Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/286

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industrial brotherhood, in which the man who's wept the floor, the man who worked at the lathe, the stenographer at the typewriter—every last employee, in fact—was also to be an owner. The factory was to be a noble social enterprise in which everybody worked for everybody else and each made profit for himself. And Fay was carried away by this fine enthusiasm as she had frequently been before.

"Just to think of doing that for so many, many people!" she cried, and clung to his hand. "I guess I can stick it out just for that, George," she confided to him earnestly.

But she could never hold a vision and a purpose like this for long. After a few days.

"I'm too weak, George," she would confess despairingly; "too selfish. I'm only a sybarite after all."

"No, you're not, honey; no, you're not," he would comfort. "Sybarite? Why, I should say not. You do your share of the world's work by just helping me do mine."

But when it became apparent to him that by no stretch of the imagination was she helping him to do his work, he decided the time had come for a little straight talk.

"But I get so bored with just—just nothing to do but be a wife," she broke out at him one day, and he whipped back with,

"For heaven's sake! What's the matter with