d fine linen as well as Jim his
chances of happiness? Why shouldn't he lose his diamond shirt-studs,
and his carriage and horses, as well as Joe his life?"

"Well, he earned his money, I suppose," Andrew said, slowly, "and I
suppose it's for him to say what he'll do with it."

"Earned his money? He didn't earn his money," cried Nahum Beals. "We
earned it, every dollar of it, by the sweat of our brows, and it's
for us, not him, to say what shall be done with it. Well, the time
will come, I tell ye, the time will come."

"We sha'n't see it," said Joe Atkins.

"It may come sooner than you think," said Nahum. Then Nahum Beals,
with a sudden access of bitterness, broke in. "Look at Norman
Lloyd," he cried, "havin' that great house, and horses and
carriages, and dressin' like a dude, and his wife rustlin' in silks
so you can hear her comin' a mile off, and shinin' like a jeweller's
window--look at 'em all--all the factory bosses--livin' like princes
on the money we've earned for 'em; and look at their relations, and
look at the rich folks that ain't never earned a cent, that's had
money left 'em. Go right up and down the Main Street, here in this
city. See the Lloyds and the Maguires and the Marshalls and the
Risleys and the Lennoxes--"

"There ain't none of the Lennoxes left except that one woman," said
Andrew.

"Well, look at her. There she is without chick or child, rollin' in
riches, and Norman Lloyd's her own brother-in-law. Why don't she
give him a little money to run the factory this winter, so you and
me won't have to lose everythin'?"

"I suppose she's got a right to do as she pleases with her own,"
said Andrew.

"I tell you she ain't," shouted Nahum. "She ain't the one to say,
'It's the Lord, and He's said it.' Cynthia Lennox and all the women
like her are the oppressors of the poor. They are accursed in the
sight of the Lord, as were those women we read about in the Old
Testament, with their mantles and crisping-pins. Their low voices
and their silk sweeps and their shrinkin' from touchin' shoulders
with their fellow-beings in a crowd don't alter matters a mite."

"Now, Nahum," cried Jim Tenny, with one of his sudden turns of base
when his sense of humor was touched, "you don't mean to say that you
want Cynthia Lennox to give you her money?"

"I'd die, and see her dead, before I'd touch a dollar of her money!"
cried Nahum--"before I'd touch a dollar of her money or anything
that was bought with her m