The Forbidden Trail | Page 7

both if I'd seen it," said his father. "You were late
again this morning, Son. Remember you're docked for that."
"Anyhow," Roger went on without noting apparently his father's
warning, "he got confidential, while we were eating dinner, and told me
that if you didn't give them an increase they were going on a strike that
would make you sit up and take notice. He says you won't give the
increase so the strike's due about the middle of July."
"Oh, the fools!" exclaimed John Moore. "I can't have a strike now with
that big Russian order to fill. That order makes or mars me."
"Then you'll give 'em the raise! That's good!" Roger gave a sigh of
relief.
"Raise nothing! Why, I can't raise them! Roger, you're old enough to
begin to understand these things. The only way I'm able to compete
with the trust is by working on such a narrow margin of profit that it
makes their overhead look like Standard Oil profits. So far they've let
my patents alone, chiefly, I suppose, because my machinery is efficient
only for the comparatively small output. I never have been able to
accumulate much working capital. A protracted strike would put me
out of business. On the other hand a material increase in wage would
kill that Russian contract and I've already borrowed money on it."
"Roger, you shouldn't have told your father that when he was tired,"
said Mrs. Moore, handing her husband his third cup of tea.
"Don't be a goose, Alice," returned Roger's father. "What are they

going to ask for, Son?"
"A minimum of three dollars a day and eight hours."
"Then I'm finished!" exclaimed Moore, setting his lips.
"Why don't you tell them when they come to you just what you've told
me?" asked Roger. "They'll understand."
"They won't believe a word of it. Nobody knows so much about a
business as one of the workmen. And the poorer the workman the more
he knows. I think I'll go up to see the Dean."
Roger and his mother sat late on the porch, while Mr. Moore conferred
with his friend. Mrs. Moore summed up her own feelings on the matter
of the strike when she said just as Roger started for bed:
"Well, as far as I'm concerned, I've never been so happy as I was when
your father was just a plain mechanic, earning his two and a half or so a
day and with no responsibility except to do his work well. Ever since
he's been his own boss, he's been changing. I don't feel as if he were the
same man I married. And what does he get out of it? Worry, worry,
fuss, fuss. I tell you, Roger, my dear, I've come to the conclusion that
the more complicated life gets, the less happiness there is in it."
Roger bent and kissed his mother. "Maybe I'll feel like that when I'm
older," he said, "but I don't now. And I guess Father likes the worry. It's
like playing a game. I'm going to get into it, you bet, just as soon as I
get through school."
His mother made no reply.
On the morning of July fifteenth, a delegation of three workmen waited
on John Moore in his office. They made exactly the demands that
Roger had reported and they received the same reply that Roger had
received, with just about the same amount of detail as to the running of
the business. The strike was scheduled to begin on the first day of
August.

Roger and Ernest, plugging away at the forge, heard the men's side
constantly. At night Roger heard his father's. At first, naturally enough,
both boys' sympathies were all with Roger's father. Then, because he
was now a working man himself, Roger began to notice that his father
had brutal ways with the men. Three or four times a day Moore always
went through the factory. A careless mechanic would receive a cursing
that, it suddenly occurred to Roger, no real man ought to endure. The
least infringement of the factory rules was punished to the limit by a
system of fines. Moore drove the men as relentlessly as he drove
himself. This aspect of his father Roger naturally never discussed with
his chum, but he spoke of it to his father on the morning of the first of
August as they made their way to the factory.
"They think you feel to them just like you do to a machine and it makes
them sore, all the time," said the boy.
"Heavens! what do they want? Must I kiss them good morning?"
exclaimed Moore.
Roger laughed. "No, but I know what they mean. I've seen you when
you talked as though you owned them--and not that either.