If this fact be registered casually here, it was not so regarded in that typically New England mill town.  Ever study New England—­its Puritan, self-defensive, but unintellectual and selfish psychology?  Although this poor little snip of a mayor was only elected for one year, men paused astounded, those who had not voted for him, and several of the older conventional political and religious order, wedded to their church and all the routine of the average puritanic mill town, actually cried.  No one knew, of course, who the new mayor was, or what he stood for.  There were open assertions that the club behind him was anarchistic—­that ever-ready charge against anything new in America—­and that the courts should be called upon to prevent his being seated.  And this from people who were as poorly “off” commercially and socially as any might well be.  It was stated, as proving the worst, that he was, or had been, a mill worker!—­and, before that a grocery clerk—­both at twelve a week, or less!!  Immediate division of property, the forcing of all employers to pay as much as five a day to every laborer (an unheard-of sum in New England), and general constraint and subversion of individual rights (things then unknown in America, of course), loomed in the minds of these conventional Americans as the natural and immediate result of so modest a victory.  The old-time politicians and corporations who understood much better what the point was, the significance of this straw, were more or less disgruntled, but satisfied that it could be undone later.

An actual conversation which occurred on one of the outlying street corners one evening about dusk will best illustrate the entire situation.

“Who is the man, anyway?” asked one citizen of a total stranger whom he had chanced to meet.

“Oh, no one in particular, I think.  A grocery clerk, they say.”

“Astonishing, isn’t it?  Why, I never thought those people would get anything.  Why, they didn’t even figure last year.”

“Seems to be considerable doubt as to just what he’ll do.”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering.  I don’t take much stock in all their talk about anarchy.  A man hasn’t so very much power as mayor.”

“No,” said the other.

“We ought to give him a trial, anyway.  He’s won a big fight.  I should like to see him, see what he looks like.”

“Oh, nothing startling.  I know him.”

“Rather young, ain’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Where did he come from?”

“Oh, right around here.”

“Was he a mill-hand?”

“Yes.”

The stranger made inquiry as to other facts and then turned off at a corner.

“Well,” he observed at parting, “I don’t know.  I’m inclined to believe in the man.  I should like to see him myself.  Good-night.”

“Good-night,” said the other, waving his hand.  “When you see me again you will know that you are looking at the mayor.”