You’ve what?” demanded Mrs. Porter, placing the hot iron carefully on
its stand and turning a heated face on the head of the family.
“Struck,” repeated Mr. Porter; “and the only wonder to me is we’ve
stood it so long as we have. If I was to tell you all we’ve ’ad to put
up with I don’t suppose you’d believe me.”
“Very likely,” was the reply. “You can keep your fairy-tales for them
that like ’em. They’re no good to me.”
“We stood it till flesh and blood could stand it no longer,” declared
her husband, “and at last we came out, shoulder to shoulder, singing.
The people cheered us, and one of our leaders made ’em a speech.”
“I should have liked to ’ave heard the singing,” remarked his wife. “If
they all sang like you, it must ha’ been as good as a pantermime! Do
you remember the last time you went on strike?”
“This is different,” said Mr. Porter, with dignity.
“All our things went, bit by bit,” pursued his wife, “all the money we
had put by for a rainy day, and we ’ad to begin all over again. What
are we going to live on? O’ course, you might earn something by singing
in the street; people who like funny faces might give you something!
Why not go upstairs and put your ’ead under the bed-clothes and
practise a bit?”
Mr. Porter coughed. “It’ll be all right,” he said, confidently. “Our
committee knows what it’s about; Bert Robinson is one of the best
speakers I’ve ever ’eard. If we don’t all get five bob a week more I’ll
eat my ’ead.”
“It’s the best thing you could do with it,” snapped his wife. She took
up her iron again, and turning an obstinate back to his remarks resumed
her work.
Mr. Porter lay long next morning, and, dressing with comfortable
slowness, noticed with pleasure that the sun was shining. Visions of a
good breakfast and a digestive pipe, followed by a walk in the fresh
air, passed before his eyes as he laced his boots. Whistling cheerfully
he went briskly downstairs.
It was an October morning, but despite the invigorating chill in the
air the kitchen-grate was cold and dull. Herring-bones and a disorderly
collection of dirty cups and platters graced the table. Perplexed and
angry, he looked around for his wife, and then, opening the back-door,
stood gaping with astonishment. The wife of his bosom, who should have
had a bright fire and a good breakfast waiting for him, was sitting on
a box in the sunshine, elbows on knees and puffing laboriously at a
cigarette.
“Susan!” he exclaimed.
Mrs. Porter turned, and, puffing out her lips, blew an immense volume
of smoke. “Halloa!” she said, carelessly.
“Wot—wot does this mean?” demanded her husband.
Mrs. Porter smiled with conscious pride. “I made it come out of my nose
just now,” she replied. “At least, some of it did, and I swallowed the
rest. Will it hurt me?”
“Where’s my breakfast?” inquired the other, hotly. “Why ain’t the
kitchen-fire alight? Wot do you think you’re doing of?”
“I’m not doing anything,” said his wife, with an aggrieved air. “I’m on
strike.”
Mr. Porter reeled against the door-post. “Wot!” he stammered. “On
strike? Nonsense! You can’t be.”
“O, yes, I can,” retorted Mrs. Porter, closing one eye and ministering
to it hastily with the corner of her apron. “Not ’aving no Bert
Robinson to do it for me, I made a little speech all to myself, and
here I am.”
She dropped her apron, replaced the cigarette, and, with her hands on
her plump knees, eyes him steadily.
“But—but this ain’t a factory,” objected the dismayed man; “and,
besides —I won’t ’ave it!”
Mrs. Porter laughed—a fat, comfortable laugh, but with a touch of
hardness in it.
“All right, mate,” she said, comfortably. “What are you out on strike
for?”
“Shorter hours and more money,” said Mr. Porter, glaring at her.
His wife nodded. “So am I,” she said. “I wonder who gets it first?”
She smiled agreeably at the bewildered Mr. Porter, and, extracting a
paper packet of cigarettes from her pocket, lit a fresh one at the stub
of the first.
“That’s the worst of a woman,” said her husband, avoiding her eye and
addressing a sanitary dustbin of severe aspect; “they do things without
thinking first. That’s why men are superior; before they do a thing
they look at it all round, and upside down, and—and—make sure it can be
done. Now, you get up in a temper this morning, and the first thing you
do—not even waiting to get my breakfast ready first—is to go on strike.
If you’d thought for two minutes you’d see as ’ow it’s impossible for
you to go on strike for more than a couple of hours or so.”
“Why?” inquired Mrs. Porter.
“Kids,” replied her husband, triumphantly. “They’ll be coming ’ome from
school soon, won’t they? And they’ll be wanting their dinner, won’t
they?”
“That’s all right,” murmured the other, vaguely.
“After which, when night comes,” pursued Mr. Porter, “they’ll ’ave to
be put to bed. In the morning they’ll ’ave to be got up and washed and
dressed and given their breakfast and sent off to school. Then there’s
shopping wot must be done, and beds wot must be made.”
“I’ll make ours,” said his wife, decidedly. “For my own sake.”
“And wot about the others?” inquired Mr. Porter.
“The others’ll be made by the same party as washes the children, and
cooks their dinner for ’em, and puts ’em to bed, and cleans the ’ouse,”
was the reply.
“I’m not going to have your mother ’ere,” exclaimed Mr. Porter, with
sudden heat. “Mind that!”
“I don’t want her,” said Mrs. Porter. “It’s a job for a strong, healthy
man, not a pore old thing with swelled legs and short in the breath.”
“Strong—’ealthy—man!” repeated her husband, in a dazed voice.
“Strong—’eal—— Wot are you talking about?”
Mrs. Porter beamed on him. “You,” she said, sweetly.
There was a long silence, broken at last by a firework display of
expletives. Mrs. Porter, still smiling, sat unmoved.
“You may smile!” raved the indignant Mr. Porter. “You may sit there
smiling and smoking like a—like a man, but if you think that I’m going
to get the meals ready, and soil my ’ands with making beds and
washing-up, you’re mistook. There’s some ’usbands I know as would set
about you!”
Mrs. Porter rose. “Well, I can’t sit here gossiping with you all day,”
she said, entering the house.
“Wot are you going to do?” demanded her husband, following her.
“Going to see Aunt Jane and ’ave a bit o’ dinner with her,” was the
reply. “And after that I think I shall go to the ‘pictures.’ If you
’ave bloaters for dinner be very careful with little Jemmy and the
bones.”
“I forbid you to leave this ’ouse!” said Mr. Porter, in a thrilling
voice. “If you do you won’t find nothing done when you come home, and
all the kids dirty and starving.”
“Cheerio!” said Mrs. Porter.
Arrayed in her Sunday best she left the house half an hour later. A
glance over her shoulder revealed her husband huddled up in a chair in
the dirty kitchen, gazing straight before him at the empty grate.
He made a hearty breakfast at a neighbouring coffee-shop, and,
returning home, lit the fire and sat before it, smoking. The return of
the four children from school, soon after midday, found him still
wrestling with the difficulties of the situation. His announcement that
their mother was out and that there would be no dinner was received at
first in stupefied silence. Then Jemmy, opening his mouth to its widest
extent, acted as conductor to an all-too-willing chorus.
The noise was unbearable, and Mr. Porter said so. Pleased with the
tribute, the choir re-doubled its efforts, and Mr. Porter, vociferating
orders for silence, saw only too clearly the base advantage his wife
had taken of his affection for his children. He took some money from
his pocket and sent the leading treble out marketing, after which, with
the assistance of a soprano aged eight, he washed up the breakfast
things and placed one of them in the dustbin.
The entire family stood at his elbow as he cooked the dinner, and
watched, with bated breath, his frantic efforts to recover a sausage
which had fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire. A fourfold sigh
of relief heralded its return to the pan.
“Mother always—” began the eldest boy.
Mr. Porter took his scorched fingers out of his mouth and smacked the
critic’s head.
The dinner was not a success. Portions of half-cooked sausages returned
to the pan, and coming back in the guise of cinders failed to find
their rightful owners.
“Last time we had sausages,” said the eight-year-old Muriel, “they
melted in your mouth.” Mr. Porter glowered at her.
“Instead of in the fire,” said the eldest boy, with a mournful snigger.
“If I get up to you, my lad,” said the harassed Mr. Porter, “you’ll
know it! Pity you don’t keep your sharpness for your lessons! Wot
country is Africa in?”
“Why, Africa’s a continent!” said the startled youth.
“Jes so,” said his father; “but wot I’m asking you is: wot country is
it in?”
“Asia,” said the reckless one, with a side-glance at Muriel.
“And why couldn’t you say so before?” demanded Mr. Porter, sternly.
“Now, you go to the sink and give yourself a thorough good wash. And
mind you come straight home from school. There’s work to be done.”
He did some of it himself after the children had gone, and finished up
the afternoon with a little shopping, in the course of which he twice
changed his grocer and was threatened with an action for slander by his
fishmonger. He returned home with his clothes bulging, although a
couple of eggs in the left-hand coat-pocket had done their best to
accommodate themselves to his figure.
He went to bed at eleven o’clock, and at a quarter past, clad all too
lightly for the job, sped rapidly downstairs to admit his wife.
“Some ’usbands would ’ave let you sleep on the doorstep all night,” he
said, crisply.
“I know they would,” returned his wife, cheerfully. “That’s why I
married you. I remember the first time I let you come ’ome with me,
mother ses: ‘There ain’t much of ’im, Susan,’ she ses; ‘still, arf a
loaf is better than—’”
The bedroom-door slammed behind the indignant Mr. Porter, and the three
lumps and a depression which had once been a bed received his quivering
frame again. With the sheet obstinately drawn over his head he turned a
deaf ear to his wife’s panegyrics on striking and her heartfelt tribute
to the end of a perfect day. Even when standing on the cold floor while
she remade the bed he maintained an attitude of unbending dignity, only
relaxing when she smote him light-heartedly with the bolster. In a few
ill-chosen words he expressed his opinion of her mother and her
deplorable methods of bringing up her daughters.
He rose early next morning, and, after getting his own breakfast, put
on his cap and went out, closing the street-door with a bang that awoke
the entire family and caused the somnolent Mrs. Porter to open one eye
for the purpose of winking with it. Slowly, as became a man of leisure,
he strolled down to the works, and, moving from knot to knot of his
colleagues, discussed the prospects of victory. Later on, with a little
natural diffidence, he drew Mr. Bert Robinson apart and asked his
advice upon a situation which was growing more and more difficult.
“I’ve got my hands pretty full as it is, you know,” said Mr. Robinson,
hastily.
“I know you ’ave, Bert,” murmured the other. “But, you see, she told me
last night she’s going to try and get some of the other chaps’ wives to
join ’er, so I thought I ought to tell you.”
Mr. Robinson started. “Have you tried giving her a hiding?” he
inquired.
Mr. Porter shook his head. “I daren’t trust myself,” he replied. “I
might go too far, once I started.”
“What about appealing to her better nature?” inquired the other.
“She ain’t got one,” said the unfortunate.
“Well, I’m sorry for you,” said Mr. Robinson, “but I’m busy. I’ve got
to see a Labour-leader this afternoon, and two reporters, and this
evening there’s the meeting. Try kindness first, and if that don’t do,
lock her up in her bedroom and keep her on bread and water.”
He moved off to confer with his supporters, and Mr. Porter, after
wandering aimlessly about for an hour or two, returned home at mid-day
with a faint hope that his wife might have seen the error of her ways
and provided dinner for him. He found the house empty and the beds
unmade. The remains of breakfast stood on the kitchen-table, and a
puddle of cold tea decorated the floor. The arrival of the children
from school, hungry and eager, completed his discomfiture.
For several days he wrestled grimly with the situation, while Mrs.
Porter, who had planned out her week into four days of charing, two of
amusement, and Sunday in bed, looked on with smiling approval. She even
offered to give him a little instruction—verbal—in scrubbing the
kitchen-floor.
Mr. Porter, who was on his knees at the time, rose slowly to his full
height, and, with a superb gesture, emptied the bucket, which also
contained a scrubbing-brush and lump of soap, into the back-yard. Then
he set off down the street in quest of a staff.
He found it in the person of Maudie Stevens, aged fourteen, who lived a
few doors lower down. Fresh from school the week before, she cheerfully
undertook to do the housework and cooking, and to act as nursemaid in
her spare time. Her father, on his part, cheerfully undertook to take
care of her wages for her, the first week’s, payable in advance, being
banked the same evening at the Lord Nelson.
It was another mouth to feed, but the strike-pay was coming in very
well, and Mr. Porter, relieved from his unmanly tasks, walked the
streets a free man. Beds were made without his interference, meals were
ready (roughly) at the appointed hour, and for the first time since the
strike he experienced satisfaction in finding fault with the cook. The
children’s content was not so great, Maudie possessing a faith in the
virtues of soap and water that they made no attempt to share. They were
greatly relieved when their mother returned home after spending a
couple of days with Aunt Jane.
“What’s all this?” she demanded, as she entered the kitchen, followed
by a lady-friend.
“What’s all what?” inquired Mr. Porter, who was sitting at dinner with
the family.
“That,” said his wife, pointing at the cook-general.
Mr. Porter put down his knife and fork. “Got ’er in to help,” he
replied, uneasily.
“Do you hear that?” demanded his wife, turning to her friend, Mrs.
Gorman. “Oh, these masters!”
“Ah!” said her friend, vaguely.
“A strike-breaker!” said Mrs. Porter, rolling her eyes.
“Shame!” said Mrs. Gorman, beginning to understand.
“Coming after my job, and taking the bread out of my mouth,” continued
Mrs. Porter, fluently. “Underselling me too, I’ll be bound. That’s what
comes of not having pickets.”
“Unskilled labour,” said Mrs. Gorman, tightening her lips and shaking
her head.
“A scab!” cried Mrs. Porter, wildly. “A scab!”
“Put her out,” counselled her friend.
“Put her out!” repeated Mrs. Porter, in a terrible voice. “Put her out!
I’ll tear her limb from limb! I’ll put her in the copper and boil her!”
Her voice was so loud and her appearance so alarming that the
unfortunate Maudie, emitting three piercing shrieks, rose hastily from
the table and looked around for a way of escape. The road to the
front-door was barred, and with a final yelp that set her employer’s
teeth on edge she dashed into the yard and went home via the
back-fences. Housewives busy in their kitchens looked up in amazement
at the spectacle of a pair of thin black legs descending one fence,
scudding across the yard to the accompaniment of a terrified moaning,
and scrambling madly over the other. At her own back-door Maudie
collapsed on the step, and, to the intense discomfort and annoyance of
her father, had her first fit of hysterics.
“And the next scab that comes into my house won’t get off so easy,”
said Mrs. Porter to her husband. “D’you understand?”
“If you ’ad some husbands—” began Mr. Porter, trembling with rage.
“Yes, I know,” said his wife, nodding. “Don’t cry, Jemmy,” she added,
taking the youngest on her knee. “Mother’s only having a little game.
She and dad are both on strike for more pay and less work.”
Mr. Porter got up, and without going through the formality of saying
good-bye to the hard-featured Mrs. Gorman, put on his cap and went out.
Over a couple of half-pints taken as a sedative, he realized the
growing seriousness of his position.
In a dull resigned fashion he took up his household duties again, made
harder now than before by the scandalous gossip of the aggrieved Mr.
Stevens. The anonymous present of a much-worn apron put the finishing
touch to his discomfiture; and the well-meant offer of a fair neighbour
to teach him how to shake a mat without choking himself met with a
reception that took her breath away.
It was a surprise to him one afternoon to find that his wife had so far
unbent as to tidy up the parlour. Ornaments had been dusted and
polished and the carpet swept. She had even altered the position of the
furniture. The table had been pushed against the wall, and the
easy-chair, with its back to the window, stood stiffly confronting six
or seven assorted chairs, two of which at least had been promoted from
a lower sphere.
“It’s for the meeting,” said Muriel, peeping in.
“Meeting?” repeated her father, in a dazed voice.
“Strike-meeting,” was the reply. “Mrs. Gorman and some other ladies
are coming at four o’clock. Didn’t mother tell you?”
Mr. Porter, staring helplessly at the row of chairs, shook his head.
“Mrs. Evans is coming,” continued Muriel, in a hushed voice—“the lady
what punched Mr. Brown because he kept Bobbie Evans in one day. He
ain’t been kept in since. I wish you——”
She stopped suddenly, and, held by her father’s gaze, backed slowly out
of the room. Mr. Porter, left with the chairs, stood regarding them
thoughtfully. Their emptiness made an appeal that no right-minded man
could ignore. He put his hand over his mouth and his eyes watered.
He spent the next half-hour in issuing invitations, and at half-past
three every chair was filled by fellow-strikers. Three cans of beer,
clay pipes, and a paper of shag stood on the table. Mr. Benjamin Todd,
an obese, fresh-coloured gentleman of middle age, took the easy-chair.
Glasses and teacups were filled.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Todd, lighting his pipe, “afore we get on to the
business of this meeting I want to remind you that there is another
meeting, of ladies, at four o’clock; so we’ve got to hurry up. O’
course, if it should happen that we ain’t finished——”
“Go on, Bennie!” said a delighted admirer.
“I see a female ’ead peeping in at the winder already,” said a voice.
“Let ’em peep,” said Mr. Todd, benignly. “Then p’r’aps they’ll be able
to see how to run a meeting.”
“There’s two more ’eads,” said the other. “Oh, Lord, I know I sha’n’t
be able to keep a straight face!”
“H’sh!” commanded Mr. Todd, sternly, as the street-door was heard to
open. “Be’ave yourself. As I was saying, the thing we’ve got to
consider about this strike——”
The door opened, and six ladies, headed by Mrs. Porter, entered the
room in single file and ranged themselves silently along the wall.
“Strike,” proceeded Mr. Todd, who found himself gazing uneasily into
the eyes of Mrs. Gorman——“strike—er—strike——”
“He said that before,” said a stout lady, in a loud whisper; “I’m sure
he did.”
“Is,” continued Mr. Todd, “that we have got to keep this—this—er—”
“Strike,” prompted the same voice.
Mr. Todd paused, and, wiping his mouth with a red pocket-handkerchief,
sat staring straight before him.
“I move,” said Mrs. Evans, her sharp features twitching with
excitement, “that Mrs. Gorman takes the chair.”
“’Ow can I take it when he’s sitting in it?” demanded that lady.
“She’s a lady that knows what she wants and how to get it,” pursued
Mrs. Evans, unheeding. “She understands men—”
“I’ve buried two ’usbands,” murmured Mrs. Gorman, nodding.
“And how to manage them,” continued Mrs. Evans. “I move that Mrs.
Gorman takes the chair. Those in favour—”
Mr. Todd, leaning back in his chair and gripping the arms, gazed
defiantly at a row of palms.
“Carried unanimously!” snapped Mrs. Evans.
Mrs. Gorman, tall and bony, advanced and stood over Mr. Todd. Strong
men held their breath.
“It’s my chair,” she said, gruffly. “I’ve been moved into it.”
“Possession,” said Mr. Todd, in as firm a voice as he could manage, “is
nine points of the law. I’m here and—”
Mrs. Gorman turned, and, without the slightest warning, sat down
suddenly and heavily in his lap. A hum of admiration greeted the
achievement.
“Get up!” shouted the horrified Mr. Todd. “Get up!”
Mrs. Gorman settled herself more firmly.
“Let me get up,” said Mr. Todd, panting.
Mrs. Gorman rose, but remained in a hovering position, between which
and the chair Mr. Todd, flushed and dishevelled, extricated himself in
all haste. A shrill titter of laughter and a clapping of hands greeted
his appearance. He turned furiously on the pallid Mr. Porter.
“What d’you mean by it?” he demanded. “Are you the master, or ain’t
you? A man what can’t keep order in his own house ain’t fit to be
called a man. If my wife was carrying on like this——”
“I wish I was your wife,” said Mrs. Gorman, moistening her lips.
Mr. Todd turned slowly and surveyed her.
“I don’t,” he said, simply, and, being by this time near the door,
faded gently from the room.
“Order!” cried Mrs. Gorman, thumping the arm of her chair with a large,
hard-working fist. “Take your seats, ladies.”
A strange thrill passed through the bodies of her companions and
communicated itself to the men in the chairs. There was a moment’s
tense pause, and then the end man, muttering something about “going to
see what had happened to poor old Ben Todd,” rose slowly and went out.
His companions, with heads erect and a look of cold disdain upon their
faces, followed him.
It was Mr. Porter’s last meeting, but his wife had several more. They
lasted, in fact, until the day, a fortnight later, when he came in with
flushed face and sparkling eyes to announce that the strike was over
and the men victorious.
“Six bob a week more!” he said, with enthusiasm. “You see, I was right
to strike, after all.”
Mrs. Porter eyed him. “I am out for four bob a week more,” she said,
calmly.
Her husband swallowed. “You—you don’t understand ’ow these things are
done,” he said, at last. “It takes time. We ought to ne—negotiate.”
“All right,” said Mrs. Porter, readily. “Seven shillings a week, then.”
“Let’s say four and have done with it,” exclaimed the other, hastily.
And Mrs. Porter said it.