"Well," he went on, "I guess I put the speech in an inside pocket and it's too cold to look for it. I know what it says, anyway."
This brought a few laughs. Don Cort stood near the edge of the crowd and watched the people around him. They mostly had a no-nonsense look about them, as if they were not going to be satisfied with more oratory.
Civek said, "I'm not going to keep you standing in the cold and tell you what you already know—how our food supplies are dwindling, how we're using up our stocks of coal and fuel oil with no immediate hope of replacement—you know all that."
"We sure do, Hector," somebody called out.
"Yes; so, as I say, I'm not going to talk about what the problem is. We don't need words—we need action."
He paused as if he expected a cheer, or applause, but the crowd merely waited for him to go on.
"If Superior had been hit by a flood or a tornado," Civek said, "we could look to the Red Cross and the State or Federal Government for help. But we've been the victims of a far greater misfortune, torn from the bosom of Mother Earth and flung—"
"Oh, come on, Hector," an old woman said. "We're getting froze."
"I'm sorry about that, Mrs. Potts," Civek said. "You should be home where it's warm."
"We ran out of coal for the furnace and now we're running out of logs. Are you going to do something about that?"