The Portion of Labor Part 77

Many young men among the returning force had stout sticks in their hands. Granville Joy was one of them. Andrew, who was quite unarmed, pressed in before Ellen. Granville caught him by the arm and tried to draw him back.

"Look here, Mr. Brewster," he said, "you keep in the background a little. I am young and strong, and here are Sargent and Mendon.

You'd better keep back."

But Ellen, with a spring which was effectual because so utterly uncalculated, was before Granville and her father, and them all. She reasoned it out in a second that she was responsible for the strike, and that she would be in the front of whatever danger there was in consequence. Her slight little figure pa.s.sed them all before they knew what she was doing. She was in the very front of the little returning army. She saw the threatening faces of the pickets; she half turned, and waved an arm of encouragement, like a general in a battle. "Strike if you want to," she cried out, in her sweet young voice. "If you want to kill a girl for going back to work to save herself and her friends from starvation, do it. I am not afraid! But kill me, if you must kill anybody, because I am the one that started the strike. Strike if you want to."

[Ill.u.s.tration: If you want to kill a girl for going back to work to save herself from starvation, do it!]

The opposing force moved aside with an almost imperceptible motion.

Ellen looked like a beautiful child, her light hair tossed around her rosy face, her eyes full of the daring of perfect confidence.

She in reality did not feel one throb of fear. She pa.s.sed the picket-line, and turned instinctively and marched backward with her blue eyes upon them all. Abby Atkins sprang forward to Ellen's side, with Sargent and Joy and w.i.l.l.y Jones and Andrew. Andrew kept calling to Ellen to come back, but she did not heed him.

The little army was several rods from the pickets before a shot rang out, but that was fired into the air. However, it was followed by a fierce clamor of "Scab" and a shower of stones, which did little harm. The Lloyds marched on without a word, except from Sadie Peel.

She turned round with a derisive shout.

"Scab yourselves!" she shrieked. "You da.s.sen't fire at me. You're scabs yourselves, you be!"

"Scabs, scabs!" shouted the men, moving forward.

"Scab yourself!" shouted Sadie Peel.

Abby Atkins caught hold of her arm and shook her violently. "Shut up, can't you, Sadie Peel," she said.

"I'll shut up when I get ready, Abby Atkins! I ain't afraid of them if you be. They da.s.sen't hit me. Scab, scab!" the girl yelled back, with a hysteric laugh.

"Don't that girl know anything?" growled a man behind her.

"Shut up, Sadie Peel," said Abby Atkins.

"I ain't afraid if you be, and I won't shut up till I get ready, for you or anybody else. I'm goin' to have my nea.r.s.eal cape! Hi!"

"I ain't afraid," said Abby, contemptuously, "but I've got sense."

Maria pressed close to Sadie Peel. "Please do keep still, Sadie,"

she pleaded. "Let us get into the factory as quietly as we can.

Think, if anybody was hurt."

"I ain't afraid," shrieked the girl, with a toss of her red fringe, and she laughed like a parrot. Abby Atkins gripped her arm so fiercely that she made her cry out with pain. "If you don't keep still!" she said, threateningly.

w.i.l.l.y Jones was walking as near as he could, and he carried his right arm half extended, as if to guard her. Now and then Abby turned and gave him a push backward.

"They won't trouble us girls, and you might as well let us and the men that have sticks go first," she said in a whisper.

"If you think--" began the young fellow, coloring.

"Oh, I know you ain't afraid," said Abby, "but you've got your mother to think of, and there's no use in running into danger."

The pickets were gradually left behind; they were, in truth, half-hearted. Many of them had worked in Lloyd's, and had small mind to injure their old comrades. They were not averse to a great show of indignation and bl.u.s.ter, but when it came to more they hesitated.

Presently the company came into the open s.p.a.ce before Lloyd's.

Robert and Lyman Risley and several foremen were standing at the foot of the stairs. The windows of the factory were filled with faces, and derisive cries came from them. Lloyd's tall shaft of chimney was plumed with smoke. The employes advanced towards the stairs, when suddenly Amos Lee, Dixon, and a dozen others appeared, coming with a rush from around a corner of the building, and again the air was filled with the cry of "Scab!" Ellen and Abby linked arms and sprang forward before the men with an impetuous rush, with Joy and w.i.l.l.y Jones and Andrew following. Ellen, as she rushed on towards the factory stairs, was conscious of no fear at all, but rather of a sort of exaltation of courage. It did not really occur to her that she could be hurt, that it could be in the heart of Lee or Dixon, or any of them, actually to harm her. She was throbbing and intense with indignation and resolution. Into that factory to her work she was bound to go. All that intimidated her in the least was the fear for her father. She rushed as fast as she could that her father might not get before her and be hurt in some way.

"Scab! scab!" shouted Lee and the others.

"Scab yourself!" shrieked Sadie Peel. Her father was one of the opposing party, and that gave her perfect audacity. "Look out you don't hit me, dad," she cried to him. "I'm goin' to get my nea.r.s.eal cape. Don't you hit your daughter, Tom Peel!" She raced on with a sort of hoppity-skip. She caught a young man near her by the arm and forced him into the same dancing motion.

They were at the foot of the stairs, when Robert, watching, saw Lee with a pistol in his hand aim straight at Ellen. He sprang before her, but Risley was nearer, and the shot struck him. When Risley fell, a great cry, it would have been difficult to tell whether of triumph or horror, went up from the open windows of the other factories, and men came swarming out. Lee and his companions vanished.

A great crowd gathered around Risley until the doctors came and ordered them away, and carried him in the ambulance to the hospital.

He was not dead, but evidently very seriously injured.

When the ambulance had rolled out of sight, the Lloyd employes entered the factory, and the hum of machinery began.

f.a.n.n.y and Andrew stood together before the factory after Ellen had entered. Andrew had started when he had seen his wife.

"You here?" he said.

"I rather guess I'm here," returned f.a.n.n.y. "Do you s'pose I was goin' to stay at home, and not know whether you and her were shot dead or not?"

"I guess it's all safe now," said Andrew. He was very pale. He looked at the blood-stained place where Lyman Risley had lain. "It's awful work," he said.

"Who did it?" asked f.a.n.n.y, sharply. "I heard the shot just before I got here."

"I don't know for sure, and guess it's better I don't," replied Andrew, sternly.

Then all at once as they stood there a woman came up with a swift, gliding motion and a long trail of black skirts straight to f.a.n.n.y, who was the only woman there. There were still a great many men and boys standing about. The woman, Cynthia Lennox, caught f.a.n.n.y's arm with a nervous grip. Her finely cut face was very white under the nodding plumes of her black bonnet.

"Is he in there?" she asked, in a strained voice, pointing to the shop.

f.a.n.n.y stared at her. She was half dazed. She did not know whether she was referring to the wounded man or Robert.

Andrew was quicker in his perceptions.

"They carried him off to the hospital in the ambulance," he told her. Then he added, as gently as if he had been addressing Ellen: "I guess he wasn't hurt so very bad. He came to before they took him away."

"You don't know anything about it," f.a.n.n.y said, sharply. "I heard them say something about his eyes."

"His eyes!" gasped Cynthia. She held tightly to f.a.n.n.y, who looked at her with a sudden pa.s.sion of sympathy breaking through her curiosity.

"Oh, I guess he wasn't hurt so very bad; he _did_ come to. I heard him speak," she said, soothingly. She laid her hard hand over Cynthia's slim one.

"They took him to the hospital?"

"Yes, in the ambulance."

"Is--my nephew in there?"

"No; he went with him."