“If you vote down this resolution,” he said, “you will compel honest men to become scabs. They can’t continue to face freezing wives and starving children at your behest. They will seek their old jobs on the best terms they can get, and I shall not blame them. I do not know what will happen when the strike is declared off; I can promise you nothing. But I do know that Richard Malleson cannot successfully run his mills without the aid of his old men. If you prolong this strike you will doubtless wreck the Malleson Company, but you yourselves will be crushed at the bottom of the wreck. I beg of you to make the best of a bad bargain, to use judgment, to take pity on your loved ones, to behave yourselves like reasonable men, to cry quits, and go to work.”
There had been no more interruptions, but, mingled with the applause that followed Lamar to his seat, there were shouts of disapproval, and mutterings of anger. Some one, by way of excuse for him, declared that Steve had broken down, and lost his nerve. No one had ever before known him to acknowledge defeat. Persistence had been the secret of his success. But, doubtless, this time he was right.
Bricky Hoover sat in the front row of seats, his body bent forward, his head resting in his hands, his eyes fixed steadfastly on a certain spot on the floor in front of him. No one had called on him for a speech, for no one had conceived that he was capable of making one. He was a worker, not an orator. But the shouting that followed Lamar’s address had not yet died down when he rose to his feet and began to mount the steps that led to the platform. He bobbed his head to the chairman, and then turned and faced his audience. When his fellow-workers saw him standing there, rubbing his hand awkwardly across his unkempt shock of red hair, they burst into laughter. Apparently the strain under which they were laboring was to be eased by a bit of comedy. He stood there with his long legs wide apart, his shoulders hunched up, his unsymmetrical face drawn into a queer, forced smile. Some one said that he had been drinking, and had best sit down. But others hailed him familiarly and shouted for a speech. He was there to speak, and he began.
There were few who heard him at first; his voice was low, and he seemed to have difficulty in articulating his words. But cries of: “Louder!” “Louder!” brought more vigor to his throat and tongue, and soon the only ones who failed to hear him were those who would not do so.
“I’ve been the goat,” he said, “for both sides in this thing. I’m through bein’ the goat. I’m goin’ to fight, now, on me own account. The Company picked me for the first victim because I’d been the loudest gittin’ yer rights for ye. More was to follow. If ye hadn’t struck they’d ’a’ been a hunderd o’ ye laid off by to-day. They was goin’ to pick ye out like cullin’s, an’ toss ye to the scrap-heap.”
“Right you are, Bricky,” came a voice from the audience.
“Right I am it is. Ye didn’t strike for me when it comes to that; ye struck for your own jobs. Ye could ’a’ counted me out any day. Ye knew that. I told ye so. I wouldn’t stand in the way o’ one o’ ye. I’d ’a’ left the town; I’d ’a’ left the country; I’d ’a’ gone an’ hung meself to ’a’ got one man’s job back for ’im.”
“Good boy, Bricky!”
“Ye knew that, didn’t ye? But ye stood out like men, an’ they’ve starved ye like rats. They couldn’t ’a’ treated dogs no worse ’an they’ve treated you. I went with the comity to see the old man. I promised everything. I crawled on me belly to ’im, an’—ye heard the report—he kicked us all out.”
“We’ll get him yet!” came a cry from the benches.