Shade
Buckheath had spoken of Gray Stoddard as the boss of the bosses down at
Cottonville. Indeed, his position was unique. Inheritor of large
holdings in Eastern cotton-mill stock, he had returned from abroad on
the death of his father, to look into this source of his very ample
income. The mills in which he was concerned were not earning as they
should, so he was told; and there was discussion as to whether they be
moved south, or a Southern mill be established which might be considered
in the nature of a branch, and where the coarser grades of sheeting
would be manufactured, as well as all the spinning done.
But Stoddard was not of the blood that takes opinions second-hand. Upon
his mother's side he was the grandson of one of the great anti-slavery
agitators. The sister of this man, Gray's great-aunt, had stood beside
him on the platform when there was danger in it; and after the Negro was
freed and enfranchised, she had devoted a long life to the cause of
woman suffrage. The mother who bore him died young. She left him to the
care of a conservative father, but the blood that came through her did
not make for conservatism.
Perhaps it was some admixture of his father's traits which set the young
man to investigating the cotton-mill situation in his own fashion. To do
this as he conceived it should be done, he had hired himself to the
Hardwick Spinning Company in an office position which gave him a fair
outlook on the business, and put him in complete touch with the
practical side of it; yet the facts of the case made the situation
evident to those under him as well as his peers.
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