Almost every man and woman in the tenement district knew Oscar Schwartz, and had felt the power of his obstinate hand during the long strike of two years before, when, the Union having declared war, Schwartz had closed the brewery for several months rather than submit to its dictation. The news, therefore, that the Union had called a meeting and appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Schwartz, to protest against his giving work to a non-union woman filled them with alarm. The women remembered the privations and suffering of that winter, and the three dollars a week doled out to them by the Central Branch, while their husbands, who had been earning two and three dollars a day, were drinking at O'Leary's bar, playing cards, or listening to the encouraging talk of the delegates who came from New York to keep up their spirits. The brewery employed a larger number of men than any other concern in Rockville, so trouble with its employees meant serious trouble for half the village if Schwartz defied the Union and selected a non-union woman to do the work. They knew, too, something of the indomitable pluck and endurance of Tom Grogan. If she were lowest on the bids, she would fight for the contract, they felt sure, if it took her last dollar. McGaw was a fool, they said, to bid so high; he might have known she would cut his throat, and bring them no end of trouble. Having nursed their resentment, and needing a common object for their wrath, the women broke out against Tom. Many of them had disliked her ever since the day, years ago, when she had been seen carrying her injured husband away at night to the hospital, after months of nursing at home. And the most envious had always maintained that she meant at the time to put him away forever where no one could find him, so that she might play the man herself. “Why should she be a-comin' in an' a-robbin' us of our pay?” muttered a coarse, red-faced virago, her hair in a frowse about her head, her slatternly dress open at the throat. “Oi'll be one to go an' pull her off the dock and jump on her. What's she a-doin', any-how, puttin' down prices! Ef her ole man had a leg to walk on, instid of his lyin' to-day a cripple in the hospital, he'd be back and be a-runnin' things.” “She's doin' what she's a right to do,” broke out Mrs. Todd indignantly. Mrs. Todd was the wife of the foreman at the brewery, and an old friend of Tom's. Tom had sat up with her child only the week before. Indeed, there were few women in the tenements, for all their outcry, who did not know how quick had been her hand to help when illness came, or the landlord threatened the sidewalk, or the undertaker insisted on his money in advance.