“Say, who are you working for?  Me or the Wool Trust?”

“Aw, get along,” retorted the soldier, “or I’ll give you yours.”

The man caught sight of Janet’s button as she overtook him.  He was walking backward.

“That feller has a job in a machine shop over in Barrington, I seen him there when I was in the mills.  And here he is tryin’ to put us out —­ain’t that the limit?”

The thud of horses’ feet in the snow prevented her reply.  The silhouettes of the approaching squad of cavalry were seen down the street, and the man fled precipitately into an alleyway....

There were ludicrous incidents, too, though never lacking in a certain pathos.  The wife of a Russian striker had her husband arrested because he had burned her clothes in order to prevent her returning to the mill.  From the police station he sent a compatriot with a message to Headquarters.  “Oye, he fix her!  She no get her jawb now—­she gotta stay in bed!” this one cried triumphantly.

“She was like to tear me in pieces when I brought her the clothes,” said Anna Mower, who related her experience with mingled feelings.  “I couldn’t blame her.  You see, it was the kids crying with cold and starvation, and she got so she just couldn’t stand it.  I couldn’t stand it, neither.”

Day by day the element who wished to compromise and end the strike grew stronger, brought more and more pressure on the leaders.  These people were subsidized, Antonelli declared, by the capitalists....

CHAPTER XVIII

A more serious atmosphere pervaded Headquarters, where it was realized that the issue hung in the balance.  And more proclamations, a la Napoleon, were issued to sustain and hearten those who were finding bread and onions meagre fare, to shame the hesitating, the wavering.  As has been said, it was Rolfe who, because of his popular literary gift, composed these appeals for the consideration of the Committee, dictating them to Janet as he paced up and down the bibliotheque, inhaling innumerable cigarettes and flinging down the ends on the floor.  A famous one was headed “Shall Wool and Cotton Kings Rule the Nation?” “We are winning” it declared.  “The World is with us!  Forced by the unshaken solidarity of tens of thousands, the manufacturers offer bribes to end the reign of terror they have inaugurated....  Inhuman treatment and oppressive toil have brought all nationalities together into one great army to fight against a brutal system of exploitation.  In years and years of excessive labour we have produced millions for a class of idle parasites, who enjoy all the luxuries of life while our wives have to leave their firesides and our children their schools to eke out a miserable existence.”  And this for the militia:  “The lowest aim of life is to be a soldier!  The `good’ soldier never tries to distinguish right from wrong, he never thinks, he never reasons, he only obeys—­”