The Nine-Tenths | Page 8

from him.
"My thoughtlessness ... my business." The word was charged with bitterness. "Business! business! I'm a business man! I wasn't in business"--he gave a weird laugh--"for the health of my employees! I was making money!"
She looked at him as if he had ceased being her son and had turned into a monster. Then she swayed, grasped the bedpost and sank on the bed.
Her voice was low and harsh.
"Your fault ... and all those young girls...."
His mother had judged him; he looked at her with haggard eyes, and spoke in a hollow voice.
"Nothing will ever wipe this guilt from my mind.... I'm branded for life ... this thing will go on and on and on every day that I live...."
She glanced at him then, and saw only her son, the child she had carried in her arms, the boy who had romped with her, and she only knew now that he was suffering, that no one on earth could be in greater pain.
"Oh, my poor Joe!" she murmured.
"Yes," he went on, beside himself, "I'm blasted with guilt...."
She cried out:
"If you go on like this, we'll both go out of our minds, Joe! Fight! It's done ... it's over.... From now on, make amends.... Joe!"--She rose magnificently then--"Your father lost his arm in the war.... Now give your life to setting things right!"
And she drew him close again. Her words, her love, her belief in him roused him at last.
"You know the fault isn't all yours," she said. "The factory inspector's to blame, too--and the men--and the people up-stairs--and the law because it didn't demand better protection and fire-drills--all are to blame. You take too much on yourself...."
And gradually, striving with him through the early morning hours, she calmed him, she soothed him, and got him to bed. He was at last too weary to think or feel and he slept deep into the day. And thinking a little of herself, she realized that the tragedy had brought them closer together than they had been for years.
* * * * *
Out of those ashes on East Eighty-first Street rose a certain splendor over the city. All of New York drew together with indignation and wondrous pity. It did not bring the dead girls to life again--it was too late for that--but it brought many other dead people to life.
Fifty thousand dollars flowed to the newspapers for relief; an inquest probed causes and guilt and prevention; mass--meetings were held; the rich and the powerful forgot position and remembered their common humanity; and the philanthropic societies set to work with money, with doctors and nurses and visitors. The head of one huge association said to the relief committee in a low, trembling voice: "Of course, our whole staff is at your service." Just for a time, a little time, the five-million-manned city flavored its confused, selfish struggle with simple brotherhood.
How had it happened? Whose was the fault? How came it that sixty girls were imprisoned in the skies, as it were, and could only fling themselves down to the stone pavement in an insanity of terror? What war was more horrible than this Peace of Industry? Such things must be prevented in future, said New York, rising like a wrathful god--and for a while the busy wheels of progress turned.
Joe had to attend the inquest as a witness. He gave his testimony in a simple, sincere, and candid way that gained him sympathy. His men testified in his behalf, trying to wholly exonerate him and inculpate themselves, and the lawyers cleverly scattered blame from one power to another--the city, the State, the fire department, the building department, etc. It became clear that Joe could not be officially punished; it was evident that he had done as much as the run of employers to protect life, and that his intentions had been blameless.
However, that did not ease Joe's real punishment. He was a changed man that week, calm, ready with his smile, but haggard and bowed, nervous and overwrought, bearing a burden too heavy for his heart. He made over the twenty thousand dollars of insurance money to the Relief and Prevention Work; he visited the injured and the bereaved; he forgot Myra and tried to forget himself; he attended committee meetings.
Myra wrote him a little note:
DEAR JOE,--Don't forget that whatever happens I believe in you utterly and I love you and shall always love you, and that you have me when all else is lost.
Your MYRA.
To which he merely replied:
DEAR MYRA,--I shall remember what you say, and I shall see you when I can.
Yours, JOE.
It was on Sunday afternoon that Joe met Fannie Lemick on the street. Her eyes filled with tears and he noticed she was trembling.
"Mr. Joe!" she cried.
"Yes, Fannie...."
"Are you going, too?"
"Going where?"
"Don't you know? _The mass-meeting at Carnegie Hall_!"
He looked