"Ah, that was a great day! I can see it now! The apple trees were in blossom and the grass was thick with violets, while in the woods were frail blue and white flowers. Everything smelled of the sunshine and the fresh earth, and we little white-faced youngsters swung in the trees, and picked the flowers, and played tag, and called and shouted to one another. Some of the boys gathered stones and made a barricade and when any one from the town came to get us, he was so pelted with rocks that he beat a quick retreat. So we played on through the long spring day, while in the spinning-room the spools twirled round and round, and the cotton tangled and knotted and broke, and enough damage was done to take days to set right again. It was a great time! But every day must come to an end, and the sun went down on our day, until at last, tired and rosy and hungry we turned with lagging and timid steps toward home." CHAPTER XXIV When Kathleen ceased speaking there was a little murmur of applause throughout the room. Every one had been listening--Madame at her desk, the men at their table, their dominoes dropped from their hands, Marie in the doorway. Kathleen's own guests had been wholly absorbed. To all, from this time, child labor would no longer be an academic question but a vivid reality. The Major was the first to break the silence. "That was a fine tale," he said, bowing gravely to the story-teller who sat opposite him, her cheeks rosy with excitement, one hand drumming the Marseillaise on the table cloth. "Thank you for letting me hear it." "I told it for Hertha," Kathleen said pointedly. "Yes?" The Major looked at the southern girl, not for the first time that evening, and was struck anew by her beauty and her repose. While evidently embarrassed, she said nothing in reply to Kathleen, but sat, a quiet listener, her hands in her lap. The city, he realized, had not yet taught her to think in flashes or to move in jerks. "What has Miss Ogilvie to learn from this strike?" the old man asked. "Didn't you tell me that she had already led one out?" "Led it out only to leave it," Kathleen answered vehemently. "The girls are in the street now working to keep their clothes from being snatched off their backs by a lot of dirty scabs." Seeing that an explanation was demanded of her, Hertha turned to the Major and said with a blush, "I am not willing to picket." Then, with more animation in her manner, she questioned her friend. "You didn't tell us how your strike ended. What happened after the children went home?" "Well, I'm not saying how their fathers and mothers took it, but they won at the mill all right. The ogre was given another job." "I'm glad of that," with a pleasant, propitiatory smile; "I was afraid you had only won a holiday." But Kathleen would not be cajoled. "No, indeed," she answered; "we got our rights by standing out for them." "Don't be a fool, Kitty," the Major remarked abruptly.