His Brother's Keeper, Or, Christian Stewardship

Front matter

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Preface

" His Brother's Keeper " was written during the winter of 1895 and first read, one chapter at a time, on successive Sunday evenings to my congregation in the Central Church.

The scenes in the mining region are based upon events which occurred during the great strike among the iron miners in the summer of 1895, and which were witnessed by the author.

The Salvation Army songs are exact copies of songs actually sung by the army.

Charles M. Sheldon.

TopEKA, Kan., Central Church, 1896.

Contents

Chap. Pagb

I. The Great Strike 5

II. Large Responsibilities 42

Chapter I. The Great Strike

T^HEY say five thousand men have gone out -*- of the Champion and De Mott mines this morning," said one of the passengers in the train to the young man in the seat by him as they slowly drew up to the station.

*' I wonder if that is so ? " replied his companion. "There seems to be something unusual going on. Well, good-by. This is my home. I shall soon know all about it."

The young man caught up his traveling bag and hurried out upon the platform.

The station was entirely deserted, except by a few of the railroad employees. The young man looked around a moment as if expecting some one, and then walked hastily across the platform and around the comer of the station. From that side of the building the town and the public square were in full view. And as they came in sight the passenger gave an exclamation of wonder.

The public square was a small park with a band stand in the middle of it. It was situated at the meeting point of several streets, each of which seemed to wander down the hills from the different mining districts ; starting first as a footpath trod by the miners, then developing into a piece of country road, adding on fragments of wooden sidewalks as it approached the town, and finally growing into a street with paving and cement walks, and stores and office buildings on either side. Directly in front of the band stand, facing the park, stood a large church, which with its lot occupied the entire space between two streets. The railway station formed one side of the heptagon made by the converging of the seven streets. Another church building, two streets from the other, formed another side. The rest of the buildings fronting the park were stores, offices of various mining companies, and a large hotel.

Into this center of the heart of the mining town of Champion on this particular morning, in the year of our Lord 1895, was gathered the largest crowd Stuart Duncan ever saw there.

This young man was the son of Ross Duncan, owner of the largest mines in Champion. He was thirty years old, had finished his college education, and was just home this morning from a year's trip in Europe. As he came down from the railway station platform and pushed his way into the crowd, he said to himself that in all his travels abroad he had not seen anything to compare with the remarkable gathering in this mining town where he had been reared previous to his college life in the East.

The minute he stepped into the crowd several voices called out, " Stuart, lad, give us your hand! Glad to see you back ! " The voices were in different tones and various degrees of brogue, Cornish, Finn, English, Irish, Scotch. He noticed the subdued action of the men. They were excited, but under control. The band stand was crowded with familiar faces, but Stuart Duncan looked at only one. That was the face of a short but muscular young man who was standing with head uncovered upon the bench which ran around the inside of the stand. He had thick black hair, deepset black eyes, heavy eyebrows, large features, sniooth face, and short, round neck. He stood leaning forward a little, his left hand around one of the supports to the roof of the stand, his right holding an old hat which he moved gently up and down.

Stuart moved up nearer the stand until he was within easy speaking distance. As he crowded in closer he was finally stopped by the great pressure of the men. Several voices greeted him, but all of them quietly, and the interest of the gathering seemed centered in the figure that stood leaning out a little over the crowd.

" What *s it all about > What 's the trouble ? " asked Stuart of the men around him. " What *s Eric doing up there } "

Before any one could reply, the young man standing on the bench began to speak. His words came very slowly, as if every one of them was being thought out carefully. He stopped every motion of his body and stood perfectly still. The great crowd in the square was so quiet that Stuart thought for a second of a scene he once witnessed in an English cathedral when four thousand people were kneeling just before a special service began.

" Brothers," said the speaker, whom Stuart had called " Eric," " this is no ordinary movement in the history of labor. What we have done and what we are about to do is of the most serious consequence. We have made a demand for wages such as will sustain us and our families this winter in comfort. It has been refused, and we have come out of the mines determined to make a peaceful but resistless protest for the rights of our manhood." The speaker paused just a moment, and Stuart noticed the hand around the post tighten its grip. Then he continued. The quiet of the crowd was, if possible, more deep than before.

" Brothers, we need more than human wisdom at such a time as this. It is fitting that we bow our heads and implore divine aid." Every head in the square was uncovered as the speaker's voice rang out clear and strong over the crowd : —

" Lord, we need thy help to-day. We ask for wisdom. Grant us to know thy will. O Lord ! keep us from committing any lawless act. Keep every man here from drunkenness and violence to property or life. We want simply our rights as men. We want wages sufficient to live in comfort. Show us what to do. Keep us to-day from evil. Bless all men who work with their hands. Bless our families. We ask it for Jesus* sake. Amen." *

* This incideut is based on fact. The writer of this story was witness to a gathering of iron miners in the great strike of July, 1895, where one of the miners oflRrted just such a prayer as the above, at Negaunee, Mich., July 94, X895.

lO HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER.

The speaker lifted his head and the miners put on their hats. Stuart looked out over the heads of the crowd and up at the man who had just prayed and then out beyond him to the pinecovered hills dotted over with the engine houses and stock piles of ore. He noticed the smoke curling up from the furnace stacks and said to himself, " The pumps are going yet." The whole scene was very vivid to him. The crowd, the churches, the park, the stand, that familiar face and figure up there, the hills, the mines, the whole with its strong setting of human interest smote him almost with a shock. And at the very nerve center of the shock was that brief prayer. It was so strange, so unusual, so like a story, so unlike real life.

Eric was speaking again. He was making an appeal to the miners to commend their cause to the world by their conduct. He spoke, as before he had prayed, very slowly and carefully. Toward the end of his speech he caught sight of Stuart.

His face flushed for an instant. The eyes of the two men met. The look on each man's face seemed to say, " I wonder if he is still the same.?**

A clock in the steeple of the larger of the two k

THE GREAT STRIKE. II

churches struck eight. Eric jumped down from the bench and another miner took his place and spoke in a more impassioned manner to the men. There were cheers and swinging of hats. Stuart gradually worked his way out of the crowd, stopped frequently by acquaintances. At last he had come out in front of the church with the clock in the tower, looking about him eagerly for some one from his own home, when a strong voice from a man standing on the church steps above him exclaimed : —

" Say, Stuart, when did you join the strike } *'

" Doctor ! '* cried Stuart eagerly, with a smile of welcome that lighted up his thoughtful face wonderfully, " next to father and Louise, you are the very person I wanted to see most. Where are they } They were to meet me at the train this morning. Isn't this a most astonishing affair.^ Tell me all about it."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. " You know as much about it as I do. The men went out this morning without notice. The Freeport, Vasplaine, and De Mott miners are all here with the Champion men. They walked over from the lower range early this morning."

" What do the men want ? " Stuart asked vaguely. He had so many questions to put he asked the first that occurred.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders again.

"The contract miners want two dollars a day, the trammers one seventy-five, and the men at the top one fifty."

" Who is the leader of the men } "

" You see for yourself ; Eric Vassall. And it seems only yesterday that you two men were young kids in knickerbockers tumbling down the mines and worrying the life out of the companies because of your pranks. And now Eric is the leader of the biggest strike on record among miners, playing the r61e of prophet and priest and. I don't know what all, and you " —

" And I," interrupted Stuart with another smile as he pulled the doctor down off the step above him, "I am — so far — nobody, until I have had my breakfast. I can't understand where father and Louise can be. Have n't you seen them this morning.?"

" No. Get into my buggy. I will take you up to the house."

The doctor's office fronted on the square and his horse stood near by. Stuart gave one glance back at the crowd as he and the doctor started up the street.

" It is a remarkable scene. I have not witnessed anything like it abroad. I have seen several strikes in England and Germany and France since I have been away. But I never knew a strike to be opened with prayer, did you, doctor } "

" No," replied the doctor dryly.

Stuart looked at him. He was driving, as always, with one foot outside of the buggy, the lines gathered up in a careless way in one hand and the horse tearing along like mad up the sandy, red, iron-ore street, for they were off the paving now and going up a sharp grade cut through one of the numerous hills that surrounded the town. The doctor always drove that way, and a ride with him was as exciting, Stuart used to say, a& working in a powder mill during a thunderstorm.

" Why } Don't you think the prayer was sincere } '* Stuart asked.

" Sincere enough. But pshaw ! What 's the use? We all know how the strike will end, prayer or no prayer."

" What *s happened to Eric, doctor ? He never used to be religious. Not that way."

" Salvation Army," replied the doctor briefly.

" Oh ! " Stuart look puzzled ; but he thought he would have it all out with Eric. There was so much to talk over since they had parted a year ago. So many grave questions had arisen in their lives that needed to be discussed. He was growing anxious, as they drove along, concerning his father and sister. It was very strange that they had not met him at the station. But the strike and all might have kept his father ; it was a different home-coming from that of his anticipation.

The house stood back from the road on the side of the hill. It was a handsome brick mansion, surrounded by a dozen immense pines. Stuart loved the place. It was dear to his memories. He had no recollection of any other home, although he had been born in one of the Eastern States. It was in this house that his mother had died when he was ten years old. He owed his thoughtful, romantic, truthful nature to her. From his father, on the other hand, he had inherited his slow, stubborn, occasional fierce bursting out of passionate feelings. He thought of all the happy times in the old house where as boy, and later as college man, he had enjoyed all the luxuries of wealth and leisure and companionship.

Suddenly a man drove out of the roadway into which he and the doctor were just turning to go up to the house. Both men pulled up just in time to avoid running into each other.

" Is that you, Dr. Saxon } " shouted the man. "I was just going for you. Mr. Duncan has been hurt. The horses ran away this morning and" —

Stuart did not wait to hear more. He jumped out of the buggy and at the top of his speed cut through the grounds in front of the house. The doctor uttered an exclamation, gave his horse one short stroke with the whip, and dashed up the driveway like a whirlwind. At the end of the long veranda he stopped long enough to jump out and let the horse go on to the barn. He was so quick that, as he reached the large front door, he met Stuart just leaping up the veranda steps.

" Now then, my boy," said the doctor quietly, filling up the doorway with his large frame, and getting directly in front of Stuart, "don't get excited. This is my case, not yours."

" Let me by ! " cried Stuart, his face almost black with passion. " He is my father ! Perhaps he is dying ! What right have you to keep in the way } "

" Very well ! " The doctor spoke softly, almost like a child. He stepped aside and began to walk slowly down the veranda steps. " You have inherited the Duncan passion to perfection ; but if your father dies through your nonsensical exercise of it just now, don't blame me."

Stuart made one stride and caught the doctor's arm. " Come back ! " he said. All his black passion was gone in an instant. ^' I will be a man like you. Come! You will perhaps need my help."

The doctor looked keenly at him and at once turned around and entered the house with him. The incident would not mean anything without a knowledge of what was at stake on this occasion. But Dr. Saxon had good reason to believe that the life of the son in this instance was imperiled by the fearful excitement which at rare intervals broke out in him like a torrent. To confront the father with him under those conditions might prove serious to them both.

Within the house servants were running about in confusion. The doctor stopped one of them and said roughly, " Now, then, are you all crazy here ? Where is Mr. Duncan ? "

"They carried him into the north room," was the answer.

" North room ! Why did n't you carry him to the North Pole and be done with it ! Here, Stuart ! Send one of the men down for my black case at the office, and then come to your father."

The doctor went down the long hall, turned to the right into another corridor, and entered a large room at the end.

Lying over the bed in the middle of the room was a young woman. Her arms were clasped over the face of the man who lay there, and she had fainted in that position.

The doctor lifted her up just as Stuart entered.

" O God ! Louise too ! *' he cried.

The doctor gave him a look that calmed him and replied : " No, she is in a faint. Now, then, use all the sense you have and it won't be too much. You look after your sister while I see to your father."

He put Louise into Stuart's arms, who with the servants' help soon restored her to consciousness, while the doctor turned to the man on the bed, and in a masterly manner proceeded to do all that his great skill and keenness of practice could do.

Ross Duncan lay like a dead man. He was of powerful build and looked very stern and hard even as he lay there helpless. There was a terrible gash over one of his eyes. He was covered with blood and dust, bruised from head to foot, with clothes torn and disfigured ; but he had not lost consciousness, and with the iron will which had always characterized him he managed to let the doctor know his wishes.

"All right, all right, Mr. Duncan," said the doctor in reply to a whisper from the wounded man. "I won't give you any anaesthetic if you don't want it. I shall have to sew up this little place over your eye, though. Has that tortoise got around with that case yet } " he asked Stuart, who had left Louise a minute to come over to the bed.

" He has n't had time yet, doctor."

" Why did n't he take my horse t " growled the doctor. - " How is Louise ? "

/"Better. But what a terrible fall father must have had ! "

Stuart felt for his father's hand, and Ross Duncan's fingers closed over those of his son. Stuart kneeled by the bed and kissed his father's cheek as he used to do when a boy. The older man was evidently moved by the caress. A tear rolled over his face.

"Come now," broke in the doctor, apparently gruffer than ever. "One would think you two had n't seen each other for a year at least ! We must get him ready for the operation. Stuart, you promised to help me. Give me your attention now."

The doctor soon had his patient as comfortable as the nature of the injuries would allow. The case arrived, the gash was sewed up quickly, and at the end of the hour Ross Duncan was resting under the influence of a draught, while the doctor, Stuart, and Louise were in another room talking over the accident.

The sister of Stuart Duncan was very pretty, very proud, and very selfish. She was six years younger than her brother. She had been two years to a finishing school in New York, but had not finished any particular branch of study. She could play the piano a little and the harp a little, and do other things, except housework, a little. She lay on a lounge now, with Stuart near by stroking her head, and told the story of the accident.

"Father and I started to drive down to the station this morning to meet you, Stuart. When we reached the crossroad leading up to the Forge mine we were early for the train, and father drove up to the engine house on some business. When we got up there, the miners were gathering to march down to the square. It was the first news of the strike we had had. Father was very much excited and talked to the men to persuade them to go back to work. Some of them talked back in the most insulting way ; said they were free men and did not have to work for a corporation, and all that. You know how they talk, Stuart; nothing makes father so angry, and I don't blame him. I think the men are simply horrid to make all this trouble just now as I was getting ready to go East for that yachting cruise with the Vasplaines ; and this strike will probably stop their going. Then father jumped out of the carriage and was going to give one of the men who insulted him a good thrashing, and serve him right, when the rest came around and made him get into the carriage again. I never saw father so angry, and I was scared almost to death, the men were so rough. We drove back to the crossroad, and at that steep turn by that old Beury shaft we came upon a crowd of miners marching into town from the lower range. They were carrying a large white banner with some horrid picture on it. The horses were frightened and turned and ran right* towards the old shaft. I don't know what happened then, only we were thrown out ; and it is a miracle that I was not killed. Jem the coachman was driving, and he fell on a pile of shaft ore. He ran up to the house and got the other horses and brought father and me home. I fainted away several times, and when I saw father laid on the bed with that awful gash on his head, I thought he was killed. If he dies, the miners will be to blame. If it had n't been for their going out on this strike, this horrible accident would not have happened. It *s all as horrid as it can be ! "

At this point Louise burst into a great fit of hysterical crying.

" Dear, you must have been hurt by the fall ! " cried Stuart as he soothed and comforted her.

" No ! no ! I was not even bruised ! " replied Louise. She stopped crying and sat up on the lounge and began to arrange her hair.

Dr. Saxon walked towards the other end of the room with a peculiar look on his face. Then he wheeled around and said with his characteristic bluntness : ** I must go back to the office. I 've left directions for your father's treatment. He is not dangerously hurt. Send for me if I am needed. Miss Louise, you had better take those powders and keep as quiet as possible to-day."

He laid the medicine down on a table and went out. A minute later his horse was heard rushing by the veranda and down the road.

So this was the home-coming of Stuart Duncan after his year's absence abroad. He had visited with interest many of the famous capitals of Europe. He had sauntered through museums and picture galleries ; he had studied, not very profoundly but with genuine interest, the people he had met and the customs he had observed that were new. The year had been very largely a holiday for him. He had used all the money he wished, drawing on his letter of credit without any thought of economy. His father was several times a millionaire and never stinted the money. What he wanted was that his son and daughter should have the best of everything, from clothes and food to education and travel. And Stuart had gone through college and through Europe with about the same easy feeling of having a comfortable time. He was perfectly healthy, had no vices (he did not even like a cigar), unusually thoughtful on some questions, with no particular ambitions and no special enthusiasms. If he gave his future any thought while abroad, it was simply to picture a life of business in connection with his father's mining interests. That was his father's desire, and Stuart did not have any other.

He had come home from the picture galleries and cathedrals of the Old World to face, first of all, this rough incident of his father's injury. In connection with it was the strike, which was specially personal, not only because it involved the Duncan interests, but because the leader of it was Eric Vassall, Stuart's old playfellow and friend. The more he thought of Eric the more he felt the strike to be a serious matter. So much might be involved in it for him and Eric.

Nearly a week went by before Ross Duncan was able to sit up and talk much. During that time Stuart faithfully remained at home. He had not seen Eric, and Eric, as he supposed, had not been to see him. His father and Louise needed his constant care. But he anticipated meeting his old playfellow with a curious feeling of excitement whenever he thought of that scene in the public square and recalled the prayer and its effect.

At the end of the week, father and son were talking together over the situation. The miners were still out and the strike was still on, with no prospect of settlement.

** I tell you, Stuart,** said Ross Duncan, while his great square chin grew hard and tense, " the companies will never concede the demands of the men ! I will never go an inch to meet them while they are in their present attitude."

" Do you think the men ask too much, father } *'

"Too much! With ore at the present price! It is outrageous just when we were beginning to get on our feet again. It has been a very dull winter and things were just beginning to turn our way again."

" But I thought ore had gone up. Is n't that what the men claim as the reason for their demand for an increase } They say the wages ought to go up with the rise in ore."

"They are fools!*' Ross Duncan struck the pillow beside him passionately. " The companies were under contract for large quantities of ore at the old price before this rise came. The rise will not benefit us any until we have disposed of our old contracts."

" Why don't the companies tell the men so } *'

" Pshaw ! Stuart, you are " — Ross Duncan controlled himself violently. Stuart was alarmed for him. He rose and went over nearer the bed.

" Father, you must not get excited. Remember what Dr. Saxon said yesterday. You must not talk any more on this subject.*'

" I shall ! There, I can control myself.**

It was wonderful to see the change that came over the man. He stiffened his muscles, then relaxed them and let his hand, which had been clinched, open easily and lie open on the bedclothes. Then he spoke without a quiver of passion, slowly and coldly.

" The companies do not tell the men so because the men would n't believe a word the companies say. Yet there is n*t a man in our mines who can say Ross Duncan ever cheated a man out of a penny or ever told him an untruth. I tell you, Stuart, the men are the most stubborn, ungrateful, ignorant lot of animals that ever lived. Why, all last winter I kept more than a dozen families going with food and fuel because they had been sick or shiftless, and I *11 warrant you those very families are in the front row of the parades every morning ! The men are cutting their own throats. The companies will never give in.**

Stuart did not say anything for a while. Then :

" Don't you think, father, that the men have been very quiet and law-abiding ? There has been no disturbance thus far."

" Wait till we get new men in from Chicago and then see.**

" Will the companies try to do that ? "

"They certainly will if the strike continues another week. We lose our contracts unless we can deliver the ore as specified.**

" Is n't it a little remarkable, father,*' said Stuart after another pause, " that the men have opened their meetings in the square every morning with prayer } **

Ross Duncan uttered a sound that represented more scorn than a hundred words.

" Who do they pray to } The devil V

" The prayer I heard the first morning I came home was as good a prayer as I ever heard in church.*'

" Who offered it ? '*

" Eric," replied Stuart, flushing up a little.

" He is the leader of the whole strike ; the most dangerous man on the range to-day. I advise you to break with him.'*

Stuart leaned forward a little. "You remember, father, Eric saved my life when the skip broke in the shaft ? "

" Well, it was only what any man would do. You are not under any great debt to him.*'

Stuart did not reply. He felt the strange passion he inherited from his father rising in him, and after a few questions as to his father's condition he went out of the room.