The Celestials (9 page)

Despite having invented the Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine in 1849, despite having owned patents for the rotary hook shuttle and the four-motion feed, both devices used in modern machines, despite having built the imposing Wilson House in 1865 at the cost of $140,000, Mr. Wilson would die a poor man. In the words of one cousin speaking in confidence to another a week after the funeral: “Mr. Wilson was given great mechanical genius, but no more financiering genius than a child.” But he was in 1870 the owner of the most elaborate building in Berkshire County, perhaps even in Western Massachusetts. As Washington Gladden, leading American Congregational pastor, would write: “Eight large stores, a fine Public Hall, a Masonic Hall, a Manufacturers' Club Room, and a Billiard Room are included within its walls; and besides its spacious offices, its ample dining-rooms, its large and well appointed kitchens, pantries, store-rooms, its excellent baths and its elegant parlors, it offers to guests a hundred airy and
well-furnished chambers.” Modern conveniences appeared on every floor, including gas, steam heat, and the best sanitary arrangements, and a first-class livery was close at hand. It was without a rival.

It was his philosophy to allow all members of the community to use the Wilson House's public spaces, which is how on Tuesday last, the Crispins had held their secret meeting in one room while Sampson and the other manufacturers had held theirs shortly afterward in another. The evening had passed without incident, as he had arranged for the Crispins to use the rear entrance. No one had been the wiser, and Mr. Wilson had found himself enjoying the sight of one class of man streaming out of one door and another passing through the other.

But now he was nervous, and he rarely grew nervous. It was only half past, the hall was already filled beyond capacity, and a glance out to the street indicated the arrival of even more. Chairs had been removed a quarter hour previous and still men were shoulder to shoulder.

He found Samuel P. Cummings on the hotel's front porch, greeting new arrivals. Cummings was of Danvers, Massachusetts, and not a French Canadian but of Irish/English descent. A shoemaker of twenty years' standing and one of the executive committee of the National Labor Union, by the following year he would be appointed grand scribe of the Order's International Grand Lodge, a position he would manage to hold on to for only a year.

It was Cummings, along with Alexander Troup of Troy, a national labor advocate, and Emma Lane of Boston, the
mistress of Massachusetts labor women, who had been advertised to address the multitude, and Mr. Wilson knew, as all good proprietors did, that the way to bring problems to their quickest and quietest resolution was to place them at the feet of the most influential person in the room.

And so Wilson suggested to Cummings that the meeting be taken to open air, and the near four thousand workingmen from the county entire and as far afield as Troy didn't disperse from the head of Main Street until after ten that night, listening first to Cummings and then to Troup (Miss Lane failed to appear) brood over the coolie question from a rustic stand hastily improvised by Mr. Wilson. Alfred, having arrived only five minutes early, could barely turn the corner of Pearl onto Main and wondered why he had bothered to come at all.

Upstairs in their apartment at the Wilson House, Julia, Calvin, and Thankful faced each other warily around one of their favorite board games. A warning from the manufacturer pointed out the dangers of introducing dice into the family home, so the three used a totem instead. Thankful was ahead, having landed on both “The Assiduous Youth” and “Benevolent Man.” Sampson had landed on “Dramatist,” and was forced to begin the game again. The playing board, all three agreed, was beautiful, each of the eighty-four squares arranged in a spiral traveling from “Infancy” to “Dotage,” and illustrated with images of vice or virtue. The rules were printed in an easily legible hand around the spiral. Julia, however, found herself oddly irked by the directions:
“Whoever possesses Piety, Honesty, Temperance, Gratitude, Prudence, Truth, Chastity, Sincerity is entitled to Advance six numbers toward the Mansion of Happiness. Whoever gets into a Passion must be taken to the water and have a ducking to cool him. Whoever possesses Audacity, Cruelty, Immodesty, or Ingratitude must return to his former situation till his turn comes to spin again.”

Following their remarks about the game, the conversation was halting, Julia and Calvin still smarting from Wednesday night's disagreement, Thankful eyeing the both of them and thinking how difficult it was to have one's life tethered in full to another couple. How much easier, she thought, if she were moving to the ebb and sway of just a husband, rather than a husband and wife. How much easier, yet at her age, she thought sadly, how unlikely.

None of the three suggested ceasing, working as they were to keep the sounds of the meeting up the street at bay. The town's Crispins and their sympathizers gave vent to their feelings as their side of the question was advocated, and through the open windows came loud and frequent cheers, the periodic stamping of feet, and the clapping of four thousand pairs of hands. It was the laughter that seemed to disturb Calvin most, and his fingers thrummed the felt of the game table, their game pieces jittering. His agitation was so apparent that Julia took pity on him and placed her hand over his, settling his fingers and the game.

*

What to do? What to do? This was the question the meeting was meant to address and dispatch. Though he did not like to pollute his lips with Sampson's name any oftener than necessary, Cummings felt he must point out that of those who would test labor, Sampson was the champion. It was men such as he against whom the common laborer must protect himself as well as protect the Celestials, as they too were wronged by being forced to do work for fifty cents for which they ought to receive two dollars, and it was clear that John Chinaman was a gentleman far superior to Mr. Sampson.

So what to do? What to do to resist this innovation that threatened to ruin their organization and put them beneath the concern of the capitalist? Violence must not be resorted to under any circumstances. They must seize the power at the ballot boxes next fall. In the meantime, cooperation was the call of the day, among Crispins and between Crispin and Chinaman.

Alfred judged Cummings charismatic and compelling. He had pushed his way through the crowd to see a man strong-armed and sturdy-legged with a low center of gravity, as if when God had laid a hand to Cummings's head, He had put a little too much weight behind the gesture.

But as much as Alfred found himself wanting to believe, something kept him from handing over his full trust.

After Cummings closed the proceedings, and the crowd finally grew tired of itself and dispersed, Alfred discovered himself in a bar with friend and brother Daniel Luther, the same brother he had stood beside on the depot's platform ten days before, voicing what turned out to be mutual
concerns, both of them knowing that they should keep their voices low.

“If violence is our enemy,” Daniel wondered, “then whose suggestion were those rocks and bats? Were we meant to bang them together like a marching band?”

Alfred stared at his beer and thought, first, that this was a drink he couldn't afford and, second, that he must chew some mint on the way home.

Daniel went on. “And what about throwing the train from the tracks? Seems like violence to my mind.”

Alfred felt as if someone had taken him into his own backyard, lifted a board in the fence, and shown him that behind the yard, the home, the street, the town he'd known his whole life, there was a mirror version, yet populated by all different people getting up to all different things.

“The train from what tracks?” he asked.

“Between Troy and here,” Daniel said. “Some machinists in Troy and Eagle Bridge had organized, or been organized, to throw it at a dangerous point in the roadbed. Such of the Chinamen not killed or maimed were to be otherwise so disabled as to prevent them from engaging very actively in the shoemaking business.”

Alfred's surprise and sadness at being left out yet again were magnified by the fact that his friend seemed to take Alfred's ignorance as utterly expected and, even worse, just.

“Where'd you hear tell of all this?” he asked, trying to keep his voice from sounding like a child's.

Daniel said the point was that someone's mouth was doing one thing while his hand another. Why was it that
Cummings encouraged the formation of cooperative ventures as a remedy to this botched-up situation, but Daniel had to hear about their own Order's co-op on the fly? And why cooperation in any case? You could say the only thing a course like that did was indicate that they'd given up all hope.

Alfred thought about pretending he knew what his friend was talking about but calculated that he would uncover more by being honest. “What did you hear?” he asked.

“A co-op is forming up Brooklyn Street,” Daniel said. “A pistol shot from Sampson's.”

“Smith and Company's place?” Alfred asked.

Daniel nodded. One question after another lined up in Alfred's mind. “What happened to the plan for the train?” he asked.

Daniel snorted. “It depends who you ask. Cummings and Troup say they frustrated it as soon as they heard of it. Jenny Gallagher says it was her brother what held up the telegram.”

“Who's she?” Alfred asked.

“Just a girl,” Daniel said, sliding his second glass back and forth, watching the beer rock against the sides.

Alfred hated that he had nothing but questions to offer. “Who's her brother?”

“Works in the telegraph office. She says it was him who got the message from the Troy machinists offering their services and him who held up delivery until the train was arrived.”

Alfred went over the last couple of weeks. Had there been nothing but meetings secret only to him? “Where's Smith going?” he asked.

Daniel coughed. “Up the street even further. He and someone else have formed to build another factory. Don't know where any of them think they're getting waterpower.” The barkeep placed a third beer before Daniel and he lifted it in Alfred's direction before taking a large swallow. Alfred noted that his friend had not offered to buy him a second one.

“Who all's throwing in for the cooperative, then?” Alfred asked.

Daniel said he'd heard only a few names, twenty or thirty in all.

Alfred had spent and would spend much of his life looking for the person who would take him into account, who would sit up and take notice of the slimly built boy in the corner. Everyone so far had let him down in this regard. His family, the Hoosac Tunnel manager, Mr. Sampson, Ida, and now, perhaps, the Crispins.

“What do you suppose they're up to?” Alfred asked.

“Who?” Daniel responded.

Alfred tilted his head in the general direction of Marshall Street. “The China boys.”

Daniel shrugged, both of them agreeing there was no real way of knowing.

The China boys were, at that moment, finishing up their dinner with their customary bowls of green tea. The two cooks were washing bowls and chopsticks in the makeshift kitchen. Some of the older boys lit pipes. Others fingered whittling projects in their pockets, trying to decide whether to work on them. The talk was of their days so far and the strange ways and sounds of the pegging machines, the
peculiar smell coming off Mr. Sampson's clothes, and the friendly girls in the sewing room with their strange hair and even stranger skin. When one called them White Devils, another responded, “White Devils I could get to know,” and the older boys laughed while the younger ones glanced around, too wary to ask for clarification.

Charlie sat on a bench, his back against a wall. What had he been thinking, bringing these boys here? As consolation, he reminded himself that they would be living among whites in California as well. But he discovered little solace in this thought, since a small town such as this offered none of the anonymity or support of a city like San Francisco. He closed his eyes. What could come of this commingling of the races except for what his ancestors had warned?

The cooperating Crispins actually numbered thirty-one, two of whom Alfred would have counted as near friends. The Brooklyn Street factory would be up and running by the end of the month. It would not be the first, as Crispin cooperatives dotted the eastern states from New Brunswick to Baltimore. By August, the North Adams group had applied for and received a charter from the state and had $6,000 in capital.

The arrangement eliminated employers, and decisions on wages, hours, production levels, and other such matters would be collective ones. They employed women, all members of the Daughters of St. Crispin, though women were, by state law, forbidden to hold shares in their own names.

When the November late-season slump arrived, only Sampson and the co-op would remain in operation. By
December, newspapers throughout the Northeast would hail cooperation as the sure defense and protection of labor.

Alfred would borrow money from Lucy and Ida and become a shareholder and bottomer at the co-op two days before they commenced manufacture. For close to three years he would make less than the non-Crispins working in other factories, but more than Sampson's Celestials, and enjoy the risks and possibilities of self-employment. It would be the most satisfying time of his life.