“Our children, we want our children!”

Even if the boy had desired to break through the crowd to return to his work he could not have done so, and he really did not wish to,—­he was too much interested in following the purposes of the throng.  Finally the people stopped, but the boy was so far back that he could see nothing of what was going on at the head of the crowd.  Being determined, however, Hamilton elbowed his way by main force and reached the woman who was still crying: 

“Our children, we want our children!”

Hamilton spoke to her, but the woman paid no heed.  Finally, seeing that she would not listen, he shouted at her as harshly as he could.  Then she turned and tried to answer his questions.

“What’s all the row about?” he asked.

“They rob us.  Steal our children.  Make them walk far away, never see our children any more.  Oh, my Mario, oh, my Petronilla.  Oh, our children, we want our children!”

Further information the boy could not get.  He worked his way clear to the front of the mob and saw the police gathering on all sides.  Breaking through the front rank he stepped up to the nearest policeman, who merely shifted his grip on his night stick.

“That’s quite a mob,” he said in a conversational tone.

“It is that, sorr,” said the policeman, recognizing immediately that the boy was not one of the rioters.

“I’m a census officer,” the boy continued, “and I was doing some inspection work for the census when I got caught in the crowd.  What’s the matter with them?”

“’Tis a bunch of dummies they are,” was the reply; “‘tis thinkin’ they are that the schools are goin’ to steal their children.  As if any one would be wantin’ their brats.  The most of us has enough of our own to keep.”

“But why should the school want to steal their children?  Do you mean that they don’t want them to go to school?”

“’Tis not that, sorr,” the Irishman answered, “but ’tis due to some ‘fire drill’ business.  The little ones are taught in the school that when a bell rings—­’tis the fire bell I’m m’anin’—­they sh’d all march out dacintly and in order.  ‘Tis a good idea, that same, an’ I’m favorin’ it.  But it’s hard to make the children see it, so that they have to drill them often.”

“That all seems right enough,” Hamilton answered.

“Ye would think so, sorr,” continued the policeman “But most of these mothers come from countries on the other side where they make them soldiers whether they want to be or not, an’ this drillin’ business scares the old folks ’most to death.”

“But if it continues and nothing happens, I don’t see why they should go on being scared.  You would think the children had grown used to it.”

“The children!  They’re not makin’ any trouble, it’s all the parents.”

“Then what started it?”

“There was some street corner lecturer here the day before yisterday, tryin’ to teach the people that children were the cause of poverty an’ that the only way to prevent poverty was to get rid of the children, either by havin’ fewer or by shippin’ off the existin’ surplus.”