“Oh, well, let us hope she was jesting then,” was the reply.
The seventh venture had carried a charm for Azzie. Her heart did not go thumping to her heels again. She knocked at Mrs. Schuyler’s door and then entered without waiting for permission.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Schuyler,” she cried gayly. “I was sorry not to see you down to breakfast, though to be honest I did not expect you. Did you miss anything last evening after I was in? It was too good a chance—there they were lying right under my eyes. I’ll leave them here,” laying the budget on a table near her, “so you can come down to dinner.”
Her manner was not that of one who merited or expected a rebuke. There was such a big-hearted friendliness in her voice that Mrs. Schuyler’s heart responded. She smiled in spite of the feeling of vengeance she had been cherishing against her tormentor. Before she could regain her austerity of manner, Azzie had departed and was half way down the dormitory hall, on her way to the music-room for an hour’s practice before dinner.
Thanksgiving was not a day of unalloyed happiness to Elizabeth. The afternoon’s mail brought her letters and papers from Bitumen. Her father wrote the home news with the same gaiety which marked his conversation. He mentioned, as though it were a subject to be lightly treated, that there was some talk of the miners “going out.” He thought their grievance might be adjusted without resorting to extreme measures—a week or so would tell. Then he took up the little matters of the house.
The letter was remarkably cheerful. Yet Elizabeth was disturbed in spirit. She had never lived through a strike; but she had heard the miners’ wives tell of the dreadful happenings. So far she thought only of the suffering of the miners’ families, with no money, starving and freezing in their little shanties. She had never heard how the lives of the operators and men in the position of her father hung in the balance at such times.
After reading the letter again, she mechanically took up the newspaper. The black headlines heralding the coming strike were before her. She read column after column hurriedly. The newspaper attached greater importance to the rumors than her father. They recounted the horrors of strikes past, and presaged them for strikes to come. No definite reasons had been given for the miners going out. The article hinted that only the grossest imposition of the operators had led them to consider a strike. The names of two men appeared frequently—Dennis O’Day and Ratowsky—who were opposed to each other. Strange to say, neither was a miner. Ratowsky could influence the men because he was foreign-born, a Pole, as the majority of them were. On the other hand, Dennis O’Day was a native American, a class of which the foreign element is suspicious. Yet at his instigation the miners had arisen.
The article caused Elizabeth some uneasiness. She looked forward to the following day’s paper, hoping it might contain a brighter outlook. But on the next day when she went to the reading room, she failed to find the papers. For many successive days the same thing occurred. Then at length, she gave up looking for them. It was not until a month later that she learned that they had disappeared at Dr. Morgan’s suggestion, and the girls were aiding her in keeping the worrisome news from Elizabeth.
The letters from home came at their usual times, but neither her father nor mother mentioned the trouble at the mines. Elizabeth, believing that no news was good news, took it for granted that the difficulty had been amicably settled.
A week later, in company with Mary Wilson, she set forth to visit Mrs. Gleason. From Exeter to Gleasonton is only an hour’s ride. At the station, they found a sleigh with a coachman and footman waiting to convey them to Senator Gleason’s home.