ly out
of the darkness behind, Eleanore's arm came around me.

"I wonder whether the harbor will ever let us alone," she said. "It was
so good to us at first--we were getting on so splendidly. But it's
taking hold of us now again--as though we had wandered too far away and
were living too smoothly and needed a jolt. Never mind, we're not
afraid. Only let's be very sure we know what we are doing."

"We'll be very sure," I whispered, and I held her very close.

"Let's try to be sure together," she said. "Don't leave me out--I want
to be in. I want to see as much as I can--and help in any way I can. If
you make any friends I want to know them. Remember that whatever comes,
thy people shall be mine, my dear."

* * * * *

The next day the strike began.

Out of the docks at nine in the morning I saw dockers pour in crowds.
They moved on to other docks, merged themselves in other crowds,
scattered here and gathered there, until at last a black tide of men,
here straggling wide, here densely massed, moved slowly along the
waterfront.

In and out of these surging throngs I moved, so close that in the quiver
of muscles, the excited movements of big limbs, the rough eagerness of
voices that spoke in a babel of many tongues, such a storm of emotions
beat in upon me that I felt I had suddenly dived into an ocean of human
beings, each one of whom was as human as I. I caught a glimpse of Joe
hurrying by. And I thought of Sue, and of Joe's appeal to her and to me
to throw in our lives with such strangers as these whose coarse heavy
faces were pressing so close. And I thought of Eleanore at home. "Thy
people shall be mine, my dear."

Teamsters drove clattering trucks through the crowds. Some of them did
not unload, but others dumped piles of freight by the docks. The dam had
begun. All day long the freight piled up, and by evening the light of a
pale moon shone down upon acres of barrels and boxes. Then the teamsters
unharnessed their teams, left the empty trucks with poles in air, and
the teamsters and their horses and all the crowds of strikers scattered
by degrees up into the tenement regions. Bursts of laughter and singing
came now and then out of the saloons.

Silence settled down over the docks. Walking now down the waterfront I
met only a figure here and there. A taxi came tearing and screeching by,
and later down the long empty space came a single wagon slowly. A smoky
lantern swung unde