Half an hour after midnight, despite the protests of the old and experienced men, the resolution to strike went through with a yell, and when the dawn came, faint and pallid in the eastern sky, and the myriad switch-lights in the dark, silent yards began to grow blear and dim, there stood the long rows of freight cars doubly fettered now, for not only were there no switchmen to make up the trains, there were no crews to man them and take them to their destination. Jim Wallace had struck with the rest.
It was two o'clock when at last the father heard the heavy footfalls of his first-born on the wooden walk without. There he seemed to pause for some few words in low tone with a companion who had walked home with him from the yards. Old Wallace, going to the door to meet his son, heard these words as the other turned away. "And you tell Fred what I say. I'm a friend of yours, and always have been, but the boys won't stand any nonsense. It'll be the worst for him if he don't quit that militia business at once, and if he don't, he won't be the only one to suffer."
"WHO THREATENS MY SON AND MY PEOPLE?" DEMANDED OLD WALLACE.
"Who is that?" demanded old Wallace, stepping promptly out from his front door. "Who threatens my son or my people?"
The stranger had stepped away into the shade of an ailantus-tree before he answered. Jim Wallace stood in moody silence, confused by his father's sudden appearance, and ashamed that such menace as this against him and his should have been spoken without instant rebuke. "What I said was meant in all friendship to you and yours, Mr. Wallace. You don't know me, but I know you," said the stranger; with marked foreign accent, but in civil tone. "I want to avert trouble from your roof if I can, and therefore told Jim to get Fred out of that tin-soldier connection. No son of yours ought to be used in the intimidation of honest workingmen who only seek their rights, and if he is wise he'll quit it now and at once."
"No son of mine shall be intimidated from doing a sworn duty by any such threats as yours," said Wallace, with rising wrath; "and if that's the game you play I'm ashamed to think that son of mine has had anything to do with you. Who are you, anyway? What do you mean by coming round 'intimidating honest workingmen,' as you say, at this hour of the night? You're no trainman. Man and boy I've known the hands on this road nearly forty years, and I never thought to see the day when rank outsiders could come in and turn them against one another as you have. Who are you, I say?"
"Never mind who I am, Mr. Wallace. I speak what I know, and my voice is that of ten thousand working—or more than working—thinking men. If you're wise you'll see to it that this is the last time your boy carries orders to his fellows to turn out against us, for that's what he has done. If you don't, somebody may have to do it for you."
"That isn't all!" shouted the old Scotchman, as the other turned away, "and you hear this here and now. My voice is that of ten million law-abiding people, high and low, rich and poor, and it says my boys shall stand by their duty, the one to his employers, the other to his regiment, you and your threats to the contrary notwithstanding. You haven't struck, have you, Jim?" he asked, turning in deep anxiety to his silent, crestfallen son.
And for all answer Jim simply shrugged his broad shoulders and made a deprecatory gesture with his brown, hairy hand, then turned slowly into the little hallway, and went heavily to his room. At breakfast-time he was gone.