Dangerous Days

"The sort that has her breakfast in bed," she muttered, "and has her

clothes put on her by somebody. Her underclothes, too!"

The immodesty of the idea made her face burn with anger.

Late that night Herman came back.

Herman had been a difficult proposition for Rudolph to handle. His

innate caution, his respect for law and, under his bullying exterior,

a certain physical cowardice, made him slow to move in the direction

Rudolph was urging. He was controversial. He liked to argue over the

beer and schnitzel Rudolph bought. And Rudolph was growing impatient.

Rudolph himself was all eagerness and zeal. It was his very zeal that

was his danger, although it brought him slavish followers. He was

contemptuous, ill-tempered, and impatient, but, of limited intelligence

himself, he understood for that very reason the mental processes of

those he would lead. There was a certain simplicity even in his cunning.

With Herman he was a ferret driving out of their hiding-places every

evil instinct that lay dormant. Under his goading, Herman was becoming

savage, sullen, and potentially violent.

He was confused, too. Rudolph's arguments always confused him.

He was confused that night, heavy with fatigue and with Rudolph's steady

talk in his ear. He was tired of pondering great questions, tired of

hearing about the Spencers and the money they were making.

Anna's clothing was scattered about the room, and he frowned at it. She

spent too much money on her clothes. Always sewing at something-He stooped down to gather up his shoes, and his ear thus brought close

to the table was conscious in the silence of a faint rhythmical sound.

He stood up and looked about. Then he moved the newspaper on the table.

Underneath it, forgotten in her anxiety and trouble, lay the little gold

watch.

He picked it up, still following his train of thought. It fitted into

the evening's inflammable proceedings. So, with such trinkets as

this, capital would silence the cry of labor for its just share in the

products of its skill and strength! It would bribe, and cheaply. Ten

dollars, perhaps, that ticking insult. For ten dollars-He held it close to his spectacles. Ah, but it was not so cheap. It came

from the best shop in the city. He weighed it carefully in his hand, and

in so doing saw the monogram. A doubt crept into his mind, a cold and

chilling fear. Since when had the Spencer plant taken to giving watches

for Christmas? The hill girls who worked as stenographers in the plant;

they came in often enough and he did not remember any watches, or any

mention of watches. His mind, working slowly, recalled that never before

had he seen the watch near at hand. And he went into a slow and

painful calculation. Fifty dollars at least it had cost. A hundred

stenographers--that would be five thousand dollars for watches.