"I do believe it is doing mother good, if it don't anybody else," said Lizzie one day as she took the remnants of a meat pie from her basket and set it on the table. "I began to be afraid mother would get to be a regular old miser, for she was so afraid to touch a penny of the money in the bank; but now that she is obliged to draw some out every week, she seems to be more cheerful and happy than she has been since father died. It is funny; I can't understand it at all," concluded Lizzie with a little laugh.
"Perhaps it is God making her happy because she is helping the poor people about the rent," suggested Winny; "I heard mother say it was a great thing to have the rent settled like this, for so many people worry more about that than they do about food, that as your mother is helping them in this way, it was a blessing to so many."
"Yes, and a blessing to herself as well, I am sure; for you know, Winny, father did make it a little unfairly, I'm afraid. I never understood about it till the other day, when I heard a man speaking about it, and I am sure it is not a fair plan the way they work now. I wish somebody had made a stir about it before. People did hate poor father, and it was not so much his fault after all. I don't say that your friend Brown pushed him into the basin, because he was here all the time, and so he couldn't. But there were lots of others who would, and I can't be sure that somebody didn't push him in that day."
It was the first time Lizzie had mentioned her father lately, and the tears stood in her eyes now as she spoke of him. "I shall never be able to think of my father as you can of yours, for he was always too busy with his money to have time to be kind to me. If somebody had only thought of altering things before, he might be alive now. That is what I am always thinking of, Winny, and why I hope the men will get what they want."
"Poor Lizzie!" said Winny, tenderly stroking the hand she held in hers. What could she say to comfort such a grief as this? She pitied poor Lizzie from the bottom of her heart, and yet no word beyond this: "God knows all about it, dear," could she say. Nothing to comfort the sorrowing girl.
She thought of her own father, and what he was to her, and then of Annie Brown—rough and thoughtless and uncontrolled—Annie who yet loved her father so dearly, while he could think of nothing but in its relation to his "little un."
Surely a man like poor Rutter was to be pitied that he had learned to love money so much that he had no room in his heart for anything else, and the system that encouraged this was greatly to be blamed for the result. And therefore if it could be amended, the foremen ought to be as grateful as the poor dockers in whose behalf the work had been undertaken.
Something of this she could tell to Lizzie, and the girls sat and talked until her mother came in to get tea ready.
She had been out in the vain hope of being able to find a little work for herself, for although they were better off than many of the neighbours, it was hard work to provide for all their wants even with the help they got from the strike fund.
That things had so far gone on quietly was a great cause for thankfulness to all true friends of the men on strike. But as days passed into weeks, and nearly a month went by, those who had refused to consent to make any alteration at first began to see that they would have to give way on some points at least, and so at last they consented to do away with the contract system; but they would not pay the men more than fivepence an hour, and the men determined to hold out until the sixpence was granted.