Appalling as the scene in the office of _Dreissiger_ is, the life in the home of the old weaver _Baumert_ is even more terrible. His decrepit old wife, his idiotic son _August_, who still has to wind spools, his two daughters weaving their youth and bloom into the cloth, and _Ansorge_, the broken remnant of a heroic type of man, bent over his baskets, all live in cramped quarters lit up only by two small windows. They are waiting anxiously for the few pence old _Baumert_ is to bring, that they may indulge in a long-missed meal. "What ... what ... what is to become of us if he don't come home?" laments _Mother Baumert_. "There is not so much as a handful o' salt in the house--not a bite o' bread, nor a bit o' wood for the fire." But old _Baumert_ has not forgotten his family. He brings them a repast, the first "good meal" they have had in two years. It is the meat of their faithful little dog, whom _Baumert_ could not kill himself because he loved him so. But hunger knows no choice; _Baumert_ had his beloved dog killed, because "a nice little bit o' meat like that does you a lot o' good." It did not do old _Baumert_ much good. His stomach, tortured and abused so long, rebelled, and the old man had to "give up the precious dog." And all this wretchedness, all this horror almost within sight of the palatial home of _Dreissiger_, whose dogs are better fed than his human slaves. Man's endurance is almost limitless. Almost, yet not quite. For there comes a time when the _Baumerts_, even like their stomachs, rise in rebellion, when they hurl themselves, even though in blind fury, against the pillars of their prison house. Such a moment comes to the weavers, the most patient, docile and subdued of humanity, when stirred to action by the powerful poem read to them by the _Jaeger_. The justice to us weavers dealt Is bloody, cruel, and hateful; Our life's one torture, long drawn out: For Lynch law we'd be grateful. Stretched on the rack day after day, Heart sick and bodies aching, Our heavy sighs their witness bear To spirit slowly breaking. The Dreissigers true hangmen are, Servants no whit behind them; Masters and men with one accord Set on the poor to grind them. You villains all, you brood of hell ... You fiends in fashion human, A curse will fall on all like you, Who prey on man and woman. The suppliant knows he asks in vain, Vain every word that's spoken. "If not content, then go and starve-- Our rules cannot be broken." Then think of all our woe and want, O ye, who hear this ditty! Our struggle vain for daily bread Hard hearts would move to pity. But pity's what you've never known,-- You'd take both skin and clothing, You cannibals, whose cruel deeds Fill all good men with loathing.