Youth Challenges. Clarence Budington Kelland

to see to it there's a Bonbright Foote VIII promptly."

      She didn't sympathize with him, or call him "poor boy," as so many less natural, less comprehending girls would have done.

      "I haven't the least idea in the world," she said, "whether I'll ever want to marry you or not—and you can't have a notion whether you'll want me. Suppose we just don't bother about it? We can't avoid each other—they'll see to that. We might as well be comfortably friendly, and not go shying off from each other. If it should happen we do want to marry each other—why, all right. But let's just forget it. I'm sure I sha'n't marry you just because a lot of your ancestors want me to. … Folks don't fall in love to order—and you can put this away carefully in your mind—when I marry it will be because I've fallen in love."

      "You're very like your father," he said.

      "Rushing in where angels fear to tread, you mean? Yes, dad's more direct than diplomatic, and I inherit it. … Is it a bargain?"

      "Bargain?"

      "To be friends, and not let our mammas worry us. … I like you."

      "Really?" he asked, diffidently.

      "Really," she said.

      "I like you, too," he said, boyishly.

      "We'll take in our Keep Off the Grass signs, then," she said. "Mother and father seem to be going." She stood up and extended her hand. "Good night, chum," she said. To herself she was saying what she was too wise to say aloud: "Poor kid! A chum is what he needs."

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      Bonbright's first day in the plant had carried no suggestion from his father as to what his work was actually to be. He had merely walked about, listening to Rangar's expositions of processes and systems. After he was in bed that night he began to wonder what work would fall to him. What work had it been the custom for the heir apparent to perform? What work had his father and grandfather and great-grandfather performed when their positions were his position to-day? … Vaguely he recognized his incompetence to administer anything of importance. Probably, little by little, detail by detail, matters would be placed under his jurisdiction until he was safely functioning in the family groove.

      His dreams that night were of a reluctant, nightmarish passage down a huge groove, a monotonous groove, whose smooth, insurmountable sides offered no hint of variety. … As he looked ahead he could see nothing but this straight groove stretching into infinity. Always he was disturbed and made wretched by a consciousness of movement, of varied life and activity, of adventure, of thrill, outside the groove, but invisible, unreachable. … He strove to clamber up the glassy sides, only to slip back, realizing the futility of the EFFORT.

      He breakfasted alone, before his father or mother was about, and left the house on foot, driven by an aching restlessness. It was early. The factory whistle had not yet blown when he reached the gates, but already men carrying lunch boxes were arriving in a yawning, sleepy stream. … Now Bonbright knew why he had arisen early and why he had come here. It was to see this flood of workmen again; to scrutinize them, to puzzle over them and their motives and their unrest. He leaned against the wall and watched.

      He was recognized. Here and there a man offered him good morning with a friendliness of tone that surprised Bonbright. A good many men spoke to him respectfully; more regarded him curiously; some hopefully. It was the occasional friendly smile that affected him. One such smile from an older workman, a man of intelligent face, of shrewd, gray eyes, caused Bonbright to move from his place to the man's side.

      "I don't know your name, of course," he said, diffidently.

      "Hooper," said the man, pleasantly.

      "The men seem to know me," Bonbright said. "I was a little surprised. I only came yesterday, you know."

      "Yes," said Hooper, "they know who you are."

      "They seemed—almost friendly."

      Hooper looked sharply at the young man. "It's because," said he, "they're pinning hopes to you."

      "Hopes?"

      "Labor can't get anywhere until it makes friends in the ranks of the employers," said Hooper. "I guess most of the men don't understand that—even most of the leaders, but it's so. It's got to be so if we get what we must have without a revolution."

      Bonbright pondered this. "The men think I may be their friend?"

      "Some saw you last night, and some heard you talk to Dulac. Most of them have heard about it now."

      "That was it? … Thank you, Mr. Hooper."

      Bonbright went up to his office, where he stood at the window, looking down upon the thickening stream of men as the minute for the starting whistle approached. … So he was of some importance, in the eyes of the workingmen, at least! They saw hope in his friendship. … He shrugged his shoulders. What could his friendship do for them? He was impotent to help or harm. Bitterly he thought that if the men wanted friendship that would be worth anything to them, they should cultivate his dead forbears.

      Presently he turned to his desk and wrote some personal letters—as a distraction. He did not know what else to do. There was nothing connected with the plant that he could set his hand to. It seemed to him he was just present, like a blank wall, whose reason for existence was merely to be in a certain place.

      He was conscious of voices in his father's room, and after a time his father entered and bade him a formal good morning. Bonbright was acutely conscious of his father's distinguished, cultured, aristocratic appearance. He was conscious of that manner which six generations of repression and habit in a circumscribed orbit had bestowed on Bonbright Foote VI. Bonbright was unconscious of the great likeness between him and his father; of the fact that at his father's age it would be difficult to tell them apart. Physically he was out of the Bonbright Foote mold.

      "Son," said Bonbright Foote VI, "you have made an unfortunate beginning here. You have created an impression which we shall have to eradicate promptly."

      "I don't understand."

      "It has been the habit of our family to hold aloof from our employees. We do not come directly into contact with them. Intercourse between us and them is invariably carried out through intermediaries."

      Bonbright waited for his father to continue.

      "You are being discussed by every man in the shops. This is peculiarly unfortunate at this moment, when a determined effort is being made by organized labor to force unionism on us. The men have the notion that you are not unfriendly toward unionism."

      "I don't understand it," said Bonbright. "I don't know what my feelings toward it may be."

      "Your feelings toward it," said his father with decision, "are distinctly unfriendly."

      Again Bonbright was silent.

      "Last evening," said his father, "you mingled with the men leaving the shops. You did a thing no member of our family has ever done—consented to an interview with a professional labor agitator."

      "That is hardly the fact, sir. … I asked for the interview."

      "Which is worse. … You even, as it is reported to me, agreed to talk with this agitator at some future time."

      "I asked him to explain things to me."

      "Any explanations of labor conditions and demands I shall always be glad to make. The thing I am trying to bring home to you is that the men have gotten an absurd impression that you are in sympathy with them. … Young men sometimes come home from college with unsound notions. Possibly you have picked up some socialistic nonsense. You will have to rid yourself of it. Our family has always arrayed itself squarely against such indefensible theories. … But the thing to do at once is to wipe out any silly ideas your indiscretion may have aroused