Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb 1914 - Sep 1916 (assorted issues))

68 THOSE JVHO TOIL cheek-bones, a grim chin, and a pair of black eyes blazing above a curved, red mouth, oddly wistful and girlish in that strong, almost hard face. With his systematic fashion of instantly labeling and docketing people, Jameson thought : "Upper middle class ; probably from the oil district ; intelligent ; a rebel ; a fanatic ; dangerous " The tip of one shoe went out noiselessly, pressing a spot in the carpet under the desk. A grim smile tinted his lips wryly. ''Suppose / tell you what you want," he suggested pleasantly — "it will save time. I know your story very well; I have heard it a hundred times in spite of the money I pay a score of servants and a dozen secretaries to keep people like you out of my way. How did you get in ? Oh, my daughter's masked ball — / see. Well, to business. You want me to yield up the profits of my oil-wells to a mangy, unwashed pack of workmen, so that "they can get a little drunker on Sundays than they do now ; you want me to build a workingmen's hospital and library and gymnasium, and put porcelain bathtubs in their cottages, and send their children to colleges, where they will learn that, being free and equal to me, they have a perfect right to my money and to heave a brick into my automobile if they have the whim ; and you want me, I presume, to remember it is more blessed to give than to receive, and that a camel can pass thru a needle's eye more easily than a rich man into heaven. Am I right?" He waited, sardonically amused. A burning flush swept the white hollows of the tragic face. It ebbed, and she stepped forward, flinging out those strong, hardened hands of hers in passionate appeal. "Wait!" She spoke very low, but the words vibrated like a deep violin-string. "I will not take up much of your time, but I must speak. I have come a long way to tell you things, and I have waited twenty-seven years. I dont want to rage ; I dont want to rant ; it would do no good." Her fingers clenched till the nails grew white, but her look was cold and calm. "My name is Jane Brett," she said hurriedly. "That means nothing to you, of course, nor the fact that my father has worked at your wells for twenty years, pinching himself and the others — my mother and Annie and Will — so that I could have a chance in life. There was only money enough for one, and I was the eldest, so I went away and studied nursing, and graduated this spring. When I got back home" — her breath caught — ''it was terrible! I had forgotten how terrible it was. The cottages you give your men to live in are not fit for animals. There is no sanitation, no comfort of any kind — not even a chance to get water without carrying it blocks in pails. You call them dirty. How can they keep clean ? The oil they work with all day is black and scummy, and the men are steeped to the bone in it. The air is rank with oil ; you eat it in the food; you drink it and breathe it, and it sinks in and in until it spots the very soul." William Jameson made an impatient motion of his shoulder. A socialist, was she? He stifled a yawn. The smoulder in the woman's eyes flared into flame. "It bores you!" she cried out fiercely. "I am speaking of men's and women's souls, raw with suffering, and you smile ! It means nothing to you — less than nothing— that the wages you give your workers are pitiably futile to wring even the barest needfuls out of life, much less a little joy. Drink, you say? Why not? If a little cheap whisky makes you forget you are cold and hungry, and the roof leaks, and the wife is going to bring another miserable, stunted little soul into the world, then drink it, by all means, and be immortal for an hour if you can! But what is the use of using words that have no meaning to you ; you dont know what hunger means. God! oh, God! teach me what to say " "I am rather busy just now," said the oil king, imperturbably, "and while your tale is interesting, it is hardly — new. My son has now and then treated me to a similar harangue. He is very young and impetuous — my son. If there is nothing more '" "But there is something more." Jane Brett came up to the desk, and leaned