We had a nice supper, and then I wrote in this book. It was beginning to be so I could hardly wait to get at it. I wondered if that was the way Mr. Ember felt about his work. Then I thought about the factory, and remembered that that was work, too. It didn't seem as if they ought to have the same name.
Next morning Rose went up the stairs with me.
"You know you'll either have to quit your job or else give in, don't you?" she says.
I looked at her.
"Are you sure?" I says, "I thought maybe my being afraid of him was just being—vulgar."
"You baby," she says. "It ain't your fault. Everybody understands. We always tell the new pretty ones. But he brought you here—"
I tried to think what to do, all that day, while I fed the press. I could think well enough—the work was just one motion, one motion, one motion, and I didn't have to think about that. But I knew in a little while the rest of my head wouldn't think while I worked, and that I should just stand there with the smell of the oil and the ink and the gas and the paper dust, and the noise. I wondered what we was all doing it for, just to earn money to keep breathing, and to supply Mr. Arthur Carney with money for "little dinners somewhere," and the shiny car. It didn't seem worth while, not for any of us.
At noon Rose and I walked again, she wanted to tell me about a meeting for that night. They'd heard that morning from Mr. Carney. He wouldn't give in on one of the things, except to promise to unlock the doors while we worked. "But he's promised that before," Rose says. "It don't last. We're going to take the vote to-night on walking out."
"What!" says Sergeant Ebbit, when we come by. "Ain't you two struck yet?"
"Don't you want to be?" says Rose, pretending to hit at him. I don't know how any of us can act nice, with everybody joshing us so free.