No wonder they were hungry!
“Some of the people you’ve known ought to help you, Eliza. Mrs. Sterling at the old home might: or Mrs. Coney. Do they?”
Eliza Hoar shook her head. “The gentlemen be all again us, sir, and so the ladies dare not do anything. As to Mrs. Sterling—I don’t know that she has so much as heard of the strike—all them miles off.”
“You mean the gentlemen are against the strike!”
“Yes, sir; dead again it. They say strikes is the worst kind of evil that can set in, both for us and for the country; that it will increase the poor-rates to a height to be afraid of, and in the end drive the work away from the land. Sitting here with my poor children around me at dusk to save candle, I get thinking sometimes that the gentlemen may not be far wrong, Master Johnny.”
Seeing the poor quiet faces lifted to me, from which every bit of spirit seemed to have gone, I wished I had my pockets full of buns for them. But buns were not likely to be there; and of money I had none: buying one of the best editions of Shakespeare had just cleared me out.
“Where’s Hoar?” I asked, in leaving.
A hot flush overspread her face. “He has not shown himself here, Master Johnny, since what he did to him,” was her resentful answer, pointing to Dick. “Afraid to face me, he is.”
“I’d not say too much to him, Eliza. It could not undo what’s done, and might only make matters worse. I dare say Hoar is just as much vexed about it as you are.”
“It’s to be hoped he is! Why did he go and set upon the child in that cruel way? It’s the men that goes in for the strike; ’tisn’t us: and when the worry of it makes ’em so low they hardly know where to turn, they must vent it upon us. Master Johnny, there are minutes now when I could wish myself dead but for the children.”