Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/191

186 common laborer up to four dollars a day for the skilled workman."

"Do you call that enough?"

"Why, I hadn't thought about it. But I'm sure no better wages are paid anywhere."

"Perhaps not. But is it enough? Could you, for instance, live on a dollar sixty a day?"

"But I'm not a common laborer."

"Well, then, could you live on four dollars a day, and—support a family?"

The widow's eyes dropped again.

"I'm not a skilled workman, either," protested Barry, waiting for the alluring lids to rise.

"No? What are you?"

"I—I'm vice-president of the company."

"You receive some compensation, I suppose, for performing the onerous duties of the position?"

"Sure! I get four hundred dollars a month."

"Well, for the sake of argument, let us say you earn that amount. And let us say that Bricky Hoover, for instance, earns four dollars a day. Do you work any harder for your money than he works for his?"

"But I work with my brains."

"Your—your what?"

"My brains, Mrs. Bradley."

There was a little smile about the widow's mouth, but Barry was both unsuspecting and helpless.

"Oh, yes," she responded. "Well, he works with his hands plus his brains, and puts in longer hours than you do besides. Why shouldn't he get at least as much for his work as you do for yours?"

"But you don't consider the responsibility, the—the mental burden, the nervous strain, the—the wear and tear."

"Very good! Let us say then that yours is the harder job, that it is four times as hard as his. How would you like to change places with him, and have it easier?"