ll the force he could
put into a quiet voice: "I am dedicated to men--to those great-souled,
brave, kind men whom God has sent here for man to dwarf and ruin. They
have bought me. I am theirs."

The minister put the question in their minds:

"What are you going to do, Grant?"

The fervor that had been dying down returned to Grant Adams's face.

"My job," he cried, "is so big I don't know where to take hold. But I'm
not going to bother to tell those men who sweat and stink and suffer
under the injustices of men, about the justice of God. I've got one
thing in me bigger'n a wolf--it's this: House them--feed them, clothe
them, work them--these working people--and pay them as you people of the
middle classes are housed and fed and paid and clad, and crime won't be
the recreation of poverty. And the Lord knows the work of the men who
toil with their hands is just as valuable to society as preaching and
trading and buying and selling and banking and editing and lawing and
doctoring, and insuring and school teaching."

He stood before the kitchen stove, a tall, awkward, bony,
wide-shouldered, loose-wired creature in the first raw stage of
full-blown manhood. The red muscles of his jaw worked as his emotions
rose in him. His hands were the hands of a fanatic--never still.

"I've been down into death and I've found something about life," he went
on. "Out of the world's gross earnings we're paying too much for
superintendence, and rent and machines, and not enough for labor.
There's got to be a new shake-up. And I'm going to help. I don't know
where nor how to begin, but some way I'll find a hold and I'm going to
take it."

He drew in a long breath, looked around and smiled rather a ragged, ugly
smile that showed his big teeth, all white and strong but uneven.

"Well, Grant," said Mrs. Dexter, "you have cut out a big job for
yourself." The young man nodded soberly.

"Well, we're going to organize 'em, the first thing. We talked that over
in the mine when we had nothing else to talk about--but God and our
babies."

In the silence that followed, Amos Adams said: "While you were down
there of course I had to do something. So after the paper was out, I got
to talking with Lincoln about things. He said you'd get out. Though,"
smiled the old man sheepishly and wagged his beard, "Darwin didn't think
you would. But anyway, they all agreed we should do something for the
widows."

"They have a subscription paper at George Bro