Pearl Buck - Angry Wife

“Luce,” he began abruptly. “There’s a railroad strike. I’ve got to go to the head offices at Baltimore. I’m going to telegraph John MacBain to meet me there.”

Lucinda looked up from her sewing and raised her delicate eyebrows. “What can you accomplish, Pierce? You’re not an executive.”

“I’m one of the Board of Directors, nevertheless,” he said firmly. “I’m going to see for myself what the men are thinking of and what’s to be done. If necessary, I’ll ask for a special meeting of the directors on behalf of the stockholders. We can’t let the railroad get into the hands of labor. It’ll be the end of the country. Socialism — communism — whatever you want to call it—”

He was halted by a swift look from Georgia’s suddenly upraised eyes. Then she looked down again. She was at Sally’s side now, and she began to rip out a line of stitches.

“Oh dear—” Sally cried, “don’t tell me I’ve got them wrong again! Georgia, you are mean—”

“You pay no mind to what you’re doing, Miss Sally,” Georgia said quietly.

Sally turned to him. “Papa, if you’re going to Baltimore — let me go with you!”

“Pray tell—” Lucinda cried at her daughter. “Why should you go to Baltimore? I’ve a mind to go myself though, Pierce. While you’re busy at meetings I could get myself and the girls some new frocks.”

He was horrified at this onslaught of women and struggled against it but in vain. By the time he left the room a few minutes later not only Lucinda and Sally were going with him but Lucie as well and Georgia to look after the girls and serve Lucinda. He groaned in mock anguish. “I thought I was going to do business instead of squiring a lot of women!”

“Well look after ourselves,” Lucinda said sweetly. “You don’t need to pay us any mind. I shall take the girls to Washington maybe — or even New York.”

He could think of no good reason to forbid it. The boys were safe enough at home. If Lucinda had made up her mind to come with him the girls might as well come too. He telegraphed John MacBain and Lucinda included an invitation to Molly and what he had planned as a severe business trip now became a holiday. In the secret part of his mind he said that he would nevertheless escape his women and go and see Tom. The next day in the midst of much packing Georgia stopped him in the upper hall, her arms full of frocks.

“Master Pierce, if you think of a way, I’d like to go and see Bettina.”

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll speak to your mistress.” He had long ago forgotten that once he had not wanted to be called master in his house nor to have Lucinda called mistress.

By the time they set out for Baltimore the shadow over the country had darkened still more. Pierce studied the newspapers for hours every day. To his disgust, some of the western railroads had avoided trouble by raising wages as quickly as the men demanded. He was angry because he was frightened. His dividends had been so deeply cut this year that he was hard put to it to know how to pay the costs of his racing stable. It was unthinkable that Malvern should suffer because a horde of ignorant and dirty workingmen were dissatisfied with steady wages and good jobs.

Yet it was not just Malvern, he told himself honestly, that was his concern. Malvern was symbol of all that was sound and good in the nation. Family life, the land, healthy amusements, educated children, civilized ways of living — all were threatened. He wrote a letter of commendation to a magazine that printed a cartoon showing a skeleton disguised as a union rabble rouser, wearing a ribbon which was printed “Communist.” He was so angry one day that he could not eat his dinner because the foreigner named Marx, of whom John MacBain had spoken, was quoted in a northern newspaper as gloating over the rising strikes and dissensions and proclaiming them the beginning of a real revolution.

He had thrown the paper down and got to his feet and paced the dining room floor. “In God’s name what have Americans to make a revolution about?” he bellowed to Lucinda and their children. “We aren’t a lot of dirty starving peasants. We’ve got democracy here — a government, by God—”

“Pierce, stop cursing before the girls,” Lucinda commanded him. “Sit down and eat your beef before it’s cold.”

He had obeyed, but he could not eat as much as usual and he spent the rainy afternoon gloomily in his library, drinking too much with a savage satisfaction that if the world was going to hell he might as well go with it.

When they met John MacBain and Molly in Baltimore, at the great old-fashioned hotel which they had made their rendezvous, Pierce got rid of the womenfolk as fast as he could. He seized John by the arm and took him into the bar. It was mid-afternoon, and the place was empty but the two men sat down to drink, each comforted by the sight of the other’s grim looks.

“John, what the hell—” Pierce began. “It’s this stinking European fellow that’s behind everything!” By now Pierce had read enough to feel that he had found the source of evil. The man Marx was a threat to all that Malvern was.

John nodded and then said somberly, “All the same, Pierce, no foreigner could make headway here if we didn’t have four million unemployed. By Gawd, man, that’s a tenth of our population, pretty nearly! What’s happening at Martinsburg—” he broke off, shaking his head again.

“What’s happening now?” Pierce demanded. “I thought the police had—”

John snorted. “Police! They gave up. The mob was something awful. Why, Pierce, man, where have you been? The President of the United States has ordered out the government artillery!”

“Good God,” Pierce gasped. “But where are the state troops?”

“They wouldn’t fire on the strikers,” John said glumly. “Rotten with communism — the lot of them!”

Pierce felt dizzy with alarm. What he had seen as a dissatisfaction localized to a single industry, inspired by a single man, now grew into a danger as wide as the nation. He looked about the strange room and wished himself back at Malvern. The confidence with which he had left his own state, had crossed Virginia and Maryland, was gone. He was a stranger here, and who would listen to him? He dreaded meeting the executives whom he had been so sure he could guide. Then he pushed aside fear.

“John, we’ve got to be a beacon to the nation,” he said. “We’ve got to lead the railroads so wisely and so firmly that what we do will be a light to other industries. Everything depends on the railroads — we’re basic! If we can keep running and whip our men into reason, the nation will keep steady.”

“Amen, Pierce — if we can do it,” John replied.

They lifted their glasses simultaneously and looked at one another.

“Damn it, John,” Pierce said, “I can’t think of a thing in this world that’s worth proposing!”

“Nor I, by Gawd,” John agreed with unutterable gloom.

They drank their whiskey down in silence and for the comfort of their own bodies.

Pierce was awakened the next morning by his arm being shaken and then by the sound of shots. He looked up into Lucinda’s terrified eyes.

“Pierce — Pierce,” she was crying, “wake up — there’s some sort of a battle going on outside!”

He opened his dazed eyes wide and heard a roar like that of the sea beating against cliffs. He leaped out of bed, his nightshirt flying around him, and rushed to the window. A mob of people filled the street, milling, pushing, surging, yelling. “It’s here,” he cried, “the strike!”

“Let’s get out of this town, Pierce!” Lucinda cried back.

“You and the girls,” he amended. “You’d better go right to Washington as quick as you can before all the trains stop. Get out of the room, Luce, so that I can get dressed.”