BELATED CONSCIENCE

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 274, 16 November 1905, Page 6

BELATED CONSCIENCE

« By FLORENCE CONTERSE.

PAET IIL He -started for home -with a day's ■wage in his pocket, and on the Way i bought meat, coffee, bread, and sugar"She Ton't go so far as not io cook I for mc and Johnnie, even if she scrubs I for her own victuals/ ire reasoned- "1 wonder how long shell hold outf j "When he entered the house the landlady poked her head out of her hack room, but immediately withdi-ew it and ' shut the d-oor. On the third floor Mre Mariarty looked out into the halL with her small daughter veering under her aim ; 'SayJ" shouted the little girl, ""yotrr — r, but the information was chok-°-d "by a squeeze from her mother. The door of the garret, stood njaT. Ther-e .w-a.* no one in the room. Twilight caire through the window. John feit as if all the pi-ople in the house were listening', hushed. He closed the door. The table was gone from under tlia window. He looked around; the room seemed .larger than usual despite the evening shadows. He turned to the bureau for «, match. There was no bureau. He fell, in his pockets hurriedly, found a stray match, and lighted the lamp, -which stood on a shelf abore the stove. Leaning against the lamp there was a piece of folded brown piper, with "Johir' scrawled on it. and when John opened it he read: "1 couldn't live on your scab erning. I have gone way with Johny. The bed and them. I pawned Jonnys suit, the beauro f.tove was yoturs to begin -with I left < the clock the rocking chair. I did not move in no seah team. I hired a hand-1 cart. Goodby I am lost from you John' darlin. " MARY RYAN/' He looked around the loom bewildered; there was nothing in it but the bed £Jid the stove. He opened the closet; an old coat of his hung there, nothing else. With a. half-smothered cry he dashed out and down the stairs to Mrs. DaJv. '•"Where's my -wife?" he yelled, shaking the impassive landlady; * '"where's my wife 3" . ■ ' "1 don't, know -where she is. John Byim, and if you don't take your hands off mc, 111 have in the police." Mrs. Daly adjusted her collar and passed her hand ova- her dislocated false front. '"1 don't know -where she is, and I don't want to know. I nin't kept Jodgin's ten year not to know when it's time to mind my own business. If yon think I'm goin' to stick my finger in you and your wife's rows, you don't know mc. She may be to blame and she may not, but she's gone, and I don't know where she's gone, and I don't -want to know vrhere she's gone." TJI notify the police" shouted Evan. "FII have a warrant out to search," "and he bolted for the door, but Mrs. Daly caught Ids sleeve. "You eat somethin' first," she counselled. '"You're shaMn' like a leaf. Have you got anything for supper ?" "Yes," he answered rebelliottslv, ''"but there ain't nobody to cook it." '•You go up and get it and Til cook it ! for you before I let my fire out. Now, you do what I tell you, and don't run out "id the street like a crazy man," He obeyed reluctantly, and when he had eaten his bread und meat and drunk ; two cup 3 of hot coffee, sitting at hex kit'ehen table, he had recovered his selfcontrol and abandoned his plan of gorn<* i to the police station. He would seek his wife at her brothel's instead, and before he arrived at Mike's he had fully convinced himself that he should find her : there. She would go there as a matter of course, and he had no doubt that she! waa on the look-out for him now—waiting for him to come after her. She would 1 know that he -would come. She had play- i ed him a mean trick, but they'd make it up—they'd be so glad to see each | other. Mike opened the door. i <: Tell Mary Pve " began John, but his words were drowned in the torrent of abuse which poured from the lips oi his brother-in-law. '•You dirty skunk you! What to hell] do yon mean by comin* here? You mangy, rotten " The epithets flooded < the hallway. John turned white and j steadied himself against the banisters. '•For the love of God. Mike/ he gasp- i ed, "only tell mc is Mary here!" ""Mary!" exclaimed the angry teamster. "I tell you Mary's got some pride.! Poor Mary! What would she be doin'! here, with you seabbin' it down to my ! place?" * j Then something in the scab's face i startled frim ; "Where is Mary ?" he ■ asked. " j "She's gone and left mc," said John. ''She's took Johnnie and gone." • The teamster stared a moment and then struck his hand against the doorjamb with n roar of laughter: '"Tf that ain't Mary!" he shouted, and his -wife came from an inner room to see what was the matter. "Mary's packed up her duds and lit out," he explained. "There's a woman for you! Wouldn't stay with him! That's what she thinks-of seabbin'! She ain't like some fellows* wives I could name, that makes their life a hell on earth for them beeanse they won't go back oa the union. " '"I .always knew Mary was a big fool.-"' Mrs. Callahan remarked contemptuously. "There's some women that knows too j muck _ A mothers place is to look after } her children and not quarrel with their | victuals if they're earned "within the', law." John Syan straightened up and came a step nearer his sister-in-law. ''Mary's the best woman that ever walked God's earth," he said in a low., i firm voice, "and don't you. forget it 2 | Talk about mothers.! It's the° Holyj Mother that Mary is patterned after. She's got a heart for other folks' children as well as her own. Mary has. If Johnnies eatin' cake must leave other children go hungry, then Johnnie can't have no cake. ThatV the way Mary works it out. Ifs the future of the country she's got on ha- mind, an' how to make citizens out o' the lads, an' not hoboes. ißaisin' up a child ain't the same as fattenin' a hog—for all there's some mothers seems to think so. Maryd ought to been a man. That's what's the matter with her. Then she conld hare a

try aX buryixr some of tbe3e old broken- ! back, out-o'-daie laws 01 liberty the em- ] plovers is playin." siei. nurse to nowa- j days." ; r . x: Say," observed Mike, "it done yon. good to try scabbizf for oneei ..Surel Or else"—and his great face darkened ominously—"you're a dirtier scoundrel titan I thought you was, John Ryan—if you're believin , one thing an' doiri' another." "What's a man to believe- Mike?" erred his brother-in-law. "An ignorant cuss like me,—--when them that claims the right to know—teachers in colleges, if they can't stand for Lonesty I ask - you "what can s—when "men that ain't got nothin' t-o gain for it for themselves tempts you with all that damned rot about the freedom of the individual to bargain for his labour? What's a, man to believe. 1 ask you? He don't know ■where he's at. And there's the. -anions bindin' him down -with 'you shall' and Sou shan't." and doin' fool things. And : there's the job—temptin'—and—and"— he turned away to the stairs—"the little kid ate out o , the swill." He was going downstairs slowly, with a discouraged, dragging , step, and Mike watched him with a face in which sympathy contended with a union sense of duty. Then suddenly the big man leaned over the railing and called down; "Maybe you'll find her there when you go back. John! Maybe they're hidin'"her in the house to give you a little scare." Ryan's step quickened. "I believe you're right!" he answered, a ring, ©f hope in his voice. "Cood-.night to you, Mike, and don't think no worse of mc than you can help." He could hardly get home fast enough: he almost ran. Perhaps he would not go back to the warehouse to-morrow. "Perhaps he would give her her own way. since she cared so much. He stumbled up the stairs in his eagerness., and burst into the garret. But it was dark and empty. Mary and the child were not there. Reaction came with the disappointment, and he Taged and cursed, and flung himself impotently about the room for an hour or more. "I wouldn't give it up now, not if she crawled in the dirt and licked my feet, I wouldn't." lie reiterated over and over. She'll threaten mc, will she? I'll show her! Pll have her up for kidnappin'. that's what I'll do. Not if she begged mc on her knees would 1 give it up now. I*l] show her who's runin , this show. Not if she kissed the dirt "would I!" And Mrs. Daly and the other lodgers, listening on the stairs, looked at one another and shook their heads in awed silence. He "was sullen «nri dumb in the morning. The landlady gave him his breakfast, and he went off to his work with a stubborn stride and a lowering brow. Mike was among the pickets gathered near the warehouse, and they all whispered together when Uyan approached; but no one molested him. although another scab received a black eye. and the offender was arrested. When the excitement caused by this diversion had subsided and Byan had mounted his dray.. Mike came up and spoke to him. "Did she come home last night? , "" "1C ope!" Mike whistled expressively, and scanned his brother-in-law's haggard face with curiosity and mild concern. "Well, you know, John," he said at last, "if you're on tie fence, why you're on the fence—l aint got nothin' to sax against that. But a man can't set on the fence and the same time drive a team. See* I'm willin' to "believe you're a fool; but I'd hate, for Mary's sake, to think you was a damned scoundrel."*' ''It don't make no difference to mc crhat you think," John answered ronghly aad drove off. But the words rankled. "I'm an honest man" he repeated to himself over and over again during the morning. *Tm doin' what the law allows." And then he would argue with himself till the sweat poured down his face and there was a hunted, shamed look in his eyes. He deliberately went out of his way to pass through the tenement district, in the hope that he might meet Mary by accident, and then, absorbed in bis battling thoughts, he forgot the outer world for blocks at a time, and more than once he almost ran down the children in the street. "He ain't got the liberty to murder one man," he nruttered, "but he can take away the livin" wage of a whole town— undercutting" And agarn—"Liberty! What's liberty? These United States is founded on a union—that's—that , s"—an illuminating thought brought light into his face—"that's why we can stand up again=t England and Europe, and all the rest of the world,' . He brought down his free hand with a slap upon his knee. "Who of them kingdoms would take the trouble to bargain square with Massachusetts—or Rhode Island—or New York —taken separate? They'd do 'em out o' their eye-teeth, that's what they'd do. i We're unionised for liberty—that's what we are! Lord! I'm up against it, sure! , " The argument fascinated him; he went wrer the analogy several times, filling in : the parallels. In al] Iris life he had ] never worked his mind as bard as he had | worked it during the past two days, and; the unwonted gymnastics exhilarated i Tes, I'm up against it!" he repeated, *t last. "Time to come off the fence-" j His dray was empty; he was on his i way bade to the warehouse for another load. tt Come up there! M he shouted to the horses, snapping the long whip. "Come i up! This is my last trip!" And they i quickened their lumbering pace to an ungainiy trot. John, on the noisy, Tattling dray. stood, vision-wrapped, with unseeing eyes. 4r Fll spend the scab pay on a personal in the paper." he soliloquized. "11l bet she's readia' the paper for strike news. 11l put it in like this: •'Mary, IVe quit murderin' mv country, in unions is strength, come home to John.' Shell know it's mc. She's twice tbe brains "that Pve got. She's the grandest "woman God ever made, Mary is! She's the " "I'm a picket—l'm a picket! Papa, I'm a picket!" sang a little voice. And there in front of the horses he saw Johnnies fate, illumined with a joyful smile of welcome. Then all the noises in the street seemed to stop to listen to Johnnies scream. The angry crowd -would have held the' teamster —they thought he was trying to escape; but ihe fought his way through to' his baby, and ihen those who were nearest to him and could see his face looked at one another/ awestricken. ""My God! it's his own! , ' they said. And t&ey let him pick. up the little limp body and •carry it past the horses and lay it down on the dray. Then they, caught him as lie -staggered and laid ban down by Johnnies side. And there Mary found them. Kyaui opened he eyes upon his wife's eyes,' end hers were full of. tears. ■ '■ '■■■ "He lift deed, Johnr* , she sobbed. "Dent.you fretl The druggist says it's' only bis leg is broken, and i&eyVe sent for ihie ambulance."'. i . ' v He watched i*r for & -moapt before Iμ miik "i ww 4zaar.ua.' too

iast. But I -was driTin' back to give 1 iij) ±l»e team, Td come to see I eonldirt! "be a se_b co longer. That's why I Ws ariTin' so fast. Tre "been a fool. Toa : was in tne rig-Li of it. Mary. Vm paid ; for it- iieavy. If it could he my leer— I Dot Johnnies] 3 ' "Don't you think, of it that way, | Jolin^—doift you now! 7, cried Ms -wife! "It' 3mc that gives thanks he took to the hospital -where theyTl feed him tip fine. That's the Tray to take it. JohnJ Don't yon be Jookixf on _fee dark aide!" And she tossed him. aed Messed him, and presently h« sat up and -watched tbe ytnmg -ioeior wio came -with, tie amb-lanee. ' After that be made ready to drive back to the warehouse, but when he! stood up on rhe dray and took the reufe, Johnnies smOing. face stared at him in front of the horses, and he staggered and would have fallen down under the" wheels; but the policeman who had superintended the whole affair -caught him in lame. "1 guess. Tm cured of drivin' teams, 1, murmured John, leaning against the .arm of the law. have to take it back for mc. And if you see TWTfry Callahan pidcetin', you *can tell him I'm over his sideV the fence."' "And John, darlin'. 1, said Mary. as slitled him into the house, "the "woman's husband that took mc in here, he's eon-duetiir'"'-on the electrics, and he sav3 they're getthr ready to run more ears and oftener on lias line, and they're brealdn' in new men. He said last night he thought he could gei the job for you. But you'd hav-e to join" the Union.' , And John's assent was hearty. "Sure!" he said.