To J.W., Delafield had always been a town of homes; but in these dismal quarters there was little to answer to the home idea.  They were merely places where people contrived to camp for a time, longer or shorter; none but a Gradgrind could call them homes.

One of the factory foremen was a great admirer of Mr. Drury, who introduced him to J.W. one day when the foreman had come to the store for some tools.  He had talked with J.W., and in time a rather casual friendliness developed between them.  It was this same Foreman Angus MacPherson, a Scot with a name for shrewdness, who gave the boy his first glimpse of what the factory and the cannery meant to Delafield—­especially the factory.

J.W. was down at the factory to see about some new band-saws that had been installed; and, his errand finished, he stopped for a chat with Angus.

“This factory wasn’t here when I went off to college,” he said.  “What ever brought it to Delafield?”

At that MacPherson was off to a perfect start.

“Ye see, my boy,” he began, “Delafield is so central it is a good town for a good-working plant; freights on lumber and finished stuff are not so high as in some places.  And then there’s labor.  Lots of husky fellows around here want better than farm wages, and they want a chance at town life as well.  Men from the big cities, with families, hope to find a quieter, cheaper place to live.  So we’ve had no trouble getting help.  Skill isn’t essential for most of the work.  It’s not much of a trick nowadays to get by in most factories—­the machines do most of the thinking for you, and that’s good in some ways.  Only the men that ’tend the machines can’t work up much pride in the output.  Things go well enough when business is good.  But when the factory begins to run short time, and lay men off, like it did last winter, there’s trouble.”

J.W. wanted to know what sort of trouble.

“Oh, well,” said MacPherson, “strikes hurt worst at the time, but strikes are just like boils, a sign of something wrong inside.  And short-time and lay-offs—­well, ye can’t expect the factory to go on making golden oak rockers just to store in the sheds.  Somebody has to buy ’em.  But the boys ain’t happy over four-day weeks, let alone no jobs at all.”

His sociology professor at Cartwright, J.W. recalled, had talked a good deal about the labor question, but maybe this foreman knew something about it too.  So J.W. put it up to him:  “What is at the bottom of it all, MacPherson?  What makes the thing the papers call ’labor unrest’?”

MacPherson hesitated a moment.  Then he settled himself more comfortably on a pile of boards and proceeded to deliver his soul, or part of it.