“Just think, lads, here are those that would step in and take your work. Think of it! That’s just what they’d do! Take the bread right out of your mouths, and when the strike is done, you wouldn’t have no work at all to go to. It’s criminal, and you mustn’t let it pass. Fight, and fight hard. A ‘scab’s’ not human. Don’t be afraid to fight him by fair means or foul. And then, too, the manufacturers have the police and the judges and the governor on their side, because they are moneyed men! They will try to drive us off the streets so that we can’t show how strong we are. Look out for the ‘scabs’!” His words came true, in part. The state police were called, several strikers were arrested, and given the full penalty for disorderly conduct and assault. We were not allowed to congregate on the street corners. The police followed every crowd. These precautions intensified the anger of the strikers. Strike headquarters, in which we could meet and pass the day in social ways, were opened in vacant stores. Here we came in the morning and stayed through the day, playing cards, checkers, and talking over the strike. In regard to newspapers, there was a prevailing opinion among us that the Boston _Journal_ alone favored our side, so we bought it to the exclusion of all other dailies. Against the Boston _Transcript_ there was a general antipathy. I liked to read it, but my uncle spoke against it. “I don’t want anybody under my roof reading the paper that is owned hand and foot by our enemies,” he argued, and I saw that I had given him great offense. The Boston papers sent their official photographers to take our pictures. I posed, along with several of my friends, before our headquarters, and had the pleasure of seeing the picture in the paper under some such caption as “A group of striking back-boys.” I did not suffer during the strike. I had a splendid time of it. While the snow was on the ground I obtained a position as a sweeper in one of the theaters, and I spent nearly every day for a while at matinées and evening performances. The strike went on into the early part of May, and, when the snow had gone, I went out with a little wagon--picked coal and gathered junk. Through these activities I really earned more spending money than I ever received for working in the mill. I rather enjoyed the situation, and could not understand at the time how people could say they wanted it to end. Before it did end, the state police withdrew, and we went on guard once more at the mill gates on watch for “strike-breakers.”