Chapter 12

PROFIT AND LOSS

The trifles of our daily life,
The common things scarce worth recall,
Whereof no visible trace remains,
These are the main springs after all.

O why to those who need them not,
Should Love's best gifts be given!
How much is wasted, wrecked, forgot,
On this side of heaven?

The thing that John feared, had happened to him, no miracle had
prevented it, and that day he must shut the great gates of Hatton
factory. He could hardly realize the fact. He kept wondering if his
father knew it, but if so, he told himself he would doubtless know the
why and the wherefore and the end of it. He would know, also, that his
son John had done all a man could do to prevent it. This was now a great
consolation and he had also a confident persuasion that the enforced
lock-out would only last for a short time.

"Things have got to their worst, Greenwood," he said, "and when the tide
is quite out, it turns instantly for the onward flow."

"To be sure it does, sir," was the answer. "Your honored father, sir,
used to say, 'If changes don't come, make them come. Things aren't
getting on without them.'"

"How long can we run, Greenwood?"

"Happen about four hours, sir."

"When the looms give up, send men and women to the lunchroom."

"All right, sir."

Was it all right? If so, had he not been fighting a useless battle and
got worsted? But he could not talk with his soul that morning. He could
not even think. He sat passive and was dumb because it was evidently
God's doing. Perhaps he had been too proud of his long struggle, and it
was good spiritual correction for him to go down into the valley of
humiliation. Short ejaculatory prayers fell almost unconsciously from
his lips, mainly for the poor men and women he must lock out to poverty
and suffering.

Finally his being became all hearing. Life appeared to stand still a
moment as loom after loom stopped. A sudden total silence followed. It
was broken by a long piercing wail as if some woman had been hurt, and
in a few minutes Greenwood looked into his office and said, "They be all
waiting for you, sir." The man spoke calmly, even cheerfully, and John
roused himself and with an assumed air of hopefulness went to speak to
his workers.

They were standing together and on every face there was a quiet
steadfastness that was very impressive. John went close to them so that
he seemed to mingle with them. "Men and women," he said, "I have done my
best."

"Thou hes, and we all know it."

It was Timothy Briggs, the manager of the engine room, who spoke, a man
of many