Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; Coal mines and mining -- Pennsylvania -- Fiction; Labor leaders -- Fiction
The fat man stood with his mouth open and looked at the men. “What's
going on down there? What do you mean? Quit that!” he bawled.
A derisive laugh floated up through the window.
“Attention! Forward, guide right!” shouted a captain.
The men went swinging down the broad cement sidewalk past the window and
the advertising man. In their faces was something determined and grim.
A sickly smile flitted across the face of the grey-haired man and then
faded. The advertising man, without knowing just what was going on felt
that the older man was afraid. He sensed the terror in his face. In his
heart he was glad to see it.
The manufacturer began to talk excitedly. “Now what's this?” he
demanded. “What's going on? What kind of a volcano are we men of affairs
walking over? Haven't we had enough trouble with labour? What are
they doing now?” Again he walked up and down past the table where the
advertising man sat looking at him. “We'll let the book go,” he said.
“Come to-morrow. Come any time. I want to look into this. I want to find
out what's going on.”
Leaving the office of the bicycle company John Van Moore ran along the
street past stores and houses. He did not try to follow the Marching Men
but ran forward blindly, filled with excitement. He remembered the words
of the newspaper man about the song of labour, and was drunk with the
thought that he had caught the swing of it. A hundred times he had seen
men pouring out of factory doors at the end of the day. Always before
they had been just a mass of individuals. Each had been thinking of his
own affairs and each man had shuffled off into his own street and had
been lost in the dim alleyways between the tall grimy buildings. Now all
of this was changed. The men did not shuffle off alone but marched along
the street shoulder to shoulder.
A lump came also into the throat of this man and he like that other by
the factory wall began to say words. “The song of labour is here. It has
begun to get itself sung!” he cried.
John Van Moore was beside himself. The face of the fat man pale with
terror came back into his mind. On the sidewalk before a grocery store
he stopped and shouted with delight. Then he began dancing wildly about,
startling a group of children who with fingers in their mouths stood
with staring eyes watching.
CHAPTER III
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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