Quotation from: The Valley of the Moon

Written by: Jack London


A farmer's life must be fine, she thought. Why was it that people
had to live in cities? Why had times changed? If there had been
enough in the old days, why was there not enough now? Why was it
necessary for men to quarrel and jangle, and strike and fight,
all about the matter of getting work? Why wasn't there work for
all?--Only that morning, and she shuddered with the recollection,
she had seen two scabs, on their way to work, beaten up by the
strikers, by men she knew by sight, and some by name, who lived
in the neighhorhood. It had happened directly across the street.
It had been cruel, terrible--a dozen men on two. The children had
begun it by throwing rocks at the scabs and cursing them in ways
children should not know. Policemen had run upon the scene with
drawn revolvers, and the strikers had retreated into the houses
and through the narrow alleys between the houses. One of the
scabs, unconscious, had been carried away in an ambulance; the
other, assisted by special railroad police, had been taken away
to the shops. At him, Mary Donahue, standing on her front stoop,
her child in her arms, had hurled such vile abuse that it had
brought the blush of shame to Saxon's cheeks. On the stoop of the
house on the other side, Saxon had noted Mercedes, in the height
of the beating up, looking on with a queer smile. She had seemed
very eager to witness, her nostrils dilated and swelling like the
beat of pulses as she watched. It had struck Saxon at the time
that the old woman was quite unalarmed and only curious to see.

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
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Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.