A few more horses and carts and another barn or two, and she
herself would become a hated capitalist. That she had stood out
in the wet and cold herself, hours at a time, like any man among
them; that she had, in her husband's early days, helped him feed
and bed their one horse, often currying him herself; that when she
and her Tom had moved to Rockville with their savings and there
were three horses to care for and her husband needed more help
than he could hire, she had brought her little baby Patsy to the
stable while she worked there like a man; that during all this
time she had cooked and washed and kept the house tidy for four
people; that she had done all these things she felt would not
count now with the Union, though each member of it was a
bread-winner like herself.
She knew what power it wielded. There had been the Martin family,
honest, hardworking people, who had come down from Haverstraw--the
man and wife and their three children--and moved into the new
tenement with all their nice furniture and new carpets. Tom had
helped them unload these things from the brick-sloop that brought
them. A few weeks after, poor Martin, still almost a stranger,
had been brought home from the gas-house with his head laid open,
because he had taken the place of a Union man discharged for
drunkenness, and lingered for weeks until he died.
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