“I ain't afraid if you be, and I won't shut up till I get ready, for you or anybody else. I'm goin' to have my nearseal cape! Hi!”
“I ain't afraid,” said Abby, contemptuously, “but I've got sense.”
Maria pressed close to Sadie Peel. “Please do keep still, Sadie,” she pleaded. “Let us get into the factory as quietly as we can. Think, if anybody was hurt.”
“I ain't afraid,” shrieked the girl, with a toss of her red fringe, and she laughed like a parrot. Abby Atkins gripped her arm so fiercely that she made her cry out with pain. “If you don't keep still!” she said, threateningly.
Willy Jones was walking as near as he could, and he carried his right arm half extended, as if to guard her. Now and then Abby turned and gave him a push backward.
“They won't trouble us girls, and you might as well let us and the men that have sticks go first,” she said in a whisper.
“If you think—” began the young fellow, coloring.
“Oh, I know you ain't afraid,” said Abby, “but you've got your mother to think of, and there's no use in running into danger.”
The pickets were gradually left behind; they were, in truth, half-hearted. Many of them had worked in Lloyd's, and had small mind to injure their old comrades. They were not averse to a great show of indignation and bluster, but when it came to more they hesitated.
Presently the company came into the open space before Lloyd's. Robert and Lyman Risley and several foremen were standing at the foot of the stairs. The windows of the factory were filled with faces, and derisive cries came from them. Lloyd's tall shaft of chimney was plumed with smoke. The employés advanced towards the stairs, when suddenly Amos Lee, Dixon, and a dozen others appeared, coming with a rush from around a corner of the building, and again the air was filled with the cry of “Scab!” Ellen and Abby linked arms and sprang forward before the men with an impetuous rush, with Joy and Willy Jones and Andrew following. Ellen, as she rushed on towards the factory stairs, was conscious of no fear at all, but rather of a sort of exaltation of courage. It did not really occur to her that she could be hurt, that it could be in the heart of Lee or Dixon, or any of them, actually to harm her. She was throbbing and intense with indignation and resolution. Into that factory to her work she was bound to go. All that intimidated her in the least was the fear for her father. She rushed as fast as she could that her father might not get before her and be hurt in some way.