"My dear boy," he said, in his kind quiet voice, "don't forget for even a minute that the men who stand behind my work are going to stamp out this strike. This modern world is too complex to allow brute force and violence to wreck all that civilization has done. I'm sorry you've gone into this--but so long as you have, as Eleanore's father, I want you now to promise you won't write a line until the strike is over and you have had plenty of time to get clear. Don't let yourself get swamped in this--remember that you have a wife and a small son to think of." My father had put it more sharply. He was out of bed now and he seemed to take strength from the news reports that he eagerly read of the struggle so fast approaching. "At sea," he said, "when stokers try to quit their jobs and force their way on deck, they're either put in irons or shot down as mutineers. You'll see your friend Kramer dead or in jail. No danger to your sister now. Only see that _you_ keep out of it!" I did not tell him of my work, for I knew it would only excite him again, and excitement would be dangerous. "Now you and Eleanore must go home," said Sue that night. "You'll have enough to think of. I'll be all right with father--he knows there's nothing to do but wait, and he's so kind to me now that it hurts. Poor old Dad--how well he means. But he's the old and we're the new--and that's the whole trouble between us." A sudden light came in her eyes. "The new are bound to win!" she said. But I was not so sure of the new. To me it was still very vague and chaotic. After we had moved back to New York, at the times when I came home to sleep, Eleanore was silent or quietly casual in her remarks, but I felt her always watching me. One night when I came in very late and thought her asleep, being too tired to sleep myself, I went to our bedroom window and stood looking off down, into the distant expanse of the harbor. How quiet and cool it seemed down there. But presently out of the darkness behind, Eleanore's arm came around me. "I wonder whether the harbor will ever let us alone," she said. "It was so good to us at first--we were getting on so splendidly. But it's taking hold of us now again--as though we had wandered too far away and were living too smoothly and needed a jolt. Never mind, we're not afraid. Only let's be very sure we know what we are doing." "We'll be very sure," I whispered, and I held her very close. "Let's try to be sure together," she said. "Don't leave me out--I want to be in. I want to see as much as I can--and help in any way I can. If you make any friends I want to know them. Remember that whatever comes, thy people shall be mine, my dear." * * * * * The next day the strike began.