Rhona felt a stab as of lightning. She raised her hand high; her voice came clear, sharp, real, rising above the drone-like noise of the court.
"I swear it is not true. I never struck him. He struck me!"
The magistrate's face reddened, a vein on his forehead swelled up, and he leaned toward Rhona.
"What you say, young lady"—there was a touch of passion in his voice—"doesn't count. Understand? You're one of these strikers, aren't you? Well, the whole lot of you"—his voice rose—"are on a strike against God, whose principal law is that man should earn bread by the sweat of his brow."
Rhona trembled before these unbelievable words. She stared into his eyes, and he went on passionately:
"I've let some of you off with fines—but this has gone too far. I'll make an example of you. You shall go to the workhouse on Blackwells Island for five days. Next!"
Joe, too, was dazed. But he whispered to Rhona:
"Meet it bravely. I'll tell the girls!"
Her arm was grasped, she was pushed, without volition, through crowding faces; and at length, after another ride in the patrol wagon, she found herself on a narrow cot in a narrow cell. The door was slammed shut ominously. Dim light entered through a high aperture.
She flung herself down her whole length, and sobbed. Bitter was life for
Rhona Hemlitz, seventeen years old….