Schwartz, a round, bullet-headed German,
entered the room, turned his revolving-chair, and began to cut the six
envelopes heaped up before him on his desk, reading the prices aloud as
he opened them in succession, the clerk recording. The first four were
from parties in outside villages. Then came McGaw's:--

"Forty-nine cents for coal, etc."

So far he was lowest. Quigg twisted his hat nervously, and McGaw's
coarse face grew red and white by turns.

Tom's bid was the last.

"Thomas Grogan, Rockville, S.I., thirty-eight cents for coal, etc."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Schwartz, quietly, "Thomas Grogan gets the
hauling."

VIII. POP MULLINS'S ADVICE

Almost every man and woman in the tenement district knew Oscar Schwartz,
and had felt the power of his obstinate hand during the long strike
of two years before, when, the Union having declared war, Schwartz
had closed the brewery for several months rather than submit to its
dictation. The news, therefore, that the Union had called a meeting and
appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Schwartz, to protest against his
giving work to a non-union woman filled them with alarm. The women
remembered the privations and suffering of that winter, and the three
dollars a week doled out to them by the Central Branch, while their
husbands, who had been earning two and three dollars a day, were
drinking at O'Leary's bar, playing cards, or listening to the
encouraging talk of the delegates who came from New York to keep up
their spirits. The brewery employed a larger number of men than any
other concern in Rockville, so trouble with its employees meant serious
trouble for half the village if Schwartz defied the Union and selected a
non-union woman to do the work.

They knew, too, something of the indomitable pluck and endurance of
Tom Grogan. If she were lowest on the bids, she would fight for the
contract, they felt sure, if it took her last dollar. McGaw was a fool,
they said, to bid so high; he might have known she would cut his throat,
and bring them no end of trouble.

Having nursed their resentment, and needing a common object for their
wrath, the women broke out against Tom. Many of them had disliked her
ever since the day, years ago, when she had been seen carrying her
injured husband away at night to the hospital, after months of nursing
at home. And the most envious had always maintained that she meant at
the time to put him away forever where no one could find him, so