“Your father lost an arm in the war.  You can’t expect to fight without facing danger.  And besides,” she laughed easily, “you can always get a job as a printer, Joe.”

Joe paced up and down moodily, his hands clasped behind his back.

“If it was only myself—­” he murmured, greatly troubled.  “I wonder where Sally is this morning.”

“Didn’t she come, Joe?”

“No.  Not a word from her.  I’d hate her to be sick.”

“Hadn’t you better send over and see?”

“I’ll wait a bit yet.  And yet—­” he sighed, “I just need Sally now.”

His mother glanced at him keenly.

“Sally’s a wonder,” she murmured.

“She is—­” He spoke a little irritably.  “Why couldn’t she have come this morning?”

There were quick steps, and Billy rushed in, his eyes large, his cheeks pale.

“Mr. Joe!” he said breathlessly.

“Yes, Billy.”

“There’s a lot of men out on the street, and they’re beginning to fire snowballs!”

Nathan Slate came in, a scarecrow of fear, teeth chattering.

“Oh, Mr. Joe,” he wailed.  “Oh, Mr. Joe!”

Joe’s mother rose, and spoke under her breath.

“Mr. Slate, sit down at once!”

Slate collapsed on a chair, trembling.

Joe felt as if a fork of lightning had transfixed him—­a sharp white fire darting from head and feet and arms to his heart, and whirling there in a spinning ball.  He spoke quietly: 

“I’ll go and see.”

It seemed long before he got to the front window.  Looking out through the snow-dim pane, he saw the street filled with gesticulating men.  He saw some of the faces of the forty-four, but mingled with these were other faces—­the faces of toughs and thugs, ominous, brutal, menacing.  In a flash he realized that he had been making enemies in the district as well as friends, and it struck him that these were the criminal element in the political gang, hangers-on, floaters, the saloon contingent, who were maddened by his attempt to lead the people away from the rotten bosses.  As if by magic they had emerged from the underworld, as they always do in times of trouble, and he knew that the excited East Side group was now flavored with mob-anarchy—­that he had to deal, not with men whose worst weapon was words, but with brutes who lusted for broken heads.  Some of the faces he knew—­he had seen them hanging about saloons.  And he saw, too, in that swift scrutiny, that many of the men had weapons; some had seized crowbars and sledges from a near-by street tool-chest which was being used by laborers; others had sticks; some had stones.  An ominous sound came from the mob, something winged with doom and death, like the rattling of a venomous snake, with head raised to strike, ready fangs and glittering eyes.  He could catch in that paralyzing hum words tossed here and there:  “Smash his presses!  Clean him out!  Lynch him, lynch him!  Kill—­kill—­kill!—­”