"Oh they don't like it," he went on. "It only makes 'em sore and mad. But if you ever see things right, and get into their side of this fight with that queer fountain-axe of yours, you'll be surprised at the tenement friends who'll pop up all around you. The first thing you know they'll be calling you 'Bill.' That's the kind they are--they don't want to shut anyone out--all they want to know is whether he means business. If he doesn't he's no use, because they know that sooner or later they'll do it anyhow themselves. It's going to be the biggest fight that's happened since the world began! No cause has ever been so fine, so worth a man's giving his life to aid! And all you've got to decide is this--whether you're to get in now, and help make it a little easier, help make it come without violence--or wait till it all comes to a crash and then be yanked in like a sack of meal!" Before I could speak, Sue drew a deep breath. "I don't see how there's any choice about that," she said. Eleanore turned to her again: "Do you mean for Billy?" "I mean for us all," Sue answered. "Even for a person like me!" Sue was beautiful just then--her cheeks aglow, her features tense, a radiant eagerness in her eyes. "I've felt it, oh so long," she said. "It's gone all through my suffrage work--through every speech that I have made--that the suffragists need the working girls and ought to help them win their strikes!" "And what do _you_ think, Joe?" Eleanore persisted. "Were you speaking of Billy alone just now or did you have Sue, too, in mind?" Joe looked back at her steadily. "I don't want to shut out the women," he said. "I've seen too many girls jump in and make a big success of it. Not only working girls, but plenty of college girls like you." He turned from Eleanore to Sue--and with a gruff intensity, "You may think you can't do it, Sue," he said. "But I know you can. I've seen it done, I tell you, all the way from here to the Coast--girls like you as speakers, as regular organizers--forgetting themselves and sinking themselves--ready for any job that comes." "That's the way I should want to do it," said Sue, her voice a little breathless. "But how about wives?" asked Eleanore. "For some of these girls marry, I suppose," she added thoughtfully. "At least I hope they do. I hope Sue will." "I never said anything against that," Joe answered shortly. "But if they marry and have children," Eleanore continued, "aren't they apt to get sick of it then, even bitter about it, this movement you speak of that takes you in and sinks you down, swallows up every dollar you have and all your thoughts and feelings?" "It needn't do as much as that," Joe muttered as though to himself. "Still--I'd like to see it work out," Eleanore persisted. "Do you happen to know the wives of any labor leaders?" "I do," Joe answered quickly. "The wife of the biggest man we've got. Jim Marsh arrived in town last night. His wife is with him. She always is."