Ellen had not arrived at her decision with regard to the strike as
suddenly as it may have seemed. All winter, ever since the strike,
Ellen had been wondering, not whether the principle of the matter
was correct or not, that she never doubted; she never swerved in her
belief concerning the cruel tyranny of the rich and the helpless
suffering of the poor, and their good reason for making a stand, but
she doubted more and more the wisdom of it. She used to sit for
hours up in her chamber after her father and mother had gone to bed,
wrapped up in an old shawl against the cold, resting her elbows on
the window-sill and her chin on her two hands, staring out into the
night, and reflecting. Her youthful enthusiasm carried her like a
leaping-pole to conclusions beyond her years. "I wonder," she said
to herself, "if, after all, this inequality of possessions is not a
part of the system of creation, if the righting of them is not
beyond the flaming sword of the Garden of Eden? I wonder if the one
who tries to right them forcibly is not meddling, and usurping the
part of the Creator, and bringing down wrath and confusion not only
upon his own head, but upon the heads of others? I wonder if it is
wise, in order to establish a principle, to make those who have no
voice in the matter suffer for it--the helpless women and children?"
She even thought with a sort of scornful sympathy of Sadie Peel,
who could not have her nearseal cape, and had not wished to strike.
She reflected, as she had done so many times before, that the world
was very old--thousands of years old--and inequality was as old as
the world. Might it not even be a condition of its existence, the
shifting of weights which kept it to its path in the scheme of the
universe? And yet always she went back to her firm belief that the
strikers were right, and always, although she loved Robert Lloyd,
she denounced him. Even when it came to her abandoning her position
with regard to the strike, she had not the slightest thought of
effecting thereby a reconciliation with Robert.
For the first time, that night when she had gone to bed, after
announcing her determination to go back to work, she questioned her
affection for Robert. Before she had always admitted it to herself
with a sort of shamed and angry dignity. "Other women feel so about
men, and why should I not?" she had said; "and I shall never fail to
keep the feeling behind more important things." She had accepted
the fact of it with childlike straightforwardness as she accepted
all other facts of life, and now she wondered if she really did care
for him so much. She thought over and over everything Abby had said,
and saw plainly before her mental vision those poor women parting
with their cherished possessions, the little starving children
snatching at the refuse-buckets at the neighbors' back doors. She
saw with incredulous shame, and something between pity and scorn,
Mamie Bemis, who had gone wrong, and Mamie Brady, who had taken her
foolish, ill-balanced life in her own hands. She remembered every
word which she had said to the men on the morning of the strike, and
how they had started up and left their machines. "I did it all," she
told herself. "I am responsible for it all--all this suffering, for
those hungry little children, for that possible death, for the ruin
of another girl." Then she told herself, with a stern sense of
justice, that back of her responsibility came Robert Lloyd's. If he
had not cut the wages it would never have been. It seemed to her
that she almost hated him, and that she could not wait to strive to
undo the harm which she had done. She could not wait for morning to
come.
She lay awake all night in a fever of impatience. When she went
down-stairs her eyes were brilliant, there were red spots on her
cheeks, her lips were tense, her whole face looked as if she were
strained for some leap of action. She took hold of everything she
touched with a hard grip. Her father and mother kept watching her
anxiously. Directly after breakfast Ellen put on her hat and coat.
"What are you going to do?" asked Fanny.
"I am going over to see John Sargent, and ask him to get some other
men and go to see Mr. Lloyd, and tell him we are willing to go to
work again," replied Ellen.
Ellen discovered, when she reached the Atkins house, that John
Sargent had already resolved upon his course of action.
"The first thing he said when he came in last night was that he
couldn't stand it any longer, and he was going to see the others,
and go to Lloyd, and ask him to open the shop on his own terms,"
said Abby. "I told him how we felt about it."
"Yes, I am ready to go back whenever the factory is opened," said
Ellen. "I am glad he has gone."
Ellen did not remain long. She was anxious to return and finish some
wrappers she had on hand. Abby promised to go over and let her know
the result of the interview with Lloyd.
It was not until evening that Abby came over, and John Sargent with
her. Lloyd had not been at home in the morning, and they had been
forced to wait until late afternoon. The two entered the
dining-room, where Ellen and her mother sat at work.
Abby spoke at once, and to the point. "Well," said she, "the shop's
going to be opened to-morrow."
"On what terms?" asked Ellen.
"On the boss's, of course," replied Abby, in a hard voice.
"It's the only thing to do," said Sargent, with a sort of stolid
assertion. "If we are willing to be crushed under the Juggernaut of
principle, we haven't any right to force others under, and that's
what we are doing."
"Bread without butter is better than no bread at all," said Abby.
"We've got to live in the sphere in which Providence has placed us."
The girl said "Providence" with a sarcastic emphasis.
Andrew was looking at Sargent. "Do you think there will be any
trouble?" he asked.
Sargent hesitated, with a glance at Fanny. "I don't know; I hope
not," said he. "Lee and Dixon are opposed to giving in, and they are
talking hard to-night in the store. Then some of the men have joined
the union since the strike, and of course they swear by it, because
it has been helping them, and they won't approve of giving up. But I
doubt if there will be much trouble. I guess the majority want to go
to work, even the union men. The amount of it is, it has been such a
tough winter it has taken the spirit out of the poor souls."
Sargent, evidently, in yielding was resisting himself.
"You don't think there will be any danger?" Fanny said, anxiously,
looking at Ellen.
"Oh no, there's no danger for the girls, anyhow. I guess there's
enough men to look out for them. There's no need for you to worry,
Mrs. Brewster."
"Mr. Lloyd did not offer to do anything better about the wages?"
asked Ellen.
Sargent shook his head.
"Catch him!" said Abby, bitterly.
Ellen had a feeling as if she were smiting in the face that image of
Robert which always dwelt in her heart.
"Well," said Abby, with a mirthless laugh, "there's one thing:
according to the Scriptures, it is as hard for the rich man to get
into heaven as it is for the poor men to get into their factories."
"You don't suppose there will be any danger?" Fanny said again,
anxiously.
"Danger--no; who's afraid of Amos Lee and a few like him?" cried
Abby, contemptuously; "and Nahum Beals is safe. He's going to be
tried next month, they say, but they'll make it imprisonment for
life, because they think he wasn't in his right mind. If he was here
we might be afraid, but there's nobody now that will do anything but
talk. I ain't afraid. I'm going to march up to the shop to-morrow
morning and go to work, and I'd like to see anybody stop me."
However, before they left, John Sargent spoke aside with Andrew, and
told him of a plan for the returning workmen to meet at the corner
of a certain street, and go in a body to the factory, and suggested
that there might be pickets posted by the union men, and Andrew
resolved to go with Ellen.
The next morning the rain had quite ceased, and there was a faint
something, rather a reminiscence than a suggestion, of early spring
in the air. People caught themselves looking hard at the elm
branches to see if they were acquiring the virile fringe of spring
or if their eyes deceived them, and wondered, with respect to the
tips of maple and horse-chestnut branches, whether or not they were
swollen red and glossy. Sometimes they sniffed incredulously when a
soft gust of south wind seemed laden with fresh blossom fragrance.
"I declare, if I didn't know better, I should think I smelled apple
blossoms," said Maria.
"Stuff!" returned Abby. She was marching along with an alert,
springy motion of her lean little body. She was keenly alive to the
situation, and scented something besides apple blossoms. She had
tried to induce Maria to remain at home. "I don't know but there'll
be trouble, and if there is, you'll be just in the way," she told
her before they left the house, but not in their parents' hearing.
"Oh, I don't believe there'll be any. Folks will be too glad to get
back to work," replied Maria. She had a vein of obstinacy, gentle as
she was; then, too, she had a reason which no one suspected for
wishing to be present. She would not yield when John Sargent begged
her privately not to go. It was just because she was afraid there
might be trouble, and he was going to be in it, that she could not
bear to stay at home herself.
Andrew had insisted upon accompanying Ellen in spite of her
remonstrances. "I've got an errand down to the store," he said,
evasively; but Ellen understood.
"I don't think there is any danger, and there wouldn't be any danger
for me--not for the girls, sure," she said; but he persisted.
"Don't you say a word to your mother to scare her," he whispered.
But they had not been gone long before Fanny followed them, Mrs.
Zelotes watching her furtively from a window as she went by.
All the returning employés met, as agreed upon, at the corner of a
certain street, and marched in a solid body towards Lloyd's. The men
insisted upon placing the girls in the centre of this body, although
some of them rebelled, notably Sadie Peel. She was on hand, laughing
and defiant.
"I guess I ain't afraid," she proclaimed. "Father's keepin' on
strikin', but I guess he won't see his own daughter hurt; and now
I'm goin' to have my nearseal cape, if it is late in the season.
They're cheaper now, that's one good thing. On some accounts the
strike has been a lucky thing for me." She marched along, swinging
her arms jauntily. Ellen and Maria and Abby were close together.
Andrew was on the right of Ellen, Granville Joy behind; the young
laster, who had called so frequently evenings, was with him. John
Sargent and Willy Jones were on the left. They all walked in the
middle of the street like an army. It was covertly understood that
there might be trouble. Some of the younger men from time to time
put hands on their pockets, and a number carried stout sticks.
The first intimation of disturbance came when they met an
electric-car, and all moved to one side to let it pass. The car was
quite full of people going to another town, some thirty miles
distant, to work in a large factory there. Nearly every man and
woman on the car belonged to the union.
As this car slid past a great yell went up from the occupants; men
on the platforms swung their arms in execration and derision.
"Sc-ab, sc-ab!" they called. A young fellow leaped from the rear
platform, caught up a stone and flung it at the returning Lloyd men,
but it went wide of its mark. Then he was back on the platform with
a running jump, and one of the Lloyd men threw a stone, which missed
him. The yell of "Scab, scab!" went up with renewed vigor, until it
died out of hearing along with the rumble of the car.
"Sometimes I wish I had joined the union and stuck it out," said one
of the Lloyd men, gloomily.
"For the Lord's sake, don't show the white feather now!" cried a
young fellow beside him, who was striding on with an eager, even
joyous outlook. He had fighting blood, and it was up, and he took a
keen delight in the situation.
"It's easy to talk," grumbled the other man. "I don't know but all
our help lies in the union, and we've been a pack of fools not to go
in with them, because we hoped Lloyd would weaken and take us back.
He hasn't weakened; we've had to. Good God, them that's rich have it
their own way!"
"I'd have joined the union in a minute, and got a job, and got my
nearseal cape, if it hadn't been for father," said Sadie Peel, with
a loud laugh. "But, my land! if father'd caught me joinin' the union
I dun'no' as there would have been anything left of me to wear the
cape."
They all marched along with no disturbance until they reached the
corner of the street into which they had to turn in order to
approach Lloyd's. There they were confronted by a line of pickets,
stationed there by the union, and the real trouble began. Yells of
"Scab, scab!" filled the air.
"Good land, I ain't no more of a scab than you be!" shrieked Sadie
Peel, in a loud, angry voice. "Scab yourself! Touch me if you
dasse!"
Many young men among the returning force had stout sticks in their
hands. Granville Joy was one of them. Andrew, who was quite unarmed,
pressed in before Ellen. Granville caught him by the arm and tried
to draw him back.
"Look here, Mr. Brewster," he said, "you keep in the background a
little. I am young and strong, and here are Sargent and Mendon.
You'd better keep back."
But Ellen, with a spring which was effectual because so utterly
uncalculated, was before Granville and her father, and them all. She
reasoned it out in a second that she was responsible for the strike,
and that she would be in the front of whatever danger there was in
consequence. Her slight little figure passed them all before they
knew what she was doing. She was in the very front of the little
returning army. She saw the threatening faces of the pickets; she
half turned, and waved an arm of encouragement, like a general in a
battle. "Strike if you want to," she cried out, in her sweet young
voice. "If you want to kill a girl for going back to work to save
herself and her friends from starvation, do it. I am not afraid! But
kill me, if you must kill anybody, because I am the one that started
the strike. Strike if you want to."
[Illustration: If you want to kill a girl for going back to work to save
herself from starvation, do it!]
The opposing force moved aside with an almost imperceptible motion.
Ellen looked like a beautiful child, her light hair tossed around
her rosy face, her eyes full of the daring of perfect confidence.
She in reality did not feel one throb of fear. She passed the
picket-line, and turned instinctively and marched backward with her
blue eyes upon them all. Abby Atkins sprang forward to Ellen's side,
with Sargent and Joy and Willy Jones and Andrew. Andrew kept calling
to Ellen to come back, but she did not heed him.
The little army was several rods from the pickets before a shot rang
out, but that was fired into the air. However, it was followed by a
fierce clamor of "Scab" and a shower of stones, which did little
harm. The Lloyds marched on without a word, except from Sadie Peel.
She turned round with a derisive shout.
"Scab yourselves!" she shrieked. "You dassen't fire at me. You're
scabs yourselves, you be!"
"Scabs, scabs!" shouted the men, moving forward.
"Scab yourself!" shouted Sadie Peel.
Abby Atkins caught hold of her arm and shook her violently. "Shut
up, can't you, Sadie Peel," she said.
"I'll shut up when I get ready, Abby Atkins! I ain't afraid of them
if you be. They dassen't hit me. Scab, scab!" the girl yelled back,
with a hysteric laugh.
"Don't that girl know anything?" growled a man behind her.
"Shut up, Sadie Peel," said Abby Atkins.
"I ain't afraid if you be, and I won't shut up till I get ready, for
you or anybody else. I'm goin' to have my nearseal cape! Hi!"
"I ain't afraid," said Abby, contemptuously, "but I've got sense."
Maria pressed close to Sadie Peel. "Please do keep still, Sadie,"
she pleaded. "Let us get into the factory as quietly as we can.
Think, if anybody was hurt."
"I ain't afraid," shrieked the girl, with a toss of her red fringe,
and she laughed like a parrot. Abby Atkins gripped her arm so
fiercely that she made her cry out with pain. "If you don't keep
still!" she said, threateningly.
Willy Jones was walking as near as he could, and he carried his
right arm half extended, as if to guard her. Now and then Abby
turned and gave him a push backward.
"They won't trouble us girls, and you might as well let us and the
men that have sticks go first," she said in a whisper.
"If you think--" began the young fellow, coloring.
"Oh, I know you ain't afraid," said Abby, "but you've got your
mother to think of, and there's no use in running into danger."
The pickets were gradually left behind; they were, in truth,
half-hearted. Many of them had worked in Lloyd's, and had small mind
to injure their old comrades. They were not averse to a great show
of indignation and bluster, but when it came to more they hesitated.
Presently the company came into the open space before Lloyd's.
Robert and Lyman Risley and several foremen were standing at the
foot of the stairs. The windows of the factory were filled with
faces, and derisive cries came from them. Lloyd's tall shaft of
chimney was plumed with smoke. The employés advanced towards the
stairs, when suddenly Amos Lee, Dixon, and a dozen others appeared,
coming with a rush from around a corner of the building, and again
the air was filled with the cry of "Scab!" Ellen and Abby linked
arms and sprang forward before the men with an impetuous rush, with
Joy and Willy Jones and Andrew following. Ellen, as she rushed on
towards the factory stairs, was conscious of no fear at all, but
rather of a sort of exaltation of courage. It did not really occur
to her that she could be hurt, that it could be in the heart of Lee
or Dixon, or any of them, actually to harm her. She was throbbing
and intense with indignation and resolution. Into that factory to
her work she was bound to go. All that intimidated her in the least
was the fear for her father. She rushed as fast as she could that
her father might not get before her and be hurt in some way.
"Scab! scab!" shouted Lee and the others.
"Scab yourself!" shrieked Sadie Peel. Her father was one of the
opposing party, and that gave her perfect audacity. "Look out you
don't hit me, dad," she cried to him. "I'm goin' to get my nearseal
cape. Don't you hit your daughter, Tom Peel!" She raced on with a
sort of hoppity-skip. She caught a young man near her by the arm and
forced him into the same dancing motion.
They were at the foot of the stairs, when Robert, watching, saw Lee
with a pistol in his hand aim straight at Ellen. He sprang before
her, but Risley was nearer, and the shot struck him. When Risley
fell, a great cry, it would have been difficult to tell whether of
triumph or horror, went up from the open windows of the other
factories, and men came swarming out. Lee and his companions
vanished.
A great crowd gathered around Risley until the doctors came and
ordered them away, and carried him in the ambulance to the hospital.
He was not dead, but evidently very seriously injured.
When the ambulance had rolled out of sight, the Lloyd employés
entered the factory, and the hum of machinery began.
Fanny and Andrew stood together before the factory after Ellen had
entered. Andrew had started when he had seen his wife.
"You here?" he said.
"I rather guess I'm here," returned Fanny. "Do you s'pose I was
goin' to stay at home, and not know whether you and her were shot
dead or not?"
"I guess it's all safe now," said Andrew. He was very pale. He
looked at the blood-stained place where Lyman Risley had lain. "It's
awful work," he said.
"Who did it?" asked Fanny, sharply. "I heard the shot just before I
got here."
"I don't know for sure, and guess it's better I don't," replied
Andrew, sternly.
Then all at once as they stood there a woman came up with a swift,
gliding motion and a long trail of black skirts straight to Fanny,
who was the only woman there. There were still a great many men and
boys standing about. The woman, Cynthia Lennox, caught Fanny's arm
with a nervous grip. Her finely cut face was very white under the
nodding plumes of her black bonnet.
"Is he in there?" she asked, in a strained voice, pointing to the
shop.
Fanny stared at her. She was half dazed. She did not know whether
she was referring to the wounded man or Robert.
Andrew was quicker in his perceptions.
"They carried him off to the hospital in the ambulance," he told
her. Then he added, as gently as if he had been addressing Ellen: "I
guess he wasn't hurt so very bad. He came to before they took him
away."
"You don't know anything about it," Fanny said, sharply. "I heard
them say something about his eyes."
"His eyes!" gasped Cynthia. She held tightly to Fanny, who looked at
her with a sudden passion of sympathy breaking through her
curiosity.
"Oh, I guess he wasn't hurt so very bad; he _did_ come to. I heard
him speak," she said, soothingly. She laid her hard hand over
Cynthia's slim one.
"They took him to the hospital?"
"Yes, in the ambulance."
"Is--my nephew in there?"
"No; he went with him."
Cynthia looked at the other woman with an expression of utter
anguish and pleading.
"Look here," said Fanny; "the hospital ain't very far from here.
Suppose we go up there and ask how he is? We could call out your
nephew."
"Will you go with me?" asked Cynthia, with a heart-breaking gasp.
If Ellen could have seen her at that moment, she would have
recognized her as the woman whom she had known in her childhood. She
was an utter surprise to Fanny, but her sympathy leaped to meet her
need like the steel to the magnet.
"Of course I will," she said, heartily.
"I would," said Andrew--"I would go with her, Fanny."
"Of course I will," said Fanny; "and you had better go home, I
guess, Andrew, and see how I left the kitchen fire. I don't know but
the dampers are all wide open."
Fanny and Cynthia hastened in one direction towards the hospital,
and Andrew towards home; but he paused for a minute, and looked
thoughtfully up at the humming pile of Lloyd's. The battle was over
and the strike was ended. He drew a great sigh, and went home to see
to the kitchen fire.