The crowd surged and seethed madly, now snarling like beasts, now
rumbling portentously like a storm, now babbling like an infant; a
great emotional frenzy, throbbing with passion, goaded beyond fear,
desperate with need; leaderless, and therefore the more dangerous.
The very sight of that luxurious baby with her dancing eyes and happy
smiles “rolling in luxury,” called to mind their own little puny
darling, grimy with neglect, lean with want, and hollow-eyed with
knowledge aforetime. Why should one baby be pampered and another
starved? Why did the bank-president’s daughter have any better right to
those wonderful furs and that exultant smile than their own babies? A
glimpse into the depths of the rooms beyond the sheltering plate glass
and drapery showed greater contrast even than they had dreamed between
this home and the bare tenements they had left that morning, where the
children were crying for bread and the wife shivering with cold.
Because they loved their own their anger burned the fiercer; and for
love of their pitiful scrawny babies that flower-like child in the
doorway was hated with all the vehemence of their untamed natures.
Their every breath cried out for vengeance, and with the brute instinct
they sought to hurt the man through his child, because they had been
hurt by the wrong done to their children.
The policeman’s whistle had done its work, however. The startled
inmates of the house had drawn the beautiful baby and her small
preserver within the heavy carven doors, and borne them back to safety
before the unorganized mob had time to force their way in. Amid the
outcry and the disorder no one had noticed that Mikky had disappeared
until his small band of companions set up an outcry, but even then no
one heard.
The mounted police had arrived, and orders were being given. The man
who had fired the shot was arrested, handcuffed and marched away. The
people were ordered right and left, and the officer’s horses rode
ruthlessly through the masses. Law and order had arrived and there was
nothing for the downtrodden but to flee.
In a very short time the square was cleared and guarded by a large
force. Only the newspaper men came and went without challenge. The
threatening groups of men who still hovered about withdrew further and
further. The wrecked automobile was patched up and taken away to the
garage. The street became quiet, and by and by some workmen came
hurriedly, importantly, and put in temporary protections where the
window glass had been broken.
Yet through it all a little knot of ragged newsboys stood their ground
in front of the house. Until quiet was restored they had evaded each
renewed command of officer or passer-by, and stayed there; whispering
now and again in excited groups and pointing up to the house. Finally a
tall policeman approached them:
“Clear out of this, kids!” he said not unkindly. “Here’s no place for
you. Clear out. Do you hear me? You can’t stay here no longer:”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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