CHAPTER V.
THE FAILURE OF THE STRIKE.
Tolman Bike was engaged in conversation with foreman Flint when Dido opened the door and entered.
He lifted his head, and never noticing Dido, fixed a look of absolute horror on Maggie Williams’s tear-stained and swollen face, as he rose pale and trembling and gasped in a husky tone:
“Why do you come to me?”
Margaret gazed stupidly at him with her small, grey eyes, offering no reply.
Dido, greatly astonished at Mr. Bike’s manner, stammered out that she represented the girls he employed, who had decided to appeal to him not to enforce the proposed reduction, as they were already working for less than other factories were paying.
When she began to speak a strange look of relief passed over his face and with a peculiar, nervous laugh, he sat down again.
“Get out of this,” said he roughly. “If you don’t like my prices leave them for those who do.”
Turning his back to the girls he coolly began arranging the papers on his desk.
When Dido began to plead for justice he calmly ordered foreman Flint to “remove these young persons.”
“If you do dare touch me, I’ll kill you!” exclaimed Dido in a rage, as Flint made a movement to obey orders.
He cowered, stepped back and stammered an excuse to his employer. He felt the scorch in Dido’s blazing midnight eyes and he respected her warning and his own person.
Mr. Bike moved quietly to the door and holding it open, said:
“My beauty, you be careful, or that fine spirit of yours will get you into trouble some of these days.”
Dido gave him a scornful glance as she and Maggie walked out, and the door was closed behind them.
She related her failure to the waiting girls, and they all went home after promising to be there Monday morning to prevent others taking their places. They seemed to feel the consequence of their own act less than Dido and rather welcomed an extra holiday.
That evening Dido pawned all her furniture and extra clothes, and the money she received for them, added to her savings, went towards saving the body of Mrs. Williams from the Potter’s Field. There was not quite enough to pay the undertaker, so Dido was forced to borrow the remainder from Blind Gilbert, the beggar, who occupied the room in the rear of that occupied by the Williamses.
Monday morning the girls all gathered around the entrance to the factory and urged the new girls, who came in answer to an advertisement, not to apply for work and thereby injure their chances of making the strike successful.
Only the foreigners stubbornly refused the girls’ request, and they applied for and received the work which the others had abandoned. Tuesday more foreigners were given work, and the weaker strikers, getting frightened at this, quitted their companions and returned to the factory.
This so enraged the other strikers that they waited for the deserters in the evening, when they were going home from work. They first tried to persuade their weaker companions to reconsider their decision and somehow the argument ended in a fight.
Dido Morgan, who was stationed as a picket further down the street, came rushing up to the struggling, pulling, crying girls, hoping to pacify them.
Almost instantly foreman Flint arrived, accompanied by an officer. Pointing out Dido, with a diabolical grin he told the officer to arrest her. The now frightened girls fell back while the officer dragged Dido away, despite her protests.
That night she spent in the station-house, and in the morning she was taken to the Essex Market Court, where the Judge, listening to the policeman’s highly imaginative story, asked her what she had to say, and though she endeavored to tell the truth, hustled her off with “ten days or ten dollars.”
Being penniless she was sent to the Island, where she spent the most miserable ten days of her life.
But her final release brought her no happiness or joy. She knew that it was useless to return to her bare rooms, because of the rent being overdue, and she had no friend but Margaret Williams, who had as much as she could manage to provide for herself.
Disheartened, penniless and hungry, she spent the day wandering around from one place to another, begging for any kind of work. At every place they complained of having more workers than they needed.
Night came on and she thought of the Christian homes, ostensibly asylums for such unfortunate beings as herself. She applied to several along Second Avenue and Bleecker Street, but she found no refuge in any. They were either filled, or because she had no professed religion and had long since quit attending church, they barricaded their Christian (?) quarters against her.
The last and only place, in which they made no inquiries about religion, they charged twenty cents for a bed, and so the weary, hungry girl was forced again to go out into the darkness.
She noticed an open door, leading to a dispensary, on Fourth Avenue, and hiding herself in a dark corner of the hallway there, she spent the night.
In the morning she got a glass of milk and a cup of broth in the diet kitchen, and then she resumed her search for work.
It was useless. Tired out and discouraged she wandered on and on, until she came to the Park. The unhappy girl sought the enticing shade, where she watched the gay, merry people who passed before her. The more she saw, the more despondent she became. They looked so blest, so happy.
Life gave them everything and gave her nothing.
It began to grow dark, and every one hurried from the Park. She had no place to go, no one to care for her, nothing to live for, and she walked further into the Park, helpless, hopeless.
How grand it would be to rest for evermore!
The thought came and charmed her. How sweet, how blessed a long, easy, senseless slumber would be with no pain, no unhappiness, no hunger!
She noticed the reservoir, she climbed up and looked in. Like a bed of velvet the dark waters lay quietly before her, and the rough darkness of the surrounding country seemed to warn her to partake of what was within her reach.
A great wave of peace welled up in her heart, her weariness disappeared in an exquisite languor, which enwrapped her body and mind.
“‘Rest, everlasting rest,’ rang soothingly in my ears,” said Dido, in conclusion, “and with a little cry of joy I went to plunge in”——
“And I saved you from a very rash deed,” broke in Dick. “My poor girl, don’t you know there are hundreds of noble-hearted people in New York who are always ready to help the unfortunate? There is charity and Christianity in some places.”
“But they are hard to find,” said the girl, “and they do not exist in so-called benevolent homes.”
“Now, I tell you what we will do,” said Dick, cordially, lighting a match and looking at his watch. “We will first try to find something to eat, for I am beastly hungry, and then I will take you to your friend, Maggie Williams, if you will kindly show the way, and we will see what can be done for a young woman who gives up so easily.”
To be frank, Richard doubted the girl’s story. Yet he did not want to act hastily in the matter. If the girl had suffered all she said, he felt that not only would he gladly help her, but Penelope would be delighted to make life brighter for the poor victim of fate. So he decided to take her to the home of Margaret Williams, if such a person really existed, and learn from others the true story, if what she had told him should prove to be false.
In this Richard showed himself very wise for a young man. If it was really a case of charity no one would be kinder or more liberal, but he doubted.