She had sent for Carl and her two stablemen, and told them that if
they were dissatisfied in any way she wanted to know it at once.
If the wages she was paying were not enough, she was willing to
raise them, but she wanted them distinctly to understand that as
she had built up the business herself, she was the only one who
had a right to manage it, adding that she would rather clean and
drive the horses herself than be dictated to by any person
outside. She said that she saw trouble brewing, and knew that her
men would feel it first. They must look out for themselves coming
home late at night. At the brewery strike, two years before,
hardly a day passed that some of the non-union men were not beaten
into insensibility.
That night Carl came back again to the porch door, and in his
quiet, earnest way said: "We have t'ink 'bout da Union. Da men
not go--not laik da union man. We not 'fraid"--tapping his
hip-pocket, where, sailor-like, he always carried his knife
sheathed in a leather case.
Tom's eyes kindled as she looked into his manly face. She loved
pluck and grit. She knew the color of the blood running in this
young fellow's veins.
Week after week passed, and though now and then she caught the
mutterings of distant thunder, as Cully or some of the others
overheard a remark on the ferry-boat or about the post-office, no
other signs of the threatened storm were visible.
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