The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The EastWyckoff, Walter A. (Walter Augustus)
History
The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The East
Wyckoff, Walter A. (Walter Augustus)
Unemployed -- United States; Working class -- United States
The sun had sunk behind the mountain a good half hour before; not even
the trees on the summits were lighted up with its setting rays, and the
still, clear air bit you with a sudden chill. All the confidence which
I had felt in the morning was gone; it was a very tired and hungry, a
sobered and a chastened proletaire, that at length caught sight, in the
gloom, of Fitz-Adams's Camp.
It stood in a clearing like the camp of Wolf's Run. On the highest area
was a long, stout log cabin, to which there was given an added air of
security by an earth embankment, which sloped from the ground to the
lower logs all around the building, as a means of preventing the air
from sweeping under the floors. A door was in the end of the cabin
nearest me, and a window was cut in the boarded gable above. A wooden
block served as a step to the door, and near this a grindstone swung
in its frame. On the outer walls of the cabin were tacked some half
dozen advertisements on tin, bidding you, in black letters on an orange
background, "Chew----Cut." Over a rough bridge that crossed the run
near the cabin, I could faintly see one or two other smaller buildings
like it, which proved to be the blacksmith's shop, and the stable for
the teamsters' horses. The mountain-road continued its course past the
main cabin, and disappeared among the trees in the gorge. So narrow
was the ravine, that the mountain rose abruptly from one side of the
cabin, and in much the same manner from the bank of the run on the
opposite side, leaving a valley scarcely thirty yards in width. The
larger timber had been cut away, but the mountain-sides, all about the
clearing and the road, were dense with poplar, and white-barked birch
and chestnut, and the younger growths of evergreen.
There was perfect quiet in the camp; not a living thing was to be seen
or heard. I went up to the nearest door, and knocked. There was no
answer. I knocked again, and still there was no answer. At the side,
far to the rear, I found another door, and knocked there. It opened
instantly, and in the twilight I could faintly see a young woman in a
dark print dress.
"Is this Fitz-Adams's Camp?"
"Yes."
"Is Mr. Fitz-Adams here?"
And then in louder voice over her shoulder into the darkness behind her:
"Say, Jim, here's a man that wants you."
There was the sound of heavy footsteps upon the wooden floor, and in
another moment Fitz-Adams stood framed in the door-way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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