soon as the worker was stricken his children were at the mercy of
the world. I saw so much of this, that the pity of it entered
deep into my boy-heart and never afterward could I forget it.

I talked with the station agent, the banker and the hotel
keeper. The station agent had money in the bank which he was
saving to educate his boy to be a telegrapher. He also carried
life insurance. "If I should die," he said, "my wife would
collect enough insurance to start a boarding-house. My boy would
have money enough to learn a trade. Then he could get as good a
job as I have." The hotel keeper told me that if he should die
his wife could run the hotel just the same, it being free of debt
and earning enough money so that she could hire a man to do the
work he had been doing. The banker owned bonds and if he died the
bonds would go right on earning money for his children.

These men were capitalists and their future was provided for.
Most of the mill-workers were only laborers, they had no capital
and the minute their labors ended they were done for. The workers
were kind-hearted, and when a fellow was killed in the mill or
died of sickness they went to his widow and with tears in their
eyes reached into their pockets and gave her what cash they had.
I never knew a man to hang back when a collection for a widow was
being taken. Contributions sometimes were as high as five
dollars. It made a heartrending scene: the broken body of a once
strong man lying under a white sheet; the children playing around
and laughing (if they were too young to know what it meant); the
mother frantic with the thought that her brood was now homeless;
and the big grimy workers wiping their tears with a rough hand
and putting silver dollars into a hat.