Joyces Investments | Page 6

success. Almost trembling between triumph and contrition, he had been seized with the virtuous resolve to quit speculation for honest industry, and his investment in these glass-works was the result. Through his wildest plunging he had been shrewd enough never to risk his all in one venture--in fact, he never took any great risks for himself, except so far as his immortal soul was concerned--consequently when death overtook him and he, perforce, laid down the only thing he valued, his fortune, it had reached proportions of which figures could give but little idea. His daughter Joyce, sole heir-at-law, was almost overwhelmed by the burden of these millions, especially as she realized how dishonestly they had been acquired. She thoroughly appreciated the methods taken to possess them (one cannot say earn in this connection) and her sensitive soul shrank in terror from benefiting only through others' misfortunes. If she could not gather up and restore, she might at least bestow wherever help seemed most needed, thus perhaps in time lifting the curse she felt must rest on these ill-gotten gains. With James Early's usual policy he had spent money at the Works only where it would increase the value of the plant, and the working power of the machinery. The idea of wasting a dollar in making the homes of his employees more attractive, or in putting within their reach mental and moral helps, had never even occurred to him. Treeless, arid, and flat, the country stretched away on every side, only broken by one or two slight knolls separating the Works from a small river that intersected the land at some distance. In the midst of this plain stood the great buildings, belching forth smoke from their tall chimneys, while, radiating from this busy nucleus, were several rows of mere barracks, known as the cottages of the workmen.
It should be the daughter's policy to make this district blossom as the rose, and to make its people happy and contented.
You have doubtless noticed the seeming discrepancy between the names borne by Joyce and her father, and this is its explanation. The marriage of the scheming Yankee, James Early, into the then wealthy and powerful family of Lavillotte, old-timers of Louisiana soil, was considered the opposite of an honor by them, with the exception of the young girl, educated in the north, who had been fascinated by his fine looks and glib tongue. Therefore, when Joyce was born, an edict was issued by its leading members--two patriarchal uncles who held control of the property--that she should be cut off from her maternal rights in the family estate unless allowed to take the family name. Now, the loss of money was to J. J. Early the only loss worth mentioning, so he reluctantly consented, with but one stipulation--that she should bear his middle name, which was Joyce. Having assured themselves that Joyce was a proper Christian cognomen, suitable to a woman, they yielded the point, and Joyce Early was made Joyce Lavillotte by due process of law before old enough to know, much less to speak, her name. That this property was largely lost during the civil war, leaving the Earlys almost destitute at the time that broken-spirited lady died, had never altered this fact; nor was it changed when, later, after the death of both uncles, the property in partially restored shape came to the girl, so bound beneath legal restrictions, that she could never have the management of anything but the income. In fact, so engrossed had Early become in his own money-making, by this, that he had little thought to bestow upon a daughter who could never sympathize in what made life's interest for him. He had controlled her existence to his own purposes, knowing that an acknowledged home and daughter somehow give a man caste in the community, but outside of certain restrictions, and very galling ones, he had let her severely alone. Now that liberty and great means had fallen to her, what use should she make of them?
She stood a moment looking around her, after she had alighted from the train at the little brown one-room station-house, trying to take it all in at one glance of her brilliant eyes. She had never been here before, but she had had countless photographs made, and supposed herself thoroughly acquainted with the spot. But, to some minds, photographs are confusing things, jumbling up the points of compass in an unreliable manner. Joyce found that it was almost as strange as if never pictured out before her, and a great deal uglier than she had supposed. She shivered as she gazed around upon the bleakness everywhere, perhaps largely accentuated by a gray, chilly morning of early spring, with the small patches of snow, left by winter, blackened and foul. Ellen