In the long ride, spinning and jouncing through the countryside until they reached the squalid outskirts of the little town, Frederica listened to Laura's talk of Europe—and Howard. Of Paris frocks—and Howard. Of the voyage home—and Howard.
"I won't be horrid, I won't! I love her just exactly the same—" Fred was saying to herself, staring out of the window at the flying landscape, at the woods where the leafless trees were showing the haze of swelling buds, at the snow, melting in the frozen furrows. "Yes...." "No...." "Really?" she would say, when sometimes Laura's chatter paused. ("Oh, how bored Howard must be by this sort of thing!" she thought. She couldn't help remembering how differently she had talked to Howard—the big things, the real things! "Poor old Howard!") Once there was quite a long pause, and Fred stopped watching the racing landscape and looked at Laura. It was then that Laura softly told her a piece of news:
"Of course, Howard's awfully pleased. He wants a girl, but I want a boy."
Frederica was silent for a moment: then, very gentle and tender, "I'm awfully glad," she said, and squeezed Laura's hand.
Then the chatter began again, and Fred looked out of the window at the snow melting on slopes that faced the sun.
The hall in Hazelton where the strikers were awaiting Frederica was terribly hot and stuffy, and packed with women crowding so closely about the melon-shaped iron stove that the air was stifling with the smell of scorching clothes. It occurred to Laura, opening a window surreptitiously, that the girls were here as much for the sake of the glowing stove as for the chance to hear Fred. She watched her cousin with shrinking admiration. What she said did not particularly interest her, but Frederica's intimacy with the girls made her wonder. "She touches them!" Laura thought, with a quiver of disgust.
When Fred had made her speech—which Laura vociferously applauded—they all trooped out into the street, but paused while Frederica (Laura skulking behind her) stood in the doorway for a further harangue. Unfortunately—because the knot of listening girls obstructed the sidewalk—a police officer, shoving them out of the way, happened to show some rudeness to a little Italian, who, in return, jabbering shrilly, struck at the man's patient and restraining arm, which caused him to gather her two delicate wrists in one big, vise-like hand, and hold her, a little, kicking, struggling creature, who made about as much impression on his large blue bulk as a sparrow might make upon a locomotive.
"There, now, keep quiet, sissy," he said, wearily.
But Catalina kicked harder than ever, and the officer shook her, gently. It was at that moment that Fred's eye fell upon him.