The Worship of the Golden Calf, A Story of Wage-Slavery in Massachusetts (ePub)

Excerpt: The snows had begun to disappear from the far-famed valleys of Berkshire; the mountain-tops and slopes were still white; in the softening air was the promise of the return of birds and flowers; Nature was relenting from her winter harshness, but man was less kindly than Nature. On Beauna Vista, one of the hillocks rising slightly above the level of the Housatonic Valley, the day?s work was done, and John Wycliff, a farm-labourer, was awaiting the pay for his last month?s work before returning home. There was nothing prepossessing about Wycliff?s appearance. Short of stature, minus one eye which he had lost in an encounter with the Indians, with a bent nose, a souvenir of a cattle-stampede on the plains,?he was tough and wiry as a lynx, and his features betrayed almost as little emotion as that animal. His experience had been largely of a kind to make him suspicious of his fellows, and alert for self-defence. He had knocked about the East in a variety of occupations, and in the West had been editor, cow-boy and gold-miner. He had seen varying fortunes, having been once part owner of a gold mine. He had lost all and was now a common laborer again. Although he still retained his interest in the mine, it was considered worthless. He had hopes that sometime it might become valuable again through the invention of cheaper methods of separating the gold from the rock. Jacob Sharp, the farm-superintendent, was, in appearance, a typical Yankee. He was tall and angular, with blue eyes, which sometimes kindled with a kindly light, but which oftener showed a steely luster suggesting something of the serpent. The nose was the most prominent feature. It was large and sharply defined, and he had a habit, when excited, of blowing it vigorously. On this occasion a trumpet-like blast first warned John Wycliff that Boss Sharp had something on his mind. He blew his nose loudly several times, while the blue eyes seemed to retreat more deeply into their sockets and to give out a snaky leer. After an unusually loud blast, which testified to the healthy condition of his lungs, he pulled some bank-notes from his pocket.