Below stood the "Parisian" girls, and as the strikers appeared, hastily wrapped in their outer clothing, some with hats awry, others with coats flung over their arms, they gave cheer after cheer.
"We knew you'd pull down the shop, Sophie," a big, handsome Jewess cried, grasping the fragile strike-breaker by the arm. "We knew you'd never let the boss keep you working at our leavings."
"Girls," called out another of the leaders, "this is the fourth shop to go out this week. We'll win. Hurrah for the 'Imperial!' We'll win."
"Move on!" a policeman said sharply, pushing his way into the crowd. "What are you doing blocking the street this way? You girls should be at work!"
"We're on a strike," Sophie replied, "we go to Union Hall."
The officer watched them as they moved from the factory building, muttering to himself that they were sure to make trouble striking at the height of the season.
Hertha, though she tried to slip away, found herself caught up by the crowd. She was embarrassed and conscious that they were all the source of amused comment on the part of the spectators. Talking excitedly in Yiddish, the "Imperials" swung into line with their "Parisian" sisters and all started a triumphant progress down the avenue.
"Sure, you was fine," Sophie said to Hertha.
The little Jewish girl had grabbed her new recruit by the arm and with glowing face was leading her along the road to organization and industrial battle. There would be days and months ahead dedicated to the struggle to secure a better wage. The time was momentous, the opening of a great conflict. But to Hertha the time was auspicious for slipping away from these noisy working girls. She had given up her job at their call but she had no thought of following them in their struggle to get their jobs back again. Yet here she was on the avenue in a crowd that was attracting attention from the many passers-by. Supposing Richard Brown should see her or one of the nice people who bowed to her at church! She tried to make her escape, but it was as impossible to get from Sophie's grasp as from the clutch of a small and very friendly bear who had tucked your arm in his. So down the avenue and across into a side street she was swept with the eager, excited band of strike-breakers to Union Hall.
It was a small hall and crowded before they entered it. Confusion was piled upon confusion. Hertha, dropped for a moment by Sophie, who turned to speak to her organizer about whom the girls had joked, started at once to leave the building, but, half lifted off her feet, was forcibly pushed into a seat between two workers. Here she was compelled to remain while a man with a long, dirty beard addressed the meeting in an unknown tongue. So many people were moving about and talking in the rear of the hall that, it seemed to her, even if she had understood Yiddish, she would not have known what was being said. But occasionally the woman at her left would interpret. "He tell you to get a card. Give name. See?"