, upwards to the cross on the pinnacle, where it rested.

"This crystal is the symbol of what inspires and glorifies humanity. The crystal is yours, men, if with believing hearts you are willing to say 'Our Father' in the face of His works."

He paused a moment. It was an understood thing in the semi-monthly talks, that the men were free to ask questions and to express an opinion, even, at times, to argue a point. The men's eyes were fixed with keen appreciation on the marble beauty before them, when a voice broke the silence.

"That sounds all right enough, your Reverence, what you've said about 'Our Father' and the brotherhoods, but there's many a man says it that won't own me for a brother. There's a weak joint somewhere--and no offence meant."

Some of the men applauded.

Father Honoré turned from the screen and faced the men; his eyes flashed. The audience loved to see him in this mood, for they knew by experience that he was generally able to meet his adversary, and no odds given or taken.

"That's you, is it, Szchenetzy?"

"Yes, it's me."

"Do you remember in last month's talk that I showed you the Dolomites--the curious mountains of the Tyrol?--and in connection with those the Brenner Pass?"

"Yes."

"Well, something like seven hundred years ago a poor man, a poet and travelling musician, was riding over that pass and down into that very region of the Dolomites. He made his living by stopping at the stronghold-castles of those times and entertaining the powerful of the earth by singing his poems set to music of his own making. Sometimes he got a suit of cast-off clothes in payment; sometimes only bed and board for a time. But he kept on singing his little poems and making more of them as he grew rich in experience of men and things; for he never grew rich in gold--money was the last thing they ever gave him. So he continued long his wandering life, singing his songs in courtyard and castle hall until they sang their way into the hearts of the men of his generation. And while he wandered, he gained a wonderful knowledge of life and its ways among rich and poor, high and low; and, pondering the things he had seen and the many ways of this world, he said to himself, that day when he was riding over the Brenner Pass, the same thing that you have just said--in almost the same words:--'Many a man calls God "Father" who won't acknowledge me for a brother.'

"I don't know how he reconciled facts--for your fact seems plain enough--nor do I know how you can reconcile them; but what I do know is this:--that man, poor in this world's goods, but rich in experience and in a natural endowment of poetic thought and musical ability, _kept on making poems, kept on singing them_, despite that fact to which he had given expression as he fared over the Brenner; despite the fact that a suit of cast-off clothes was all he got for his entertainment of those who would not call him 'brother.' Discouraged at times--for he was very human--he kept on giving the best that was in him, doing the work appointed for him in this world--and doing it with a whole heart Godwards and Christwards, despite his poverty, despite the broken promises of the great to reward him pecuniarily, despite the world, despite _facts_, Szchenetzy! He sang when he was young of earthly love and in middle age of heavenly love, and his songs are cherished, for their beauty of wisdom and love, in the hearts of men to this day."

He smiled genially across the sea of faces to Szchenetzy.

"Come up some night with your violin, Szchenetzy, and we will try over some of those very songs that the Germans have set to music of their own, those words of Walter of the Bird-Meadow--so they called him then, and men keep on calling him that even to this day."

He turned again to the screen.

"What is to be thrown on the screen now--in rapid succession for our hour is brief--I call our Marble Quarry. Just think of it! quarried by the same hard work which you all know, by which you earn your daily bread; sculptured into forms of exceeding beauty by the same hard toil of other hands. And behind all the toil there is the _soul of art_, ever seeking expression through the human instrument of the practised hand that quarries, then sculptures, then places, and builds! I shall give a word or two of explanation in regard to time and locality; next month we will take the subjects one by one."

There flashed upon the screen and in quick succession, although the men protested and begged for an extension of exposures, the noble Pisan group and Niccola Pisano's pulpit in the baptistery--the horses from the Parthenon frieze--the Zeus group from the great altar at Pergamos--Theseus and the Centaur--the Wrestlers--the Discus Thrower and, last, the exquisite little church of Saint Mary of the Thorn,--the Arno's jewel, the seafarers' own,--that looks out over the Pisan waters to the Mediterranean.

It was a magnificent showing. No words from Father Honoré were needed to bring home to his audience the lesson of the Marble Quarry.

"I call the next series, which will be shown without explanation and merely named, other members of the Brotherhood of Stone. We study them separately later on in the summer."

The cathedrals of York, Amiens, Westminster, Cologne, Mayence, St. Mark's--a noble array of man's handiwork, were thrown upon the screen. The men showed their appreciation by thunderous applause.

The screen was again a blank; then it filled suddenly with the great Upper Quarry in The Gore. The granite ledges sloped upward to meet the blue of the sky. The great steel derricks and their crisscrossing cables cast curiously foreshortened shadows on the gleaming white expanse. Here and there a group of men showed dark against a ledge. In the centre, one of the monster derricks held suspended in its chains a forty-ton block of granite just lifted from its eternal bed. Beside it a workman showed like a pigmy.

Some one proposed a three times three for the home quarries. The men rose to their feet and the cheers were given with a will. The ringing echo of the last had not died away when the quarry vanished, and in its place stood the finished cathedral of A.--the work which the hands of those present were to create. It was a reproduction of the architect's water-color sketch.

The men still remained standing; they gave no outward expression to their admiration; that, indeed, although evident in their faces, was overshadowed by something like awe. _Their_ hands were to be the instruments by which this great creation of the mind of man should become a fact. Without those hands the architect's idea could not be materialized; without the "idea" their daily work would fail.