"I'm going to show you up," he said, laughing. "You watch me.
We're behind on the work and I'm going to show you up."
The pride of the workmen had been touched, and for two weeks they had
worked like demons to outdo the boss. At night when the amount of work done
was calculated, they laughed at Ed. Then they heard that the piece-work
plan was to be installed in the factory, and were afraid they would be paid
by a scale calculated on the amount of work done during the two weeks of
furious effort.
The workman who stumbled along the tracks cursed Ed Hall and the men for
whom he worked. "I lost six hundred dollars in the plant-setting machine
failure and this is all I get, to be played a trick on by a young suck like
Ed Hall," a voice grumbled. Another voice took up the refrain. In the dim
light Hugh could see the speaker, a man with a bent back, a product of the
cabbage fields, who had come to town to find employment. Although he did
not recognize it, he had heard the voice before. It came from a son of
the cabbage farmer, Ezra French and was the same voice he had once heard
complaining at night as the French boys crawled across a cabbage field in
the moonlight. The man now said something that startled Hugh. "Well," he
declared, "it's a joke on me. I quit Dad and made him sore; now he won't
take me back again. He says I'm a quitter and no good. I thought I'd come
to town to a factory and find it easier here.
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