Part 32 (1/2)

”'Maybe you think cooking is woman's work. Then how about the chefs at the big hotels?' I said to him.

”'Maybe you think was.h.i.+ng is woman's work. Then how about the steam laundries where nearly all the s.h.i.+rt ironers are men?' I said to him.

”'Maybe you think that working in somebody else's house is woman's work.

Then how about that butler up at Miss Spencer's?' I said to him.

”'And maybe we can bungle through with a few bearings for a while, can we?' I said to him, very polite. 'Well, let me tell you one thing, Sam Reisinger, if that's the way you think of women, you can bungle over to the movies with yourself tomorrow night. I'm not going with you!'”

For a long time after that when things went wrong, Mary only had to recall some of the remarks which had been made to a certain Mr. Sam Reisinger on a certain Sunday afternoon, and she always felt better for it.

”What are the men saying now?” she asked Archey at the end of their first good week.

”They're not saying much, but I think they're up to something. They've called a special meeting for tonight.”

The next morning was Sunday. Mary was hardly downstairs when Archey called.

”I've found out about their meeting last night,” he said. ”They have appointed a committee to try to have a boycott declared on our bearings.”

It didn't take Mary long to see that this might be a mortal thrust unless it were parried.

”But how can they?” she asked.

”They are going to try labour headquarters first. 'Unfair to labour'--that's what they are going to claim it is--to allow women to do what they're doing here. They're going to try to have a boycott declared, so that no union man will handle Spencer bearings, the teamsters won't truck them, the railways won't s.h.i.+p them, the metal workers and mechanics won't install them, and no union man will use a tool or a machine that has a Spencer bearing in it. That's their program. That's what they are going to try to do.”

From over the distance came the memory of Ma'm Maynard's words:

”I tell you, Miss Mary, it has halways been so and it halways will: Everything that lives has its own natural enemy--and a woman's natural enemy--eet is man!”

”No, sir!” said Mary to herself, as resolutely as ever, ”I don't believe it. They're trying to gain their point--that's all--the same as I'm trying to gain mine.... But aren't they fighting hard when they do a thing like that...!”

It came to her then with a sharp sense of relief that no organization--no union--could well afford to boycott products simply because they were made by women. ”Because then,” she thought, ”women could boycott things that were made by unions, and I'm sure the unions wouldn't want that.”

She mentioned this to Archey and it was decided that Judge Cutler should follow the strikers' committee to Was.h.i.+ngton and present the women's side of the case.

Archey went, but the atmosphere of worry which he had brought with him stayed behind. Mary seemed to breathe it all day and to feel its oppression every time she awoke in the night.

”What a thing it would be,” she thought, ”if they did declare a boycott!

All the work we've done would go for nothing--all our hopes and plans--everything wiped right out--and every woman pushed right back in her trap--and a man sitting on the lid--with a boycott in his hand...!”

The next day after a bad night, she was listlessly turning over the pages of a production report, when Mrs. Kelly came in glowing with enthusiasm, holding in her hand a book from the rest room library.

”Miss Spencer,” she said, ”it's in this book that over on the other side the women in the factories had orchestras. I wonder if we couldn't have an orchestra now!”

Mary's listlessness vanished.

”I've talked it over with a lot of the women,” continued Mrs. Kelly, ”and they think it's great. I've come to quite a few that play different instruments. I only wish I knew my notes, so I could play something, too.”

Mary thought that over. It didn't seem right to her that the originator of the idea couldn't take part in it.