TOM GROGAN
for the first patter of rain. When it came she intended that every one of her people should be under cover. 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.
102
