From over the distance came the memory of Ma'm Maynard's words:
"I tell you, Miss Mary, it has halways been so and it halways will: Everything that lives has its own natural enemy—and a woman's natural enemy—eet is man!"
"No, sir!" said Mary to herself, as resolutely as ever, "I don't believe it. They're trying to gain their point—that's all—the same as I'm trying to gain mine…. But aren't they fighting hard when they do a thing like that…!"
It came to her then with a sharp sense of relief that no organization—no union—could well afford to boycott products simply because they were made by women. "Because then," she thought, "women could boycott things that were made by unions, and I'm sure the unions wouldn't want that."
She mentioned this to Archey and it was decided that Judge Cutler should follow the strikers' committee to Washington and present the women's side of the case.
Archey went, but the atmosphere of worry which he had brought with him stayed behind. Mary seemed to breathe it all day and to feel its oppression every time she awoke in the night.
"What a thing it would be," she thought, "if they did declare a boycott! All the work we've done would go for nothing—all our hopes and plans—everything wiped right out—and every woman pushed right back in her trap—and a man sitting on the lid—with a boycott in his hand…!"
The next day after a bad night, she was listlessly turning over the pages of a production report, when Mrs. Kelly came in glowing with enthusiasm, holding in her hand a book from the rest room library.
"Miss Spencer," she said, "it's in this book that over on the other side the women in the factories had orchestras. I wonder if we couldn't have an orchestra now!"
Mary's listlessness vanished.