“No chance,” she said cheerfully.  “Mother would raise the devil if you tried it.”  She glanced at Ellen’s face.  “If that word shocks you, you’re due for a few shocks, you know.”

“The way you talk is your business, not mine,” said Ellen austerely.

When they finally departed on a half-run Ellen was established as a fixture in the Boyd house, and was already piling all the cooking utensils into a wash boiler and with grim efficiency was searching for lye with which to clean them.

Two weeks later, the end of June, the strike occurred.  It was not, in spite of predictions, a general walk-out.  Some of the mills, particularly the smaller plants, did not go down at all, and with reduced forces kept on, but the chain of Cardew Mills was closed.  There was occasional rioting by the foreign element in outlying districts, but the state constabulary handled it easily.

Dan was out of work, and the loss of his pay was a serious matter in the little house.  He had managed to lay by a hundred dollars, and Willy Cameron had banked it for him, but there was a real problem to be faced.  On the night of the day the Cardew Mills went down Willy called a meeting of the household after supper, around the dining room table.  He had been in to see Mr. Hendricks, who had been laid up with bronchitis, and Mr. Hendricks had predicted a long strike.

“The irresistible force and the immovable body, son,” he said.  “They’ll stay set this time.  And unless I miss my guess that is playing Doyle’s hand for him, all right.  His chance will come when the men have used up their savings and are growing bitter.  Every strike plays into the hands of the enemy, son, and they know it.  The moment production ceases prices go up, and soon all the money in the world won’t pay them wages enough to live on.”

He had a store of homely common sense, and a gift of putting things into few words.  Willy Cameron, going back to the little house that evening, remembered the last thing he had said.

“The only way to solve this problem of living,” he said, “is to see how much we can work, and not how little.  Germany’s working ten hours a day, and producing.  We’re talking about six, and loafing and fighting while we talk.”

So Willy went home and called his meeting, and knowing Mrs. Boyd’s regard for figures, set down and added or subtracted, he placed a pad and pencil on the table before him.  It was an odd group:  Dan sullen, resenting the strike and the causes that had led to it; Ellen, austere and competent; Mrs. Boyd with a lace fichu pinned around her neck, now that she had achieved the dignity of hired help, and Edith.  Edith silent, morose and fixing now and then rather haggard eyes on Willy Cameron’s unruly hair.  She seldom met his eyes.

“First of all,” said Willy, “we’ll take our weekly assets.  Of course Dan will get something temporarily, but we’ll leave that out for the present.”