"I know," Pelham said slowly. "Our white labor won't assimilate them, as the rest of the country's labor does to the most backward white races. They're a perpetual scab menace."
"Hell, yes," in sobered agreement. "Then, the South's general backwardness."
"That's natural, here. Our capitalists, some of the slave-owning blood, and all inheriting its attitude, feel less equality: they see labor still as their slaves. Ultimately this will help awaken our people; but now——"
"That's the hell of it; we ain't got the public with us. What with petty union squabbles, and all—it's a job to make a dent in a saint's patience."
"Any chance of a sympathetic strike?"
"What can you do with Bowden and these yellow pups?"
The enthusiasm of the workers, dragged down physically by the hard rigors, slipped lower and lower. Picketing continued, and each arrival of new trainloads of northern scabs threatened a break; but something of the original zest had gone.
Pelham, however, found a compensating zest, in which life overpaid him for the wintry gloom at strike headquarters. After a glum day with the dispirited leaders he could count upon a solace that overbalanced worry and sorrow; downhearted planning for the intransigent struggle gave way to warm-hearted dusk dreams of a future bent to heart's will; the mines and miners were deserted for Jane.
"It doesn't seem fair, dearest dear, for us to be so unreasonably happy, when Ben Wilson, and his tubercular wife, and all the rest, have so little...."
"Your father isn't a happy man."