The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-09-30
SOME BOOKS OF THE TIME
The Portion of Labor.

In this great story. now being published
as a serial in Harper's Monthly. we have
the highest use of the noble ART of fiction.
viz, to paint real life and to show that
among laboring people as well as among
rich, educated people dwell some of the
noblest traits of human character. 1t is
TOO early, seeing that the story is not yet
finished, to predict its future, but it GER
tainly seems 10 me to be another Uncle
Toms Cabin The sorrows of a poor peo-
pie CLabor's Portion') were never more
faithfully pictured. Andrew Brewster is "a
hand in a shoe factory. He has no bad
habits, only he can't support his little fam
lily sumptuously on 81 per day, and in addi-
ton maintain an insane sister-in-law in an
asylum. His wife is an unrefined, unedu-
Gated New England woman, constantly put
to straits TO know where the next dollar is
coming from, but all the time relying upon
a small sum supposed to be in the savings
bank, which, without her knowledge, An
drew has lost in a gold mine investment.
Their only child, Ellen, is a brilliant, lovely
girl, whose talents have made her the town
talk and won for her, at the hand of a rich
lady, the offer Of an education at Vassar
College. just as she is about to start the
crisis comes, and her father. worn out with
age and hard work, is discharged from the
factory to make room for a cheaper and
more active hand" Ellen is for the first
time brought to realize what the wolf at
the door means. To support her now dis
abled father Cthe home has been secretly
mortgaged), she gives up the aim of her lie
"a college education-and takes a place at
50 a week in the factory.
OF course, there is the usual love story,
without which any novel would be q fall
uTe. Ellpn'S choice iS the npnheW OF the
f2ctory owner. And he-although a gllded
youth and conscious of the wide and I'M
passable social gulf which separates them
is man enough, aided by the councils or a
rich uncle and aunt, to appreciate and love
this noble girl who has given up all for the
sake OF duty. Just how the story VIII turn
out no one knows; but Miss Wilkins can be
trusted to the end.
"Labor's Portioni" How few of us pros
porous people, TO whom "A day is a failure
when we are only so or $50 ahead; who
have books, and time and money 10 go 10
theaters and live in beautiful homes ana
attend fashionable churches, realize what
$1.50 a day, and only half time work at that,
means. How few of us stop TO think that
in humble homes, where the struggle Tor
life is expressed in threadbare clothes, pre-
mature wrinkles and gray hairs. that no
poverty is so pinching that 1T does not snare
its crust with some one less favored, ana
that the faithfulness of man and the self
sacrifice of woman are here found at their
noblest, and all the nobler because there is
so little TO divide. Every purse-proud man
OF woman SnOQlU Tedu lulS ldDOl SlOis,
which, like Uncle Toms Cabin pictures
in all its coarSeneSS as well as beauty what
Mrs. Stowe in her subtitle called Life
Among the Lowly." The author has sense
enough to know that rich people have kind
hearts, that we are all-rich and poor
made OF the same stuff, and that neither
property nor poverty is the test of worth:
hence, while Miss Wilkins draws with an
unsparing hand the character of Lloyd, the
factory owner, who has no ScrupleS about
discharging a WORKOUT employe on the
principle that labor is a commodity, and,
like pig iron or leather, is to be purchased
in the cheapest market, yet LloydS brother,
his nephew and his wOmankind, though Nv
ing in luxury and separated from them by
an almost impossible social gull, each and
all are made to appreciate the worth OF the
Brewsters. Although it is possible and
probable that but for Ellen's beauty and
talents they would not trouble themselves
about their employes-Ellen'S parents-stnl
Miss Wilkins is artist enough to know that
every human heart is human and that
the poor have by no means the monopoly
of kindness or generosity. On the other
hand, both rich and poor have their vices,
and those of one are not much worse imam
those of the other.
If Miss Wilkins ends as well as she has
begun, "Labor's Portion will easily raise
her to the rank. as novelist, of Mrs. Stowe
or George Eliot. This book is certainly
the most stimulating piece or notion that
has appeared in the United States for many
years. 1t must be a hard-hearted person
who can read it without tears.
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