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Samuel the Seeker

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<h2> CHAPTER VI </h2> Samuel went to a bake shop and bought a loaf of bread and sat on the bench of the public square and devoured it bit by bit. It was the cheapest thing he could think of, and quantity was what counted just then. Next he had to find a room to spend the night. He knew nothing about hotels and lodging-houses—he walked through the workingmen's quarter of the town, scanning the cottages hesitatingly. At last in the doorway of one he noticed a woman standing, an elderly woman, very thin and weary looking, but clean, and with a kindly face. So he stopped. “Please,” said he, “could you tell me any place where I could hire a room?” The woman looked at him. “For how long?” she asked. “I'm not quite sure,” he said. “I want it for one night, and then if I get a job, I may want it longer.” “A job in Lockmanville?” said the woman. “Well, I've the promise of one,” he replied. “There can't be very many,” said she. “I've two rooms I've always rented,” she added, “but when the glass works shut down the men went away. One of them owed me three dollars, too.” “I—I'm not able to pay very much,” said Samuel. “Come in,” responded the woman; and he sat down and told her his story. And she told him hers. Mrs. Stedman was her name, and her husband had been a glass blower. He earned good wages—five dollars a day in the busy season. But he worked in front of a huge tank of white-hot glass and that was hard on a man. And once on a hot day he had gone suddenly dizzy, and fallen upon a mass of hot slag, and been frightfully burned in the face. They had carried him to the hospital and taken out one eye. And then, because of his family and the end of the season being near, he had gone to work too soon, and his wound had gone bad, and in the end he had died of blood-poisoning. “That was two years ago,” said Mrs. Stedman. “And I got no damages. We've barely got along—this year's been worse than ever. It's the panic, they say. It seemed as if everything was shutting down.” “It must be very hard on people here,” said Samuel. “I've got three children—all girls,” said Mrs. Stedman, “and only one old enough to work. That's Sophie—she's in the cotton mill, and that only started again last month. And they say it may run on half time all the year. I do sewing and whatever I can to help, but there's never enough.” Samuel forgot his own troubles in talking with this woman. His family had been poor on the farm, but they had never known such poverty as this. And here were whole streets full of people living the same sort of life; hanging over the abyss of destruction, and with no prospect save to struggle forever. Mrs. Stedman talked casually about her friends and neighbors, and new glimpses came to make the boy catch his breath. Next door was Mrs. Prosser, whose husband was dying of cancer; he had been two years dying, and they had five small children. And on the other side were the Rapinskys, a Polish family; they had been strong in the possession of three grown sons, and had even bought a phonograph. And now not one of them had done a stroke of work for three months. To have been robbed and put in jail seemed a mere incident in comparison with such bitter and I lifelong suffering; and Samuel was ashamed of having made so much fuss. He had stated, with some trepidation, that he was just out of jail; but Mrs. Stedman had not seemed to mind that. Her husband had been in jail once, during the big glass strike, and for nothing more than begging another man not to take his job. It was arranged that Samuel was to pay her thirty-five cents for his supper and bed and breakfast, and if he wished to stay longer she would board him for four dollars a week, or he might have the room alone for a dollar. The two young children came in from school; they were frail and undersized little girls, with clothing that was neatly but pitifully patched. And shortly after them came Sophie. Samuel gave a start of dismay when he saw her. He had been told that she worked in the cotton mill and was the mainstay of the family; and he had pictured a sturdy young woman, such as he had seen at home. Instead, here was a frail slip of a child scarcely larger than the others. Sophie was thirteen, as he learned afterwards; but she did not look to be ten by his standards. She was grave and deliberate in her movements, and she gazed at the stranger with a pair of very big brown eyes. “This is Samuel Prescott,” said her mother. “He is going to spend the night, and maybe board with us.” “How do you do?” said Sophie, and took off the shawl from her head and sat down in a corner. The boy thought that this was shyness upon her part, but later on he realized that it was lassitude. The child rested her head upon her hand every chance that she got, and she never did anything that she did not have to. The next morning, bright and early, Samuel was on hand at the saloon, greatly to the amusement of his friend Finnegan. He got down on his hands and knees and gave the place such a scrubbing as it had never had before since it was built. And in return Finnegan invited him to some breakfast, which Samuel finally accepted, because it would enable him to take less from the Stedmans. Professor Stewart had not specified any hour in his invitation. He lived in the aristocratic district across the bridge and Samuel presented himself at his door a little before eight. “Professor Stewart told me to come and see him,” he said to the maid. “Professor Stewart is out of town,” said she. “Out of town!” he echoed. “He's gone to New York,” said she. “He was called away unexpectedly last night.” “When will he be back?” “He said he'd try to be back the day after tomorrow; but he wasn't sure.” Samuel stared at her in consternation. “What did you want?” she asked. “He promised me a job.” “Oh!” said she. “Well, can't you come back later on?” And then, seeing that Samuel had nothing better to do than to stare at her dumbly, she closed the door and went about her business. Samuel walked back in a daze. It gave him a new sense of the world's lack of interest in him. Probably the great man had forgotten him altogether. There was nothing to do but to wait; and meantime he had only sixty cents. He could not stay with Mrs. Stedman, that was certain. But when he came to tell her, she recurred to a suggestion he had made. There were a few square yards of ground behind her house, given up mostly to tomato cans. If he would plant some garden seed for her she would board him meanwhile. And so Samuel went to work vigorously with a borrowed spade. Two days passed, and another day, and still the professor had not returned. It was Saturday evening and Samuel was seated upon the steps of the house, resting after a hard day's work. Sophie was seated near him, leaning back against the house with her eyes closed. The evening was warm and beautiful, and gradually the peace of it stole over her. And so at last she revealed herself to Samuel. “Do you like music?” she asked. “Very much indeed,” said he. “Not everybody does,” she remarked—“I mean real music, such as Friedrich plays.” “I don't know,” said Samuel. “Who is Friedrich?” “He's a friend of mine,” Sophie answered. “He's a German boy. His father's the designer at the carpet works. And he plays the violin.” “I should like to hear him,” said he. “I'll take you,” she volunteered. “I generally go to see them on Sunday afternoons. It's the only time I have.” So the next day Samuel met the Bremers. Their cottage was a little way out in the country, and they had a few trees about it and a flower bed. But the house was not large, and it was well filled with a family of nine children. Johann, the father, was big and florid, with bristling hair. He was marked in the town because he called himself a “Socialist,” but Samuel did not know that. His wife was a little mite of a woman, completely swamped by child-bearing. Most interesting to Samuel was Friedrich, who played the violin; a pale ascetic-looking boy of fifteen, with wavy hair and beautiful eyes. Music was a serious rite with the Bremers. The father played the piano, and the next oldest son to Friedrich was struggling with a 'cello; and when they played, the whole family sat in the parlor, even the tiny tots, round-eyed and silent. Samuel knew some “patriotic songs,” and a great number of hymns, and a few tunes that one heard at country dances. But such music as this was a new revelation of the possibilities of life. He listened in a transport of wonder and awe. Such wailing grief, such tumultuous longing, such ravishing and soul-tormenting beauty! Friedrich had only such technique as his father had been able to give him, together with what he had invented for himself; his bowings were not always correct, and he was weak on the high notes; but Samuel knew nothing of this—he was thinking of the music. And he needed no one to tell him about it—he needed no criticisms and no commentaries. Across the centuries the souls of Schubert and Beethoven spoke to him, telling their visions of the wonderful world of the spirit, toward which humanity is painfully groping. It was impossible for him to keep from voicing his excitement, and this greatly delighted the Bremers, who craved for comprehension in a lonely place. His sympathy gave wings to their fervor, and they played the whole afternoon through, and then Johann invited them to stay to supper, so that they might play some more in the evening. “You should haf been a musician,” he said to Samuel. “You vas made for it.” They had a supper such as the boy had missed for some time; a great platter of cold boiled meat, and a bowl of hot gravy, and another bowl of mashed potatoes, with no end of bread and butter. Also there was some kind of a German pudding, and to the stranger's dismay, a pitcher of beer in front of Johann. After offering some to his guests, he drank it all, and also he ate a vast supper. Afterwards he dozed, while Friedrich played yet more wonderful music, and this gave Samuel a new insight into the life of the family, and into the wild and terrible longing that poured itself out in Friedrich's tones. The father was good-natured and sentimental, but sunk in grossness; and the mother was worn out with the care of her brood, and beneath all this burden the soul of the boy was crying frantically for life. The exigencies of trade demanded endless variety of designs in carpets and rugs, and so all day Johann Bremer stood in front of a great sheet of cardboard, marked off in tiny numbered squares, on which he painted with many colors. For this he received thirty dollars a week, and his son received twelve dollars as his assistant—painting in the same colors upon all the squares of certain numbers, and so completing a symmetrical design. It was a very good job, and Johann prodded his son to devote his energies to the evolving of new designs. But the boy hated it all—thinking only of his music. And his music meant to him, not sentimental dreaming, but a passionate clutch into the infinite, a battle for deliverance from the bondage of the world. So Johann himself had been in his youth, when he had become a revolutionist, and before beer and gravy and domesticity had tamed him. No one said a word about these things. It was all in the playing. And now and then Samuel stole a glance about the room and discovered yet another soul's tragedy. Sophie, too, was drinking in the music, and life had crept into her face, and her breath came quick and fast, and now and then she furtively brushed away a tear. Afterwards, as they walked home, she said to Samuel, “I don't know if it's good for me to listen to music like that.” “Why not?” he asked—“if it makes you happy.” “But it makes me unhappy afterwards. It makes me want things. And I get restless—and when I go back to the factory it's so much harder.” “What do you do in the factory?” asked Samuel. “I'm what they call a bobbin-girl—I tie the threads on the bobbins when they are empty.” “Is it very hard work?” “No, you mightn't think so. But you have to stand up all day; and it's doing the same thing all the time—the same thing the whole day long. You get dull—you never think about anything. And then the air is full of dust and the machinery roars. You get used to it, but I'm sure its bad for you.” They walked for a while in silence. “Do you like to imagine things?” asked Sophie suddenly. “Yes,” said he. “I used to,” said she—“when I was younger.” It was so strange to Samuel to notice that this slip of a child always spoke of herself as old. “Why don't you do it now?” he asked. “I'm too tired, I think. But I've a lot of pictures up in my room—that I cut out of magazines that people gave me. Pictures of beautiful things—birds and flowers, and old castles, and fine ladies and gentlemen. And I used to make up stories about them, and imagine that I was there, and that all sorts of nice things were happening to me. Would you like to see my pictures?” “Very much,” said Samuel. “I think of things like that when I listen to Friedrich. I've a picture of Sir Galahad—he's very beautiful, and he stands at his horse's head with a sword in his hand. I used to dream that somebody like that might come and carry me off to a place where there aren't any mills. But I guess it's no use any more.” “Why not?” asked the other. “It's too late. There is something the matter with me. I never say anything, because it would make mother unhappy; but I'm always tired now, and every day I have a headache. And I'm so very sleepy, and yet when I lie down I can't sleep—I keep hearing the mill.” “Oh!” cried Samuel involuntarily. “I don't mind it so much,” said the child. “There's no help, so what's the use. It's only when I hear Friedrich play—then I get all stirred up.” They walked on for a while again. “He's very unhappy,” she said finally. “I suppose so,” replied Samuel. “Tell me,” he asked suddenly. “Isn't there some other work that you could do?” “What? I'm not strong enough for hard work. And where could I make three dollars a week?” “Is that what they pay you?” “Yes—that is—when we are on full time.” “Does it make all the girls sick?” he inquired. “There's that girl who came in this afternoon—she seems well and strong.” “Bessie, you mean? But it's just play for her, you see. She lives with her parents and stops whenever she feels like it. She just wants to buy dresses and go to the theater.” “But that girl we passed on the street to-day!” “Helen Davis. Ah, yes—but she's different again. She's bad.” “Bad?” echoed Samuel perplexed. There was a brief pause. It was not easy for him to adjust himself to a world in which the good were of necessity frail and ill, and the bad were rosy-cheeked and merry. “How do you mean?” he asked at last. And Sophie answered quite simply, “She lives with a fellow.” The blood leaped into Samuel's face. Such a blunder for him to have made. But then the flush passed, giving place to a feeling of horrified wonder. For Sophie was not in the least embarrassed—she spoke in the most matter-of-fact tone. And this from a child of thirteen, who did not look to be ten. “I see,” said he in a faint voice. “A good many of the girls do it,” she added. “You see, they move about so much—the mills close, and so a girl has no hope of marrying. But mothers says it's wrong, just the same.” And Samuel walked home the rest of the way in silence, and thinking no more about the joys of music. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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