What did it mean? What was back of it? One thing—the greed of a little ruling group of operators, who wouldn’t pay their men a living wage, but would work them twelve hours a day. They were driving the men with revolvers and rifles, holding them away from the wells, their only source of livelihood, and starving them back to work on the old unfair terms. That was the story, just that simple; and here, in Ruth’s little kitchen, you saw the process from the inside. The girls had had to reduce the price of the bread they sold, because some people couldn’t afford it otherwise! Oil workers never do save much, because they have to move about, and to bring their families, or to send them money. And now their savings were used up, and the contributions which came from other fields were not enough, and Paul, who had been saving money to study and become a scientist, was using it to support hungry families, and Ruth and Meelie were giving all their time, and even old Mrs. Watkins was helping when she could! Bunny carried this anguish back to his father. What were the people going to do, when they no longer had food to keep alive? Dad gave the answer, they’d have to go back to work! “And lose the strike, Dad?” Yes, he said, if they couldn’t win, they’d have to lose—that was the law of strikes, as of everything else. Life was stern, and sooner or later you had to learn it. They must give up, and wait till a time when their union was stronger. “But, Dad, how can they make it stronger, when the operators boycott them? You know how they weed out the union men—right now, if they give up, most of the companies won’t take back the active ones.” And Dad said he knew that, but the men would have to keep on trying, there was no other way. Certainly he could not support the strike by keeping his wells idle! The men must understand that he couldn’t stand the gaff much longer, they had no right to expect it; they must either close the other wells, or see the Ross wells opened. And Bunny turned sort of sick inside, and went about hiding a thought like a dirty vice: “We’re going to bring scabs into our tract!” VIII There was really only one place where Bunny could be happy, and that was up at the bungalow. He spent his Saturday afternoon there, helping Ruth and Meelie—the one kind of aid he was permitted to give to the strike! Part of the time they talked about the suffering of which they knew; and part of the time they were jolly, making jokes like other young people; but all the time they worked like beavers, turning flour belonging to the union into various kinds of eatables. At supper-time Mr. Watkins came with the wagon, his second trip, and they loaded him up, and Meelie drove off with him to headquarters, while Bunny stayed with Ruth, and helped clean up the place, and tried to explain the predicament of his father, and why he, Bunny, could not really help the strike.