She spoke in Yiddish and the Jewish girls followed her excitedly, expressing indignation at her news. "We will strike, Sophie," her friend, Rachel, said. "We cannot do work like this; it would be wicked." Sophie again waved her enemy banner. "Will you be scabs?" she called out, this time in English. "Do you not see? This is not our waist; it is the 'Parisian.' I see the girls; they are downstairs, and they ask us to stop, to stand by them as sisters." "What's all this noise?" cried the foreman sternly as he entered the room. And then without waiting for a response, though it was a few minutes too soon, he threw on the power. Sophie, Rachel, and a dozen other Jewish girls stood excitedly in the aisle, failing to go to their seats. "Get to work!" the foreman called above the din. Then thinking it advisable to consult with a higher authority, he left the room. In a moment Sophie had thrown off the power. "Sisters," she cried, "down below are the 'Parisian' girls, waiting for us. Will you be scabs? Will you take their work?" "We'll pull down the shop," came from her adherents. "No, you don't," came from Annie Black. "Those 'Parisian' sheenies can stay out if they want for all me. I stop here." "Oh!" Sophie cried. "Shame!" She was a little figure, thin, underfed, but with the soul of the fanatic gleaming from her deep eyes. Having known oppression in the land of her birth, she recognized it in the land of her adoption. Poverty was not something to accept as the beggar accepted his dole, nor was it something to struggle against alone. It was a grievous disease that the body politic might cure if only those who suffered courageously battled for health. Before her was the vision of a world set free, and for the moment at least there was to her no sacrifice in accepting hunger and cold if such privation might bring a step nearer the freedom that she worshiped. Only a few of the girls understood her call, but none doubted her sincerity. "See!" she said, drawing an imaginary line with her foot upon the floor. "All who will not be scabs, all who will not take bread from the mouths of others, come to me, cross the line!" A number of the Jewish girls rose and walked to Sophie's side. Some went with heads erect, eyes shining, exultant, as though drawing the fine breath of freedom. Others moved slowly, hesitatingly, sometimes casting angry looks at Sophie as though they wished to disobey her call and yet dared not stand out against her. "You go?" asked the girl at Hertha's right. The call had been so sudden that Hertha, accustomed to taking her time before making any decision, had not moved. The voice at her side aroused her to do her part. Sophie was looking entreatingly in her direction; and with the realization that her choice one way or the other was of little personal moment, she rose from her chair and, saying quietly to her seatmate, "I think we ought to go," crossed the line.