These were the reforms that were demanded, but the dock officials did not see their way clear to making any alteration in the system upon which they had worked so long, and declined to do anything.
But the gentlemen who spoke in this way, found that the men had begun to think for themselves to some purpose at last. The next day, the men came out of the other docks, or refused to go in, and the stevedores—the skilled packers who alone knew how to stow a ship's cargo properly—followed the labourers, declaring they would not work until the poor dockers' demands were granted.
"We shall win now, mother, in less than a week," said Chaplin running home to his wife with the news of this piece of self-denial on the part of men who were well able to help themselves.
Winny clasped her hands and tears of joy stood in her eyes as she said, "We shall win, I know we shall, daddy; only we must be patient."
"Yes, we're likely to need plenty of that before this strike comes to an end," said Mrs. Chaplin with a sob.
She had just taken her best shawl to the pawnshop, and in all her straits, she had managed to hold to that as the one respectable garment she had to go to the mission room in on Sunday. But the trim, tidy, threadbare shawl had to go at last, and the pawnbroker could only give her a shilling on it, so that when that was gone, they must part with some of the furniture, and what they could spare it was not easy to determine. So it was not to be wondered at that the poor woman lost heart when she heard that the struggle was likely to be prolonged.
She had been to ask if her neighbour had any more sacks to sew, but the last had been taken in and no more had been given out again.
"It's this strike, I believe," said the sack-maker. "Did you ever hear of such foolishness as dockers to strike? They'll starve fast enough, there's no fear of that."
"Ah! That they will," said poor Mrs. Chaplin dolefully; "and my poor Winny! It will kill her I am afraid," she added with a gasp.
It was of her children she was thinking, and especially of Winny, when she grumbled so about the strike. For to hear her sometimes, one would have thought that Chaplin was alone responsible for it.