Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

In almost every discussion of the labor problem practically the only class of labor taken into consideration is that known as common labor—by which term is meant the labor that is grouped into large bodies. That labor which is known in the North, East and West as common labor is similarly known in the South. Mill, mine and factory hands, workers on streets and highways, employes in railway depots and on wharves are everywhere, for want of a better term, designated as common labor. In this discussion no notice need be taken of highly skilled laborers who can be safely classified among the crafts, and who are seldom found in considerable groups. The craftsmen can take care of themselves and need no union to protect them. They are treated, not like a commodity that can be easily replaced by substitutes from an emigrant ship, but like intelligent human agents, who must be handled with care and respect.

In considering the general subject of labor with special reference to the South, the question of labor in itself, while important, is not complicated with so many difficulties as confront us in the North; and yet the difficulties are many, and some of them, unless intelligently dealt with, may become serious.

For instance, the loss of the black man as a laborer at the South might prove a serious embarrassment, or the loss by the black man of confidence in and respect for the white man’s authority, might necessitate an admixture, by immigration, of races and nationalities which would push the black laborer to the wall, and should be avoided if it is possible to avoid it. To no one is this a matter of so much importance as to the black man.

The labor problem at the North would be infinitely simpler if there were fewer nationalities, all of them speaking and understanding the English tongue. This statement does not imply that those speaking foreign tongues are necessarily inferior in character or intellect to the English speaking laborer, but the troubles arise rather because the non-English speaking laborers are the victims of deception by unscrupulous interpreters who purposely misrepresent what is said to them for their benefit, or what is said by them to their employers.

The fact that the black man speaks a language understood by the white man is a point in his favor, and that is also a reason why he should continue to be the most desirable common laborer obtainable. The negro at the North is discriminated against in all labor organizations as well as in every relation of life, but in the South he still has a fair chance to market his labor, if he will avail himself of it and will realize his opportunity. So far the very abundance of cheap common labor in the South has hindered the growth of the labor union there and has in many instances defeated its purposes when established. The want of ambition, which makes the negro content with low wages and inferior conditions of living, is sometimes found in common labor at the North, but it is by no means so general as among the black race in the South. Particularly is this the case in the cities, to which the negroes have flocked in great numbers, denuding the plantations of needed help while, in the cities, holding down the wages of common labor,—the only labor in which the negro competition has yet been apparent. The employers of labor in the South should do everything in their power to make of the black man all that it is possible to make of him as a laborer; but, as he has his limitations and as the black man will at times leave the South and so leave an opening for new white labor, the South must use her energies to educate this newly acquired immigrant labor up to American standards—and no work that it can do will bring greater returns than teaching the non-English laborer the language of his newly adopted home.

The very fact that union or organized labor is not strong in the South, when compared with the average sections of the North, gives the employer class in the South an opportunity which they may and should utilize in preparing for that time when the contests incident to organization are sure to come. And in this preparation they want to bear in mind the undeniable truth that the quality of the laborer is generally determined by the quality of the employer. In considering the capacity of any body of laborers we are unfailingly considering the capacity and intelligence of the employers in directing their employes. Employer and employe alike have splendid opportunities opening to them in the South, opportunities in many respects unrivalled; and it is of the highest importance that they make a right beginning and understand each other at the start. The union will indubitably grow, and the employer should welcome it if it presents itself as a business body seeking the highest wages compatible with commercial or competitive conditions in return for the best services of which the labor offered is capable.

But in the South labor must come with reason in its request. It need not be servile, but it must be respectful, for it is still, as it has always been, characteristic of the people of the South that they will brook no interference with their individual liberty. The North does not, and never did, understand the strength of this underlying principle of Southern manhood. It is a principle so strong that it does not disappear in a single generation.

A notable instance of this was seen in a recent dispute over the mining scale in Franklin County, Illinois. The southern part of Illinois was settled by Southerners, mainly by Tennesseans and Kentuckians, who poured into that rich country for a few years before the war and for a few years afterwards. There are whole communities now dominated by Southern thought and principles. When the miners’ union was seeking to establish itself in Franklin County, these farmers, either of Southern birth or of Southern ancestry, having heard that the representatives of the miners, whom they described as agitators, were undertaking to interfere with the individual rights of their sons to work without dictation from any one, offered their services to the newly established companies. The newly established companies, however, politely declined the proffered assistance, preferring peaceable adjustment. But the tendered services would have been given just as willingly as they were tendered.

What is needed in the North is also needed in the South; namely, wise and well informed teachers who are able to illumine the great problem of labor to the masses, in order that they may distinguish between anarchy or socialism on the one hand and the accepted political principles of our country on the other. But there is one thing to be truly said about the South that will always commend itself to employers contemplating a change of base or the establishment of themselves for the first time—and it will commend itself to labor whether organized or unorganized—and that is the doctrines of the socialist have found no encouragement there. Such doctrines cannot thrive in the South any more than tropical plants can survive in the polar regions. Labor leaders should rejoice—in fact wise, educated, far-seeing labor leaders do rejoice—that this spirit prevails in the South, for only so can they hold their own against the radical, trouble-making element in their own ranks.

Thinking too much of established institutions and guarding them too zealously may at times be a disadvantage, but as a general thing that community is most law-abiding and most conservative in maintaining the rights and privileges of all where due reverence is cherished for old established institutions; and yet the wisest conservatism is that which steadily, no matter how slowly, prepares itself for changes that are inevitable. Labor conditions in the South cannot endure as they now exist, unless the South is to lose all that she has gained since the overthrow of slavery, and is to stand and view the triumphal march of the country without participating in it.

The South should not seek to rest under present conditions for they cannot continue. If the present labor of the South becomes educated and then improves, it will organize. And if it does not improve, new labor will come in either already organized or to organize immediately on its arrival. I know this view will be contested by many able employers, but, believing it to be true, I deem it best to say it. It is a great deal better to make yourself strong so that you may trust in your strength when the certain change comes than to rely upon the fairness of the other side—and this is equally true of the employer and the employe.

Experience has taught the South much on the question of labor, but so far as a thorough understanding of the matter goes, the South is barely at the threshold. The first and greatest thing that the South has to realize, which as yet is not realized there at all, is this: In the South as elsewhere, it will be found that cheap labor is the most expensive. To secure good results is the desired end of all industry and the experience of older industrial communities has taught that the best results are, have been, and will ever be obtained by the employment of the best labor. The best labor is and will always be that labor which receives the highest wages and which is most nearly satisfied with surrounding conditions. We can therefore set ourselves no more important task, no more sacred duty, than that of finding the most nearly perfect system under which the highest wages can be paid in return for the most efficient service. And, aside from the justice of this course, aside from the material benefit to the employer, there is no investment that brings its returns so quickly to the community at large, as money paid for good labor. Money so paid is at once spent for the necessities of life, for all the comforts that can be afforded by the family receiving it, and so is circulated almost automatically.

Labor organizations have made small headway in the South for other reasons than the preponderance of negro cheap labor; the first to be stated being the advantages of climate and of cheap living possessed by the Southern worker. The winters are short, the summers long. Outdoor vocations can be pursued in comparative comfort almost the entire year. Fuel bills are smaller, the cost of clothing less, and the cheapness of land opens the way for the workman of even moderate means to possess his own home, if frugal and industrious. He can be his own landlord on easier terms than in the North. But on the other hand, while the climatic and other conditions favor the workman of the South, it must also be remembered that the housing of workmen in the sparsely settled communities or in mining camps is not as good as in the North where legislation and the agitation of the labor leaders have brought about greatly improved conditions.

In the cities of the North the conditions and surroundings of the workmen are even more noticeably superior to those of the workmen in Southern cities. The comforts of such flats as workingmen occupy in the large cities of the North, notably in Chicago, are practically, if not altogether, unknown in the South, where conveniences are fewer. This very custom of living without comforts and conveniences has operated to keep wages down and consequently to offer a check to the spread of unionism. The homes of many skilled Northern workmen belonging to the union would be a revelation to the workman in the South equally skilled but not a member of any labor organization, and receiving less pay for his services.

The organization of labor in the South has also proceeded more slowly as compared with the North because of the more rapid growth and development of the North. It is a fact at once apparent that cities where the unions are strong are the cities that are growing most rapidly. Another cause is the scarcity of manufacturing interests in the South and the consequent small demand for skilled workmen, who are therefore not in the South in sufficient number to organize effectively against the mass of unskilled and partly skilled labor. The lack of numerous large manufacturing enterprises, and of enormous mercantile interests, also causes a lack of sharpness in competition and has made employes less ready or able to exact the utmost that could be paid them in wages.

The difficulties of organizing labor in the South are such as always mark the initial efforts at organization. The union men are out of the Alabama mines, just at this time, for instance, and new men have their places. The new men are being trained to their work, and are receiving practically, if not exactly, the wages asked for by the union. As the number of these skilled workmen increases, the necessity of organization will become more apparent to them all, and the larger the number of men trained for the work, the more effective the union will become. The union wins victories for others oftentimes where it is itself nominally defeated.

The question is asked, and with propriety, of the leaders of organized labor, why it is, if organized labor offers or promises the best workmen, that employers constantly resist its encroachment and turn it out and replace it with unorganized labor if they can. There are several reasons why this is so. It is not, as the labor leader frequently answers, because the employer is short-sighted and imagines that when he can get cheap labor he is making money, although it is at times due to the want of discernment and enlightenment on the part of the employer. The objection made to organized labor by its very best friends among the employers is the short-sighted policy of the organization in winking at or permitting the well-known tyranny of the unions, and also that air of proprietorship which petty labor leaders so often assume.

I have never denied the right of labor to organize, nor can I deny the necessity for labor to organize; and, in the very nature of things, it seems to me that it is best that capital deal with labor as a unit. But at the same time I have, in pursuing my duties in adjusting labor disputes, been brought in contact with labor leaders here and there whose insolence and arrogance, whose absurd claim of being labor’s unselfish and only friend,—made me wish the whole world of organized laborers and their leaders at the bottom of the sea. More than one true friend of organized labor has been lost to a worthy and noble cause for no other reason than that they have been grossly offended and outraged by unworthy representatives of labor organizations.

While the slow growth of the union in the South is no doubt a discouragement to labor organizations, it is a benefit to labor in the long run. It is also at the same time an advantage to capital that labor is being slowly organized. Looking to the future it is an advantage both to capital and labor that the growth of the labor organization does not go too far in advance of the education of the laboring classes and that the employer class may, if it has an eye to its own interest, organize in order successfully and intelligently to treat with organized labor when it has become a force to be dealt with in the South.

Experience proves that even the most thoroughly organized labor unions are not all-powerful when the employers stand together, and the paramount importance of organization among the employers has been repeatedly demonstrated. When this organization of the employers shall have been effected, inquiry into cause and effect, careful study of the labor problem, will quickly show the great advantage and profitableness of dealing fairly with labor. It will show that, if the employers are loyal to each other, and if they have an organization in which all of its members have confidence, they, whether dealing with organized or unorganized labor, are certain to obtain their approximate rights. The many labor tangles in which the country has at times been involved were due far more to the disorganized condition of the employer class than to the cohesiveness and power of the labor class. Whenever the labor class has become needlessly strong and where it practices tyranny and oppression, there the employer class will be found to have neglected its duty to itself.

Another result of the study of conditions will be that the employer class will decide to be fair in dealing with labor, because in the long run it will bring the largest dividends. This cannot be accomplished by dealing with unorganized labor, where the employers have the whole matter practically under their own control, and thinking only of immediate returns, will, consciously or unconsciously, take advantage of the worker. Dealing with organized labor is not only more satisfactory, but it is more profitable in its ultimate results.

The question of individual rights has had a large part in Southern labor troubles. It was a question of the employer’s right to manage his property for himself in his own way that defeated an almost universal strike of the Nashville Street Railway employes two or three years ago. The union was formed and made its demands. The management declined to recognize the union or to grant the demands, and successfully resisted the resulting strike. But the management, I am informed, gave careful examination to the facts thus brought to their attention and has voluntarily advanced wages and improved conditions to a point far beyond what was formulated in the union’s demands. There is no union of the street railway’s employes now at Nashville, and so long as the present intelligent and progressive policy is pursued there will be none and there will be none needed. Indeed, the only excuse for labor to organize is that the policy of the employer has too often been unintelligent, unprogressive and not in sympathy with the reasonable rights and needs of labor.

But the organization of labor and the advancement of wages will do more than any other one thing to lend confidence to those who are looking to the South as a field for investment. The Northern capitalist and investor cannot be made to believe that labor as good and efficient as Northern labor will remain unorganized and render its service for one-third or one-half of what the Northern workman receives. Nor does the Southern worker have the same incentive to the high efficiency reached by the Northern workman. One of the most serious mistakes made by many Southern communities in presenting to the Northern investor the advantages at the South is that they put emphasis on the fact that skilled and unskilled labor is “cheap.” Cheap labor that is at the same time efficient is an unknown thing in the North, and Northern men who are familiar with the labor question will not believe that it exists in the South. “If it were as efficient, it would be as well paid,” they say. The proffer of “cheap” labor has done much to retard the industrial development of the Southern states. It is now the universal cry among the employers of the North, particularly among those who oppose organized labor, that they are willing to pay and do pay the highest wages anywhere obtainable and that they are willing to afford and do afford to their employees the most favorable working conditions.

The question of child labor is one which must be determined by humane principles, and yet it is a question on which much fanaticism has been expended and much maudlin sentiment indulged. The child develops earlier in the South, where the average boy of fourteen is as mature as the average boy of sixteen in the North. It is a cause for gratification, a fact to the credit of the South, that recent child labor laws have removed from mills and mines and factories a vast army of child laborers who properly belonged in the nursery or at school. It was the South’s shame that they were ever permitted there under conditions once existing, and still existing to a degree.

But, while believing that the question of child labor should be closely studied and the interest of the child guarded, I know that this is not always accomplished in the case of boys by making it an offense punishable by fine and imprisonment to keep boys of thirteen and fourteen years at work, particularly since in certain classes of society they have no idea of continuing at school after they reach that age. Anything is better than idleness. It is a thousand to one better for a boy of twelve to be at work in mine, factory or mill than to be allowed to remain unemployed and unoccupied. If he is to be forced out of employment, then provision must be made to force him into school. The attention that has been drawn to child labor in the South comes about not so much by the efforts of philanthropists, not so much by the work of earnest students, as by that class of employers in New England who formerly employed children of tender years, but who were forced to desist as the result of legislation, and who for this reason, and not from any high motives, directed attention to child labor in the cotton mills of the South. I do not mean to justify what is injurious to the children, but in considering this whole question trade or competitive conditions cannot be wholly ignored. We know that the advocates of child labor laws are often selfishly influenced and that they aim to reduce the army of workers in the hope thereby to monopolize labor as far as possible. It is often for the same selfish reason that the hours of labor are restricted.

Much of the opposition to child labor has undoubtedly been removed by the course of mill owners in the South, such as the Eagle and Phœnix mills at Columbus, Ga., the Unity Cotton Mills at Lagrange, Ga., and mills in Guilford County, N. C., and Pelzer, S. C. In these the children are required to spend a certain portion of their time in schools ranging from kindergartens to industrial training schools, which are supported mainly,—and in many cases altogether,—by the cotton mills themselves. The press and pulpit unite in saying that in those mills many of the children have much better facilities for improvement than they had before their parents left the farms and brought them to the mills.

The South suffers from poorly paid labor, and continues to suffer despite the fact that conditions are such as make it possible for her to pay higher prices without injuriously affecting any of her industries. As the wealth of the world increases the individual wants more and greater conveniences, and more and more grows the demand for excellence rather than cheapness to be the chief consideration. The era of cheapness is on the decline; the product of mill and factory, of shop and lathe and hand, must be better to-day to be satisfying than at any time in the world’s history. While excellence is sought the more, cheapness is laughed at and passed by.

The Southern states are in an enviable position to-day. The South ought to produce nearly all it consumes, and those things it can economically produce for its own consumption it should certainly be able to sell in Mexican and South American markets in successful competition with the rest of the world. How successfully this can be done will depend upon the ability of the South to produce the best goods for the least money, and it can only do this provided its labor is the best. But its labor cannot be the best unless it is paid the highest wages and is afforded the most satisfactory conditions under which the workmen can perform their services, and under which they and their families can live.

When labor is once organized on business lines and is a fair competitor of unorganized labor, it will not only be the successful competitor but will furnish the best labor obtainable. Nowhere has organized labor under such conditions so fine an opportunity or so fair a chance as in the South. But as I said before, the South is the stronghold of individual rights. The workman must respect the individual rights of the employer and the employer in return will respect the individual rights of the workman.

It is not only skilled, law-abiding laborers that are necessary to the South’s industrial success, but it is first of all necessary that employers be enlightened and abreast of the times in order that they may see clearly what their rivals are doing and what the markets of the world require. And chiefly employers must be just, wise and humane in order that they may enjoy the confidence and respect of their men.

It is indisputable that wherever there are employers who are wise and humane, working in harmony with laborers who are skilled, frugal and law-abiding, the community where the combination is found has a sure guaranty of numerical growth and of substantial material prosperity. Growth in population is gratifying to most citizens, notably so when accompanied with industrial growth as well, but substantial and lasting prosperity has too often been sacrificed in the eager desire of one community to herald to the world a larger population than its rival possessed. Increased numbers and wealth—if they bring in their train an unnatural increase in vice and crime, as we too often find to be the case,—are infinitely worse than if there were no growth. Southerners sometimes lament that the South does not grow fast enough, yet that it makes haste slowly is the South’s good fortune, since the criminal classes have not increased with the population as at the North. The Southern people, conservative always, should be in nothing so conservative as in the determination that this shall still be true; that while it is increasing in population and wealth the South shall also accomplish the more difficult and important duty of diminishing the percentage of vice and crime.

TILDY BINFORD’S ADVERTISEMENT.

By Holland Wright.

The advertising agent had done his worst. He had subsidized the county paper, crowding out valuable editorials to make room for pictures of the yawning hippopotamus and the unconventional summer girl. Every barn within five miles was decorated with big red pictures and big black letters, all telling of the wonders exhibited by the Grand Combination of Railroad Circuses.

Hodges was but an advertising agent—a ruthless purveyor of publicity. Callous to æsthetic emotions, blind to the beauties of nature, his conscience was dead to the vandalism of highway advertising. Having bedaubed the smiling face of nature in the vicinity of Johnsonville, he was ready to advance on Jonesboro.

“Hello!” he said, stepping briskly into Elrod’s livery stable, “have you got a team that can snatch me into Jonesboro in four hours?”

“That’s just what we have,” said old Bill Elrod—“Truthful Bill,” the boys called him.

“Well, I mean exactly what I say,” said Hodges. “Exactly four hours. I know it’s a hard drive, and I’m willing to pay a dollar or two extra if you can do it.”

“That’s all right, stranger,” said Truthful. “You’ve come to the right place. I’ve got a pair of plugs that can put you there to the minute.”

“Well, hitch ’em up,” said Hodges. “I’ve got no time to spare.”

Old Elrod called to a stable boy to harness the grays, while he went out to get old Eli Wetherford to drive. He took Eli off into a corner of the blacksmith shop, to give him his instructions.

“See here, Eli, that lunatic of a bill-poster wants to be took to Jonesboro in four hours.”

“Well,” said Eli, “it’ll take ever’ minute of six hours to make the trip, but if he’s dead set on doin’ it in four, you’d better give him all kinds of encouragement. If he goes over to see Hopkins & Brown, they’ll agree to put him through in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll ’tend to that,” said Truthful. “I want you to drive him. If I send a boy, that feller will hustle him along fast enough to kill my horses, in spite of all I can do. Now I want you to take him and dash away with him like you was goin’ for a doctor. When you git to the first toll-gate, you can be talkin’ so fast he won’t think about the time o’ day no more till he hears the town clock strike in Jonesboro.”

“Jerusalem!” said Eli: “I ain’t no funnygraph, to be talkin’ a man blind for six hours on a stretch.”

“Oh, you’ll make it easy enough,” said Truthful. “I’ll put a pint of good liquor under the seat.”

“Well, now,” said Eli, persuasively, “if you could just make it a quart, so the stranger can take a nip now and then, it would encourage him powerful.”

“All right,” said Elrod. “I’ll put in a full quart of the best in town. And say, Eli, try to make up some yarn about advertisin’. The hotel clerk says this looney ain’t interested in nothin’ else.”

Thus it happened that when they passed the tollgate, old Eli, who is a bachelor, was telling Hodges of an imaginary wife, who kept him poor by reading advertisements and buying patent medicines.

“I do believe,” he said, “my old woman would have a fit any day if she should happen to read a double-column advertisement of a real good fit medicine.”

“What kind of advertisement does she seem to like best?” asked Hodges.

“Well, you see,” said Eli, “they ain’t a blessed thing the matter with her, so she likes advertisements that calls for ever’-day symptoms—You know some advertisements says if it makes you dizzy to stan’ on your head fifteen minutes, and if you feel warm in the summer time and cold in winter, you’ve got the very ailment that their bitters’ll cure. Ever’ time she sees a advertisement of that kind it costs old Eli a dollar,” and the indulgent husband of the extravagant hypochondriac solaced himself with a dose of his own favorite prescription.

“Try to make up some yarn about advertisin’.”
]

When they were half way to Jonesboro, they met Hank Binford, and Eli thought it would add some personal interest to a romance he had in mind to make Hank its hero. True, the hero must have a wife and a comfortable fortune, while Hank had neither, but that was immaterial, as the listener was a stranger in a strange land.

“Notice that feller we jest passed? That’s Hank Binford. He’s one of our leadin’ citizens. Owns half the houses in town, and a fine four-hundred-acre farm in the river bottom. Well, sir, when he married, five years ago, he didn’t own two shirts, and he was drunk half of the time. It’s a strange thing, but one little four dollar advertisement changed him into a prosperous citizen, with money in the bank.”

“Must have been a pretty good ad. Tell me about it,” said Hodges, moistening his lips with a half pint of whiskey, and settling down comfortably to listen.

Eli took a long pull at the bottle, and began his story. Even with the bottle of inspiration at his elbow, he could not expect to invent his story quite as fast as he could talk, so he told it with due deliberation and great impressiveness.

“When Tildy Maclin married Hank Binford, her folks all said if she didn’t have no more sense than to tie to such a drinkin’, gamblin’ cuss, she would deserve all she got, and mighty apt to git all she deserved. Tildy said Hank would settle down and do all right, and the other Maclins all predicted, mighty confident, that he’d do all wrong. Well, sir, I never did perfess to be no prophet, so naturally of course I couldn’t foresee in advance just what Tildy would make out of Hank. It appeared to me he might turn out as well as Tildy expected, or full as bad as her folks hoped, and neither way, it needn’t surprise nobody that knows what a powerful sight of human nature there is in a average man.

“Well, Tildy she managed to keep Hank tolerable straight for about a year. He’d go for months without so much as takin’ a dram, and when he did start in for a spree she always managed to git him straight before he could manage to git plum heedless drunk, and it begun to look like she had him safe, and would finally land him in old Rehoboth church.

“But, as I was sayin’, you can’t most always tell for certain just what a man critter is goin’ to do, so I wasn’t overly surprised to hear, one day, that Hank had took advantage of Tildy’s visit to her Wilson County kin, and had filled up with red liquor, and was down to Ike Denman’s grocery playin’ poker with Eb Wetherford and Eli Scoggins and Devil Bill Anderson. That is to say, Hank thought he was playin’, though in reality he was only bein’ played; him bein’ plum drunk and the other boys tolerable sober. One or two of Hank’s friends had dropped in, kinder incidentally, and tried to steer him outside, but of course they didn’t have no luck. ’Long about sundown, next day, I saw Tildy drive up to her gate and ’light, and in about a pair of minutes Miss Sallie Kate Slemmons followed her in, lookin’ powerful pleased, and I didn’t feel no sort of uneasiness but what Tildy would hear the news.

Bill just went sailin’ down the road with a armful of ’em, a-strowin’
’em to the wind.
]

“Well, early Saturday mornin’ I happened to be goin’ right by the grocery, and I thought I’d jest step in and pass the time o’ day with Ike, seein’ as I wasn’t in no particular rush. I found Ike all alone by hisself, and he invited me to have somethin’, and I excused myself at first, as men will, and after a while I inquired if the game was still on, and what was the prospects for Hank to lose out, and go home and see Tildy, and hear all about his Wilson County kin folks. Ike said he hadn’t kept the run of the game and didn’t know how Hank stood, but he seemed to imagine that Hank wasn’t in no swivet to swap news with Tildy.

“Ike said Bunk Wetherford had come in early Friday night and took Eb home, and for a while it looked like the game was broke up; but Eli had bantered one of the Edwards boys to take Eb’s place, and he went up and took a hand, and the game broke out in a fresh place, and at last accounts, looked like it might last till all the spots was wore off the cards. I told Ike I’d go up and advise Hank that Tildy had come home.

“‘All right,’ says he, ‘walk right up. I don’t git no takeout from the game, and I’m more’n willin’ to see it broke up any time. I don’t like to interfere myself, jest because it would look like the boys wasn’t welcome here, so I jest lets ’em do mostly as they like, so long as they pays for what they gits, and don’t break nothin’.’

“So I went up and looked on a while, and tried to ketch Hank’s eye, but I could see ’twas no use. He was feelin’ his licker, and talkin’ powerful smart, and losin’ good hard-earned money just as cheerful as if money growed on trees and he owned all the timber land. After a while Denman come up to the head of the stairs, a-grinnin’ all over his face, and motioned me to come to the door. I went over and he handed me a printed poster, about two foot square, and containin’ the followin’ advertisement in big, black type:

‘LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN:
ONE YOUNG MAN!

About 28 years old, 5 ft. 10 in. High, Weighs about 140 lbs., Tow
Headed, Sandy Complected, Weak-eyed, and When Sober answers to the name
of

HANK BINFORD!

$4 reward will be paid for his return in good order, Securely Tied.

Signed: TILDY BINFORD.’

“‘Gee Whilikins!’ says I; ‘where did you find it?’

“‘Didn’t find it,’ says he. ‘Jest picked it up. Old man _Weekly Clarion_ Johnson’s little boy, Bill, jest went sailin’ down the road with a armful of ’em, a-strowin’ ’em to the wind. The whole settlement’s full of ’em. They’re all over the floor downstairs, and all over the road, fur as you can see in both directions.’

“The boys at the table was so set on the game that they didn’t take no notice of me and Ike, till I steps over, while Hank was tryin’ to shuffle the cards, and lays the paper down right plum in the middle of the table.

“‘Take the blame thing away,’ says Hank, without readin’ a word.

“‘Read it,’ says I.

“‘Read nothin!’ says he. ‘This is no literary society. Take the blasted thing out of the way so I can deal the kyards.’

“‘I see your name on it,’ says I, ‘and I thought it might interest you.’

“Hank laid down the cards and glanced over the paper. * * First he looked kinder dazed. Then he picked the thing up and looked at it a long time. His face got mighty white, and I thought he was goin’ to faint, but he didn’t. He looked around at the boys; all of ’em a-grinnin’ and lookin’ tickled to death. I begins to have my suspicions about the meanin’ of that white look on his face, and I steps back and takes a stand nigh the door. It was mighty plain to me that Hank had misery to spare, and he meant to pass it around promiscuous. He come up with his chair, and before them grinnin’ idiots had time to back off from the table and climb out of their chairs, Hank had raised a knot on every head, and started ’round the circuit to repeat the dose. They closed in on him and mauled him and gouged him till you couldn’t tell who he was, only by the familiar cut of his clothes and the complexion of his hair and moustache. The only way we could know for certain it was Hank, was by takin’ a sort of inventory of them that could be identified. As none of the whole men was Hank, it stood to reason that this remnant must be him. It was also observed that the critter had a voice some like Hank’s, and used his favorite cuss words quite familiar like.

There ain’t nobody in the settlement that will go out of his way to
have a difficulty with Ike.
]

“Now, endurin’ of the row, Devil Bill Anderson had received a tremenjous big lump on his head, which he could not recall that he had done any overt act or said any word to justify any human man to hit him that vengeful lick, and he was by no means satisfied. The more he thought over the details and narrated the circumstances, the more rebellious he felt and the louder he talked; insomuch that it finally became necessary for Denman to assert hisself and preserve order in his own grocery; which he finally said, quite emphatic, that if anybody wanted to hurt anybody, they might try their hand on Ike Denman. Now there ain’t nobody in the settlement that will go out of the way to have a difficulty with Ike; so Devil Bill kinder cooled off, the best way he could, and everything got quiet, and Denman poured a big sluice of raw whiskey into Hank, and put him to sleep under the big tree at the back of the grocery.

Tildy came out to the gate, looking a little pale, but holding her
head up.
]

“I went to dinner, and when I got back Bud Runnels had just come up and was readin’ Tildy’s advertisement. Bud always did love to joke, and this one seemed to tickle him all over. After inquirin’ all about the particulars, he asked where Hank was at.

“‘He’s back there under the big ellum,’ says Denman, ‘sleepin’ sound as a baby.’

“‘What about the four dollars reward?’ says Bud.

“‘Why, I guess that’s jest a part of the joke,’ says Ike.

“‘Well, I don’t see it that away,’ says Bud. ‘The lady has lost her husband, and she wants him found and fetched home. Now, I’m goin’ to take him home, and if she don’t want him, I can easy fetch him back.’

“Ike grinned, and looked ‘round at the boys, and they grinned.

“‘I don’t hear no objection,’ says Ike. ‘You’ll find him back there under the tree.’

“‘Well,’ says Bud, ‘I can easy load him into my wagon and haul him home and unload him in his own yard, but it might be better for you boys that beat him up to jest take holt and come along with me; all a-totin’ of him home in a friendly way. Then if Tildy wants to know how come his face all broke up, you can jest show her the knots on your own heads and it’ll sorter help to explain matters.’

“Nobody didn’t answer right away, and before anybody could think of any objection, Bud added in his insinuatin’ way: ‘It might save trouble to keep Tildy pacified, so she’ll explain to Hank that he was to blame for all that’s been done to him. Now, ever’ body come on and take holt, and I’ll set ’em up to the crowd soon’s we get back.’

“Bud always seems to state a proposition so fair an’ reasonable that you jest can’t turn him down, so the boys jest got up without wastin’ any words, and followed him around to where Hank was. They gathered him up, one at each corner, and Bud holdin’ up his head. They ketched the step, ‘hayfoot-strawfoot,’ and marched up to Hank’s front gate.

“Tildy was sweepin’ off the front porch, and when she saw the crowd she come out to the gate, lookin’ a little pale, but holdin’ her head up, and a stiff upper lip.

“‘What is it?’ says she.

“‘It’s Hank,’ says Bud.

“‘Is he hurt?’ says she.

“‘Oh, no,’ says Bud. ‘That is to say, they ain’t any bones broke. He’s been a-fightin’ ‘round promiscuous, but he’s got no hurts to call for anybody to fetch him home. Fact is I saw a advertisement offerin’ a reward for Hank, and I just discovered him, and rescued him, and fetched him home.’

“‘Didn’t the advertisement say to return him in good order?’ says Tildy.

“‘I b’leeve it did,’ says Bud, ‘but I couldn’t p’form no miracle for four dollars, so I jest fetched him as I found him.’

“‘And didn’t it say bring him securely tied?’ says Tildy.

“Bud was set back considerable at that. ‘That’s a fact,’ says he, ‘and I jest plum overlooked it. It didn’t appear to me to be of no consequence, nohow.’

“‘Well, it’s mighty important to me,’ says Tildy. ‘If he wakes up in a tantrum, and untied, he might be troublesome.’

“‘That’s so,’ says Devil Bill, thinking of the lump on his own head.

“‘So it is,’ says Eli Scoggins, solemnly.

“‘I believe you,’ says Buck Edwards.

“‘Well,’ says Bud Runnels, ‘it ain’t none too late to tie him, but if I was you, Mizzes Binford, I b’leeve I’d jest sew him up, good and snug, in cotton baggin’ or heavy canvas or somethin’ good and stout like that, and leave nothin’ stickin’ out but jest his head.’

“‘Oh,’ says she, ‘I’ve got the very thing!’ and she went ‘round to the shed, and come back with the stoutest, heaviest, widest piece of cotton duckin’ that I ever see.

“‘I bought it at the auction,’ says she, ‘because it was cheap, and Hank said I never would have no use for it but you see he was mistaken.’

“Well, we sewed him up good and tight, and put him on the bed in the spare room and cut a big peachtree limb for Tildy to keep the flies off of him, and she paid Bud the four dollars.

“When Hank waked up, Sunday mornin’, he could hear Tildy fryin’ meat in the kitchen, and he knowed she was cookin’ breakfast. He didn’t seem to want any breakfast, but he thought a cup of strong coffee might be good for his head. He tried to git up, but the sheet seemed to be rolled ‘round him so he couldn’t rise. Then he tried to roll over, so he could git untangled, but he couldn’t even turn over. Then he got mad, and tried to bust the sheet, but he strained at it till he was black in the face, and couldn’t break a stitch. Then he called Tildy. She come in and walked ’round in front of him.

“‘Tildy,’ says he, ‘what’s the matter with this sheet?’

“‘I don’t see nothin’ wrong with it,’ says she.

“‘Well, then,’ says Hank, ‘what in the nation is the matter with me?’

“‘Oh!’ says Tildy; ‘that’s different. If I undertake to stan’ here and tell all that’s wrong with you, my breakfast’ll be burnt to a cinder before I’m half through.’ And with that, she turned ‘round and marched away to the kitchen.

“Well, of course Hank was fightin’ mad, but he wasn’t in no shape to do nothin’ but jest lay still and think, and not in no great shape for thinkin’, so he jest went to sleep again.

“Next time he opened his eyes, Tildy was standin’ over him with a dish of meat and bread, and a cup of hot coffee.

“‘Good mornin’,’ says she, mighty polite. ‘Would you like to have some breakfast?’

“Hank grinned, kinder sheepish, and she propped up his head, and begun to feed him with a spoon. When he tried to speak, she would pour a spoonful of coffee in his mouth, right quick, and he’d have to stop to swaller, and time he’d git that down, she’d have another one ready for him. He was tryin’ to talk all the time, but she didn’t give him a chance to say a word. Finally, she got so tickled, seein’ him swaller so fast, that she spilt a lot of hot coffee down his neck.

“‘Jerusalem!’ he yelled. ‘Woman, do you want to scald me to death?’ And with that he begun to cuss, and bluster about what he would do when he got loose. Tildy set the dishes on the table without sayin’ a word. Then she went to the front door, and called to little Johnnie Martin, in the next yard.

“‘Johnnie,’ she says, ‘is Brother Collins at home?’

“‘Yessum,’ says Johnnie.

“‘All right,’ says Tildy, and she went in and put on her bonnet and started out the front door.

“‘Where you goin’, Tildy?’ Hank asked.

“‘I’m goin’ after Brother Collins.’

“‘What for?’

“‘I want him to talk to you.’

“‘Me?’ says Hank. ‘I don’t want to talk to no preacher!’

“‘I don’t want you to talk to him,’ says Tildy. ‘I want him to talk to you,’ and she walked out the door. When Hank heard her slam the gate behind her, he hollered like the house was afire.

“‘Oh, Tildy!’ She come back to the door and looked in.

“‘Why, Tildy,’ says Hank, pitiful as a baby, ‘you don’t aim to make me the laughin’-stock of the settlement, do you?’

“‘I don’t see why you need to bother about that,’ says Tildy. ‘If it’s no disgrace to git drunk, and gamble, and fight, in a corner grocery, it’s no disgrace to talk to a minister of the gospel.’ She started out again, but Hank called her back.

“‘Hold on, Tildy; I’ll agree to anything you say, if you won’t call in the preacher.’

“‘What you goin’ to do about them circulars I got printed?’ she asked.

“‘Why, I’m goin’ down there and maul the life out of old Goatwhiskers for printin’ them things,’ says Hank. Tildy started out again, and he yelled after her to come back. Promised he wouldn’t say a word to him.

“‘What are you goin’ to say to the boys you had the fight with?’

“‘Fight!’ says Hank. ‘It wasn’t no fight. The whole crowd lit into me and mauled me most to death, and I hadn’t said a word.’

“‘I understand you knocked ’em all down with a cheer, if that’s any satisfaction to you,’ says Tildy.

“‘All right, then,’ says Hank, ‘I’m willin’ to call it square, if they are.’

“‘Not goin’ to say a word to nobody about nothin’?’ she asked.

“‘Not a word,’ says he.

“‘Not goin’ to drink any more?’

“‘Not a drop, Tildy. Now, come on and cut this devilish thing off. I feel like I’ll die if it stays on me another minute.’ Tildy couldn’t think of nothin’ more he could promise, so finally she cut the bastin’ threads and let him loose. Well, sir, he didn’t say a word out of the way to them boys that beat ’em up, and he wouldn’t even take a few drinks to taper off, and it’s my opinion,” said old Eli, solemnly, “that he wouldn’t drink a drop of liquor, right now, if he was bit by a snake.”

They were driving into Jonesboro when the old man finished his story, and the big town clock struck four.

“Great guns!” cried Hodges in amazement, “it’s four o’clock!”

“Egzackly,” said Eli, with an air of innocent triumph. “I’ve drove over this road so often, I can time the trip to a minute. You said you wanted to be here egzackly at four o’clock—”

“Four devils!” Hodges yelled. “I said four hours! I’m two hours late. I’ll have to stay in this jay town a whole day!”

“My, my!” exclaimed old Eli. “Somebody’s made a terrible mistake. I do hope I wasn’t in no way to blame for it. Now, if you’d just mentioned that you was behind time, I could easy have put them grays through two hours earlier.”

“Oh, it’s my fault, I guess,” said Hodges, when his wrath had subsided. “I told old Elrod, but I ought to have told you, too. Then I rode along for four mortal hours sucking that bottle of foolkiller, and didn’t have sense enough to look at my watch once. Well, well! I’ll just charge it up to Hodges, and see it don’t happen again.”

Though Eli was not to blame, he was inconsolable, till Hodges gave him a dollar at parting. Tears of gratitude stood in the old man’s eyes.

“Good-bye, Stranger,” he said. “I do hope old man Elrod won’t find out about you bein’ late. He’d be powerful pestered to know you’d been disappointed. Good-bye.” And as he drove away, he muttered to himself: “Darn the feller! I think he might have offered to fill my bottle.”

The modern lecturer is the alarm clock of civilization wound up to go off with a whiz and a bang at any hour in the evening, according to the whims of his audience. A Northern audience wants to be aroused at 8 P.M. sharp, a Southern audience anywhere between 8.30 P.M. and daylight, A.M. But some time in the night he is sure to wake the natives, for he is a traveling gesture tied to a bell clapper and

When his hands begin to swing
And his bell begins to ring
His waking listeners laugh and weep
And then, alas! go back to sleep.
But still he screams and fights the air
And stamps his foot and pulls his hair
And growls and roars upon the stage
Like some fierce lion in a rage,
Until at last his clock runs down
And he winds it up for another town.
Selah!

—_Robert L. Taylor._

THE MAN AND THE MATINEE
BY
SYBIL STEWART

There was a ring at the door, a light tripping of feet up the stairs, a swish of skirts in the hall, then a quick little tap at Mabel’s door.

Mabel had looked up from her book at the first of these sounds with the eager interest an invalid must feel in any interruption to the long day. At each succeeding sound her face grew brighter until she cried a cordial, “Come in,” and, as the door flew open, added, “There, I knew it was you and I’m awfully glad. You are as good as a breath of the blessed out-doors.” And she kissed the newcomer’s glowing cheeks.

There was a general breeziness about Cora that justified Mabel’s words. She sailed into the room, veils fluttering and skirts rustling, kissed her friend swiftly and settled upon the arm of her chair like a bird on a bough.

“But, Angel of Peace, there’s nothing blessed about me. I’m in another scrape.” She opened her big eyes impressively upon her audience. The audience sat up in her chair and asked with interest, “What disagreeable thing has happened now?”