Six One-Act Plays Part 16

The Striker

_Scene--A dining room in a workman's home. Plain but scrupulously neat and clean. Door L leads to kitchen. Door R leads to front door. Mrs.

Quinn is seated at centre table darning socks and talking to her neighbor, Mrs. Martin._

MRS. MARTIN--(_Dropping a few pennies into a purse, and shutting it with a snap._) Seven weeks, and not one cent coming in. I don't know how we'll live, if it keeps up much longer.

MRS. QUINN--A strike's a bitter thing Mrs. Martin, and no one knowin'

how it will end.

MRS. MARTIN--Why can't they talk it out? It seems to me if the motormen and conductors sent a committee to the company, they might arrive at an understanding.

MRS. QUINN--But the company don't take stock in the Union, and a committee of men would be a Union committee, or nothin'.

MRS. MARTIN--Let them arbitrate, I say, let them arbitrate.

MRS. QUINN--It's a nice soundin' word, is arbitrate, but no one wants to do it, save them as ain't interested. A man hits with his fist first, and arbitrates afterwards,--in the police court.

MRS. MARTIN--Men are queer creatures. There's my Bill, a more religious man never walked, if I do say it myself, and yet he's as bitter as poison against the company.

MRS. QUINN--Religion don't always kill bitterness--

MRS. MARTIN--This morning I wakened up before five o'clock, and he wasn't in bed. I went down stairs to see what had happened, and found him sneaking in the back gate like a thief. Heaven only knows what he was doing outside at that time in the morning. Mischief, I'll bet.

MRS. QUINN--Aye, it was mischief, and my old man in it too. I got it out of John when he came back. They had been out before the dawn, pryin' up trolley tracks with a crow-bar.

MRS MARTIN--A fine mess if they'd been caught.

MRS. QUINN--Locked up, that's what would have happened, nice pair of old fools that they are!

MRS. MARTIN--It must be devilish though, to have strike breakers come in and run the cars, while the men are sticking out for a principle.

MRS. QUINN--A principle's a fine excuse now and then, for a bunch of men to fight behind.

MRS. MARTIN--But this is a principle worth fighting for.

MRS. QUINN--Maybe it is.

MRS. MARTIN--I wish you'd go to the lectures at the Lyceum with me.

You'd understand things better. My, I miss your Molly. We heard so many wonderful men talk, and she was so quick getting their ideas, it was just great to be with her.

MRS. QUINN--Well, you know, she'd _tell_ me about them when she got home. I remember that first man who talked of the virtue of humility and self-sacrifice. Molly was that full of onselfishness after hearin' him, that she almost gave her job to Jennie Tubbs, thinkin' _she_ needed the money more than we did.

MRS. MARTIN--That was Prof. William Mason. He was a n.o.ble character.

MRS. QUINN--Aye, but he didn't last. He was followed by the moral uplifter one. Sure, we lived on pins and needles then! After him we had a course in sanitation, and pure food, and how to feed a fam'ly of six on $4.00 a week. Oh, them last was wonderful fairy tales. The meals that woman could manufacture out of an old ham bone! It was past belief.

MRS. MARTIN--I tried a few of her receipts, but Bill wouldn't eat the things I made. He said he wasn't a horse yet.

MRS. QUINN--Aw, she was a joker, I'm thinkin', put in the pack to lighten the others up a bit. Lectures is an easy way of gettin' sc.r.a.ps of learnin', but it's done neither of ye lastin' hurt that I can see.

MRS. MARTIN--I heard the walking delegate talk this afternoon. The men got pretty excited listening to him. He told them their rights, and it'll be a wonder to me, if they don't do a good bit of damage to the Company's property before this thing ends.

MRS. QUINN--The walkin' delegate's a smart lad, from all I hear.

MRS. MARTIN--He's smart enough to get paid for the work he does.

MRS. QUINN--He gets paid for startin' strikes, is it?

MRS. MARTIN--He goes all over the country telling the men when to strike, and what to strike for. He gets paid for that.

MRS. QUINN--But the men don't get paid for strikin'.

MRS. MARTIN--That's a silly idea, Mrs. Quinn.

MRS. QUINN--You can have it for what it's worth. Molly used to say I had more ideas than a dog has fleas, but I fancy she was just slatherin' me over with the blarney.

MRS. MARTIN--Well, I believe the walking delegate's right. The men must fight this out to a finish.

MRS. QUINN--It's likely to be our finish, alright, alright.

MRS. MARTIN--(_Unconsciously imitating the delegate._) It's not only for ourselves, but for our children that the war must be waged.

MRS. QUINN--Our children! Sure, it shouldn't be a bequeathment job, this trolley business.

MRS. MARTIN--He says our children will be saved a fight for their rights, if we conquer now.

MRS. QUINN--Whist darlin', our children will have their own notion of rights and fights by the time they grow up. They can blow on their own broth when it bubbles over.

MRS. MARTIN--But the n.o.ble way is to consider the ones who come after us.

MRS. QUINN--Maybe that's so, me dear Mrs. Martin, but I'm after lookin'

out for the man of to-day. The better off we are, the better off our kids'll be.

MRS. MARTIN--The walking delegate says that's a very selfish way of looking at it.

MRS. QUINN--The walkin' delegate's got the fine words in his mouth.

(_Silence._)

MRS. MARTIN--Have you heard from Molly lately?

MRS. QUINN--Poor darlin', I got a letter from her this mornin'. She's comin' home.

MRS. MARTIN--Does Mr. Quinn know?

MRS. QUINN--I'll have it out with him to-night.