Tom could only answer helplessly: "But why don't he join the union?"
"How can he?"
The words echoed within Tom. How could he? Everything Tom saw had not the value of half the union's initiation fee.
There was an awkward silence. "Won't you sit down, brother." Mrs. Petersen offered Tom one of the wooden chairs, and all three sat down. He noted that the resentment was passing from Petersen's eyes, and that, fastened on his wife, they were filling with submissive adoration.
"Nels has tried very hard," the little woman said. They had been in the West for three years, she went on; Nels had worked with a non-union crew on a bridge over the Missouri. When that job was finished they had spent their savings coming to New York, hearing there was plenty of work there. "We had but twenty dollars when we got here. How could Nels join the union? We had to live. An' since he couldn't join the union, the union wouldn't let him work. Brother, is that just? Is that the sort o' treatment you'd like to get?"
Tom was helpless against her charges. The union was right in principle, but what was mere correctness of principle in the presence of such a situation?
"Would you be willing to join the union?" he asked abruptly of Petersen.
It was Petersen's wife who answered. "O' course he would."
"Well, don't you worry any more then. He won't have any trouble getting a job."
"How?" asked the little woman.