“It is as you will,” he said. “It must be so. If it is that I can commend you to the future employer, you shall ask it. I will so do—gladly.”
“You’re good to say that,” replied Chick. “But I won’t need no recommend. I won’t never take no job in a printin’ shop ag’in.”
He was through with his errand and he rose to go. He appeared to be dizzy, and Donatello, thinking he was about to fall, rose and reached toward him a helping hand.
But the boy steadied himself without assistance and stood firm.
“It ain’t nothin’,” he said. “I used to have them spells; but I got over ’em. I’ll git over these.”
He put on his cap, said good-night to his sometime employer, and left the room. Donatello went with him to the head of the stairs and saw him reach the bottom of the flight in safety, then he returned to his room. But he did not immediately resume his work. He sat, for many minutes, his chin in his hand, in deep thought.
The day following the outbreak at the mills was Saturday. From early morning rumors of further trouble had filled the air. Yet everything was quiet. No union workmen had been molested, even the pickets of the Industrial workers had been withdrawn. People versed in the ways of syndicalism predicted that it was the calm before the storm. They were right.
At noon, information, carried by dependable spies, reached the Barriscale headquarters to the effect that the cause of the Industrialists in Fairweather had been taken up by their brethren in a neighboring city, and that active and aggressive aid was to be immediately forthcoming. Incensed at the treatment of their fellows by the police, angered that one of their women should be wounded, they were to march in a body on the Barriscale works, and demand reinstatement for their brethren, under penalty of having the works taken over by the Industrialist army.
It was a desperate programme; it called for drastic measures of prevention. The chief of police admitted that his force would be unable to cope with such a body of marchers and rioters as the Industrialists could undoubtedly muster. The state police had troubles of their own at the coal mines and could not be spared. It was plain that the National Guard must be looked to for protection.