lost all sense
of surprise at finding herself arguing, pleading, appealing to several
women in turn, fluently, in the language of the industrial revolution.
Some--because she was an American--examined her with furtive curiosity;
others pretended not to understand, accelerating their pace. She gained
no converts that morning, but one girl, pale, anemic with high cheek
bones evidently a Slav--listened to her intently.

"I gotta right to work," she said.

"Not if others will starve because you work," objected Janet.

"If I don't work I starve," said the girl.

"No, the Committee will take care of you--there will be food for all.
How much do you get now?"

"Four dollar and a half."

"You starve now," Janet declared contemptuously. "The quicker you join
us, the sooner you'll get a living wage."

The girl was not quite convinced. She stood for a while undecided, and
then ran abruptly off in the direction of West Street. Janet sought
for others, but they had ceased coming; only the scattered, prowling
picketers remained.

Over the black rim of the Clarendon Mill to the eastward the sky had
caught fire. The sun had risen, the bells were ringing riotously,
resonantly in the clear, cold air. Another working day had begun.

Janet, benumbed with cold, yet agitated and trembling because of her
unwonted experience of the morning, made her way back to Fillmore
Street. She was prepared to answer any questions her mother might ask;
as they ate their dismal breakfast, and Hannah asked no questions, she
longed to blurt out where she had been, to announce that she had cast
her lot with the strikers, the foreigners, to defend them and declare
that these were not to blame for the misfortunes of the family, but men
like Ditmar and the owners of the mills, the capitalists. Her mother,
she reflected bitterly, had never once betrayed any concern as to her
shattered happiness. But gradually, as from time to time she glanced
covertly at Hannah's face, her resentment gave way to apprehension.
Hannah did not seem now even to be aware of her presence; this
persistent apathy filled her with a dread she did not dare to
acknowledge.

"Mother!" she cried at last.

Hannah started. "Have you finished?" she asked.

"Yes."

"You've b'en out in the cold, and you haven't eaten much." Janet fought
back her tears. "Oh yes, I have," she managed to reply, convinced of
the futility of speech, of all attempts to arouse her mother to a
realization o