“It hasn’t been all roses and lilies,” she told them, “but—­that’s us!”

CHAPTER XXVII

Meanwhile, as you will guess, it hadn’t been “all roses and lilies” either, for the men who had gone on strike.

“Didn’t you say you expected trouble?” Mary asked Archey one morning just after the big strike was declared.

“Yes,” he told her.  “They were talking that way.  But they are so sure now that we’ll have to give in, that they are quite good natured about it.”

Mary said nothing, but her back grew stiff, something like Mrs. Ridge’s; and when she saw Uncle Stanley in the outer office a few minutes later and he smiled without looking at her—­smiled and shook his head to himself as though he were thinking of something droll—­Mary went back to her room in a hurry, and stayed there until she felt tranquil again.

“What are the men saying now?” she asked Archey the following week.

“They are still taking it as a sort of a joke,” he told her, “but here and there you catch a few who are looking thoughtful—­especially those who have wives or daughters working here.”

That pleased her.

The next time the subject was mentioned, Archey brought it up himself.

“There was quite a fight on Jay Street yesterday,” he said.

As Mary knew, Jay Street was the headquarters of the strikers, and suddenly she became all attention.

“Those out-of-town agitators are beginning to feel anxious, I guess.  Two of them went around yesterday whispering that the women at the factory needed a few good scares, so they’d stay home where they belonged.  They tackled Jimmy Kelly, not knowing his wife works here.  ’What do you mean:  good scares?’ he asked.  ‘Rough stuff,’ they told him, on the quiet.  ‘What do you mean, rough stuff?’ he asked them.  They whispered something—­nobody knows what it was—­but they say Jimmy fell on them both like a ton of bricks on two bad eggs.  ’Try a little rough stuff, yourself,’ he said, ‘and maybe you’ll stay home where you belong.’”

Mary’s eyes shone.  It may be that blood called to blood, for if you remember one of those Josiah Spencers on the walls had married a Mary McMillan.

“It’s things like that,” she said, “that sometimes make me wish I was a man,” and straightway went and interviewed Mrs. James Kelly, and gave her a message of thanks to be conveyed to her double-fisted husband.

The next week Mary didn’t have to ask Archey what the men were doing, because one of the Sunday papers had made a special story of the subject.

Some of the men were getting work elsewhere, she read.

Others were on holidays, or visiting friends out of town.

Some were grumpy, some were merry, one had been caught red-handed—­or at least blue-aproned—­cooking his own dinner.  All who could be reached had been asked how they thought the strike would end, and the reply which I am quoting is typical of many.