a swarm of human activities, his voice everywhere,
his pen in his hand. Meals he ate at his desk while he wrote, and sleep
was gained in little snatches. Myra had been there to watch him, there
to help him. Since that night in the court, she had come early and
stayed until ten in the evening, doing what work she could. And there
was much to be done--she found a profitable task in instructing new
recruits in the rules of picketing--and also in investigating cases of
need. These took her to strange places. She had vistas of life she had
not dreamed to be true--misery she had thought confined to novels, to
books like _Les Miserables_. It was all wonderful and strange and new.
She was beginning to really know the life of the Greater Number--the
life of the Nine-Tenths--and as she got used to the dust, the smells,
and the squalor, she found daily all the richness of human nature. It
was dramatic, absorbing, real. Where was it leading her? She hardly knew
yet. The strangeness had not worn off.

She had been watching Joe, and she felt that he was hardly aware of her
presence. He took her and her work as a matter of course. And this did
not embitter her, for she felt that the time had passed for privileges,
that this was a season in Joe's life when he belonged to a mass of the
people, to a great cause, and that she had no right to any part of his
life. He was so deep in it, so overwrought, that it was best to let him
alone, to keep him free from the responsibility of personal
relationships, not to burden him with added emotionalism. And so she
accepted the rule of Joe's mother--to do Joe's bidding without question,
to let him have his way, waiting patiently for the time when he would
need and cry out for the personal. When that time came the two women
were ready to help to heal, to nurse--to bind the wounds and soothe the
troubled heart, and rebuild the broken spirit. It might be, of course,
that in the end he would shut Myra out; that was a contingency she had
to face; but she thought that, whatever came, she was getting herself
equal to it.

They left the ferry and walked over to Second Avenue and took an
elevated train. Then Joe spoke--leaning near, his voice gentle:

"Myra."

"Yes, Joe."

"I've been wondering."

"What?"

"About this strike business. Wondering if it isn't mostly waste."

She found herself saying eagerly:

"But what else can the people do?"

He shook his head.

"In this country if men only vot