Drusilla with a Million by Elizabeth Cooper - HTML preview

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Chapter XVII

"Come right on to the stoop, Dr. Eaton, and let's set down and cool off. I'm real het up."

Drusilla settled down in a big porch rocker and fanned herself with the paper in her hand.

"Now let's talk, and you tell me all about it. What did you say that last club was we was to? You been a-takin' me to so many places lately that I fergit their names."

"That was the big Socialists Club."

"Socialists--yes, that's what you called it. Ain't them got something to do with dynamite bombs and blowin' up people and things?"

Dr. Eaton laughed.

"No; you are thinking of Nihilists or Anarchists. These people are very mild; they only have ideas how to run the old world in a new way, and they are especially interested in the question of labor and capital."

"Well, they've idees enough, if that's all they need. But it seems to me, Dr. Eaton, that these people are all going at it wrong-end-to. Instid of workin' with people in bunches, they want to take 'em man by man and git a little of the old-fashioned religion into each one singly. There's two commandments give us to live by. One is, we should love God; the other is to love our neighbor as ourself. Now, if each one got that second command planted deep in his heart, the hired man'd do his work as it ought to be done, and the man who hires him'd pay him right--so there wouldn't be no need of Socialists or Unions or dynamite bombs. No, you can't make people do the right thing by laws, and you can't put love in their hearts by meetings and committees and talk. Each man must git it for himself and then he'll do the square thing because he wants to, not 'cause he's forced to. You can make laws against thievin' and build prisons to put men in who steal, but if you don't change a man's heart, if he wants to be a thief he'll find some way o' doin' it--prisons or no prisons."

She was silent a few moments; then she chuckled softly to herself.

"I wanted to laugh when you introduced me as a woman who wanted to give away a million dollars. Why, I thought fer a minute I'd be run down, if one was to judge by their eyes. But they kind of caamed down when they learnt I wanted to find a way to leave it in my will so's it'd do the most good, instead of givin' it away right there in five-dollar bills. By the looks of a lot of 'em they could 'a' used it right then in gettin' a hair cut and a good meal of vittles."

"Yes; some of them do look rather lank and hungry; but there are some very clever men among them."

"They certainly talked a lot. Who was that young man who talked so much and then got me into a corner. He was kind o' wild-eyed."

"That's Swinesky, a Russian Jew."

"A Roosian! I always heerd tell that them Roosians know what to do with other people's money--and a Jew too! Well--well--and I got away without spending nothin'. He told me a lot of ways to spend my money, but most of 'em sounded like--like--what is it you call it--"

"Hot air."

"That's jest the word--hot air. They all was perfectly willin' to tell me what to do with it, as it wasn't there'n, but what I want is to find a man with an idee that he'd think good enough to carry out if the money was his'n. We've talked with a lot of people about the best way to dispose of my money where it'd do the most good, and most of their plans wouldn't hold water. But it's good of you, Dr. Eaton, to take me round, and I git a little idee here and another there, and some day maybe I'll find the right one.

"I see the newspapers is takin' up now what I'm askin' everybody. 'What will she do with her Million Dollars?' They'll git a lot of answers, 'cause every one's got an idee what they'd do if they had that money.

"But let's not talk of it no more--my head buzzes. I dream of it at nights and see it all hangin' round the bedposts, and a lot of people takin' it that I don't want to, and me not bein' able to git up and chase 'em away. Tell me about that loan you asked me about last night, and I didn't have time to talk."

Dr. Eaton sat up, interested in a moment.

"Do you remember my telling you about the man who has the button factory in Yonkers?"

"He is the man who wants two thousand dollars, isn't he?" asked Drusilla.

"Yes," said Dr. Eaton. "And I have been to see him and I think it is a poor loan unless his business is looked into more closely. Now, Miss Doane, I have an idea. My friend, Frank Stillman, has just started into business as an efficiency engineer."

"What's that?" asked Drusilla, interested at once in anything new.

"He makes it his business to study firms that are going to the wall and locate their trouble and puts them on their feet again, if possible. I took him with me to Mr. Panoff, and I believe he could go there a while and find out what the difficulty is. It used to be a good business when Panoff bought it, but he seems to have lost his grip some way, and he can't see far enough ahead because he is so crowded by the daily troubles. An outsider will be able to see with a better perspective." "Are we goin' to let this Mr. Panoff have the money?"

"No; not at present. Here is