"Well, I guess you'll do. I was looking for you. You are the one she
sent me to," he said doubtfully, when I had told him my name. He was a
weather-beaten little Scotchman, very poor and hard up; but there was
something in his air that dignified him. He had a definite aim, and a
definite wrong to be righted. The story he told me was a pitiful one. He
had been in this country several years and had a place in a
locomotive-shop somewhere East, and so long as he had had work, had
saved money. But they "had been ordered out," he said, and after waiting
around finding that the strike had failed, he had come on here and had
gotten a place in a boiler-shop, but they "had been ordered out" again,
"just as I got my wife and children on and was getting sort of fixed
up," he added. Then he had resigned from the union and had got another
place, but a man he had had trouble with back East was "one of the big
men up here now," and he had had him turned out because he did not
"belong to the union." He was willing to join the union now, but
"Wringman had had him turned down." Then he had gotten a place as a
driver. But he had been ill and had lost his place, and since then he
had not been able to get work, "though the preacher had tried to help
him." He did not seem to complain of this loss of his place.
"The wagon had to run," he said, but he and his wife, too, had been ill,
and the baby had died and the expenses of the burial had been
"something." He appeared to take it as a sort of ultimate decree not to
be complained of--only stated. He mentioned it simply by way of
explanation, and spoke as if it were a mere matter of Fate. And, indeed,
to the poor, sickness often has the finality of Fate. During their
illness they had sold nearly all their furniture to live on and pay
rent. Now he was in arrears; his wife was in bed, his children sick, and
his landlord had levied on his furniture that remained for the rent. At
the last gasp he had come to see a lawyer.
"I know I owe the rent," he said, "but the beds won't pay it and the
loan company's got all the rest."
I advised him that the property levied on was not subject to levy; but
suggested his going to his landlord and laying the case before him.
"If he has any bowels of compassion whatever--" I began, but he
interrupted me.
"That's what the preacher said." But his landlord was "the Argand
Estate," he added in a hopeless tone. He only knew the agent. He had
been to him and so had the preacher; but he said he could do
nothing--the rent must be paid--"the Argand Estate had to be kept up,
or it couldn't do all the good it did"--so he was going to turn them out
next day.
He had been to one or two lawyers, he said; but they wouldn't take the
case against the Argand Estate, and then the lady had sent him to me.
"What lady?"
"The lady who teaches the little school--Miss Leigh--she teaches my
Janet."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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