“Can we help ourselves? Our life lies in his hands.”
Something in me forced me forward. Rage at the bitter greed tore me. Our desperate helplessness drove me to strength.
“I’ll go to the boss!” I cried, my nerves quivering with fierce excitement. “I’ll tell him Balah Rifkin has three hungry mouths to feed.”
Pale, hungry faces thrust themselves toward me, thin, knotted hands reached out, starved bodies pressed close about me.
“Long years on you!” cried Balah Rifkin, drying her eyes with a corner of her shawl.
“Tell him about my old father and me, his only bread-giver,” came from Bessie Sopolsky, a gaunt-faced girl with a hacking cough.
“And I got no father or mother and four of them younger than me hanging on my neck.” Jennie Feist’s beautiful young face was already scarred with the gray worries of age.
America, as the oppressed of all lands have dreamed America to be, and America as it is, flashed before me—a banner of fire! Behind me I felt masses pressing—thousands of immigrants—thousands upon thousands crushed by injustice, lifted me as on wings.
I entered the boss’s office without a shadow of fear. I was not I—the wrongs of my people burned through me till I felt the very flesh of my body a living flame of rebellion.
I faced the boss.