The Roswell Legacy by Frances Statham (parable of the sower read online .TXT) 📗

“No, Mrs. Lachlan. I remember.”

Morrow was aware of the long drive back home, so she turned from the child and reclaimed the empty basket from his mother. “I’ll be back next week, Mrs. Andretti,” she said, and left the dark and dingy tenement.

“Marcello, ride down the street with the signora,” Mrs. Andretti ordered. The child, who had remained hovering in the doorway, rushed over, picked up an apple from the table, and followed Morrow to her carriage. Again he hopped onto the step.

He became fierce in his protection of the carriage. And when a child a little younger than he attempted to catch a ride, too, he shouted a warning in words that Morrow could not understand.

At the end of the street, as the carriage slowed, he hopped down. “Buona sera,” he called out to Morrow.

“Good-bye, Marcello,” Morrow responded.

The boy stuck one hand into his ragged pocket and nonchalantly retraced his steps homeward, while finishing off the remainder of his apple.

Immigrants loaded down with bundles of clothing—cutout trousers and coats—hurried home from the sweatshops. Some of the women would stay up all night, Morrow knew, to have the clothes finished on time and taken back to their bosses. Even Tony’s mother would be hard at work until nearly morning. She had one of the more thankless tasks and the poorest paying—that of embroidering the buttonholes and sewing on the buttons.

“I wish Mrs. Andretti had better light to sew by,” Morrow said.

“Then I guess next week one of Mr. Andrew’s lamps will be comin’ with us.”

“Don’t be impudent, Allie.”

“No, ma’am.”

On the way home, the odor of the city was even worse. No one seemed interested in cleaning the garbage from the streets or in building better housing for the poor. And the people themselves seldom complained about anything. They had seen what had happened to the more vocal ones.

“I didn’t realize how late it is, Allie. I’ll have to rush to get dressed for supper.”

“Well, at least we don’t have a house full of guests to feed,” Allie commented. “Seems like everybody you’ve ever known has already come to the fair. And stayed with you and Mr. Andrew.”

“All except Mother and Papa. I do want them to come before October.”

Allie chuckled. “Too bad Miss Allison wasn’t here earlier. She’d have put that uppity Spanish woman in her place, for certain.”

Morrow sighed. “I’m sure no one on the committee would have invited the Infanta if they’d realized how embarrassing her behavior would be, especially toward Mrs. Potter Palmer.”

Allie, who was a great mimic, suddenly developed a lisp. “No, I will not attend the party. I do not care to socialize with that innkeeper’s wife.”

Morrow laughed in spite of herself and then frowned. “Behave yourself, Allie. It’s not nice to mock anyone, especially Spanish royalty.”

Allie became silent but did not appear to be penitent. It was Morrow who became sad, remembering the beautiful party that her neighbor had given. The guest of honor didn’t make an appearance just because Mr. Palmer owned a few hotels in his real-estate empire. But at least the two direct descendants of Columbus had been more gracious.

After all, it was in celebration of Columbus’s discovery of America that the exposition had been conceived.

The carriage finally wheeled into the driveway and headed for the carriage house. Morrow turned the horses over to the stablehand and rushed inside to one of the tack rooms, where she had left a night wrapper. Once she removed her outer garments, she left them for Allie to air in the sun, for Morrow had no wish to bring home from the tenements any germs that might infect her son, David. Dressed in the wrapper, she hurried along the secluded path to the house.

While Morrow bathed and put on a fresh dress for the evening meal at home, her husband Andrew left the model community of Pullman, the city that his firm had designed for George Pullman to house his workers. In contrast to the shabby slums of Chicago, the three-hundred-acre community was a paradise, with yellow brick row houses, grass lawns, and parks. The streets were macadam and the sidewalks were lined with shade trees. A theater, a library, and a lake for boating and swimming made it a pleasant place to live. But by 1893, the people living there were far from happy.

As Andrew sat in the railcar at the end of the day and waited for the train to begin its seven-mile journey back to Chicago, he went over in his mind a worker’s words he had overheard that morning.

“We’re born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shop, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman church, and when we die we’ll be buried in the Pullman cemetery and go to the Pullman hell.”

Such was the frustration over Pullman’s control of their lives. But the man’s complaint was safe with Andrew. He was not an informer, even though Mr. Pullman was said to pay many to let him know everything that went on. Yet trouble was brewing. Andrew could feel it in the air. It was evident throughout the town. And it was evident in the conversation of the grumbling shopworkers now gathered on the platform to go home to other areas, for the town had housing for only half of the employees. And that was why Andrew had come: to investigate expanding the project city.

Through the open window, Andrew could hear snatches of conversation.

“See you at the tavern tonight, Reilly,” a young man called out to his friend.

“Hush up, Laddy,” the man admonished. “You want to lose me job?”

“What’s the harm in a pint o’ beer after work?”

“Plenty, if your name’s Mr. George Pullman.”

“Lars, could you loan me the fare home?” one of the Scandinavians asked a fellow worker. “I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

Andrew watched as several of the men scraped together ten cents to loan to the man.

The cut in the workers’ wages, the rising rents, the layoffs, and the