It was only occasionally that he saw the Benningtons. His nights were
devoted to speech-making or conferences. Sometimes, however, on his
way home late at night, he would walk up as far as the old house and
look up at the windows; and if he saw a light in Patty's room he would
pause for a few minutes, then turn about, Jove limping at his heels.
Patty Bennington! The one idyl in his noisy life, the one uplifting
influence! He knew that he was not making this fight for clean
politics because his heart was in it, but because Patty's was. It is
thus that women make the world better, indirectly. Once or twice he
had seen Patty in the gallery at mass meetings; but, hurry as he
might, he never could get around to the entrance in time to speak to
her.
As for McQuade, he knew that between him and that gentleman the war
had only begun. He was constantly wondering how McQuade would act; but
so far as he could see, McQuade had absolutely nothing to stand on.
McQuade would have to tunnel; he could not carry on the war above
ground. McQuade would never forgive the result of the dog fight. There
had been so much raillery in the newspapers that McQuade became
furious whenever it was mentioned. His dog was a professional fighter
and had made three kills, and here a "pet" had given him his first
licking. It rankled, and none of McQuade's friends dared refer to it.
So Warrington remained alert and watchful; it was all he could do.
In more ways than one Herculaneum became widely known. Other cities
realized that there was a peculiar strike in progress, upon the
outcome of which depended the principles of unionism. Here was an
employer who was making preparations to destroy his shops, regardless
of financial loss, regardless of public opinion, regardless of
everything but his right to employ and discharge whom he willed. Every
great employer in the country focused his eye upon Herculaneum; every
union leader did likewise. The outcome would mean a kind of
revolution.
At the shops the men had placed the usual sentinels around the limits,
ready to repel the expected army of non-union workmen. But a day
passed, two, three, four; a week, then ten days; a month. Not a single
strange man approached the gates. Not one man among them had any
information whatever as to the movements of their whilom employer.
Scab labor never showed its head above the horizon. The men began to
wonder; they began to grow restless. But Morrissy always pacified them
with the word "wait."
"Vigilance, boys; that's the word," said the leader. "The moment we go
to sleep he'll have his men inside."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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