SECTION 4.

 The talk went on. Wishing to draw the old man out, Hal spoke¹ of various troubles of the miners, and at last he suggested that the remedy might be found in a union. Edstrom's dark eyes studied him, and then turned to Mary. “Joe's all right,” said the girl, quickly. “You can trust him.”

Edstrom made no direct answer to this, but remarked that he had once been in a strike. He was a marked man, now, and could only stay in the camp so long as he attended strictly² to his own affairs. The part he had played in the big strike had never been forgotten; the bosses had let him work again, partly because they had needed him at a rush time, and partly because the pit-boss happened to be a personal friend.

“Tell him about the big strike,” said Mary. “He's new in this district.”

The old man had apparently³ accepted Mary's word for Hal's good faith, for he began to narrate⁴ those terrible events which were a whispered tradition of the camps. There had been a mighty⁵ effort of ten thousand slaves for freedom; and it had been crushed with utter ruthlessness. Ever since these mines had been started, the operators had controlled the local powers of government, and now, in the emergency, they had brought in the state militia⁶ as well, and used it frankly⁷ to drive the strikers back to work. They had seized the leaders and active men, and thrown them into jail without trial or charges; when the jails would hold no more, they kept some two hundred in an open stockade⁸, called a “bull-pen,” and finally they loaded them into freight-cars, took them at night out of the state, and dumped them off in the midst of the desert without food or water.

John Edstrom had been one of these men. He told how one of his sons had been beaten and severely⁹ injured in jail, and how another had been kept for weeks in a damp cellar, so that he had come out crippled with rheumatism¹⁰ for life. The officers of the state militia had done these things; and when some of the local authorities were moved to protest, the militia had arrested them—even the judges of the civil courts had been forbidden to sit, under threat of imprisonment¹¹. “To hell with the constitution!” had been the word of the general in command; his subordinate had made famous the saying, “No habeas corpus; we'll give them post-mortems!”

Tom Olson had impressed Hal with his self-control, but this old man made an even deeper impression upon him. As he listened, he became humble¹², touched with awe¹³. Incredible as it might seem, when John Edstrom talked about his cruel experiences, it was without bitterness in his voice, and apparently without any in his heart. Here, in the midst of want and desolation, with his family broken and scattered¹⁴, and the wolf of starvation at his door, he could look back upon the past without hatred¹⁵ of those who had ruined him. Nor was this because he was old and feeble, and had lost the spirit of revolt; it was because he had studied economics, and convinced himself that it was an evil system which blinded men's eyes and poisoned their souls. A better day was coming, he said, when this evil system would be changed, and it would be possible for men to be merciful to one another.

At this point in the conversation, Mary Burke gave voice once more to her corroding¹⁶ despair. How could things ever be changed? The bosses were mean-hearted, and the men were cowards and traitors¹⁷. That left nobody but God to do the changing—and God had left things as they were for such a long time!

Hal was interested to hear how Edstrom dealt with this attitude. “Mary,” he said, “did you ever read about ants in Africa?”

“No,” said she.

“They travel in long columns, millions and millions of them. And when they come to a ditch, the front ones fall in, and more and more of them on top, till they fill up the ditch, and the rest cross over. We are ants, Mary.”

“No matter how many go in,” cried the girl, “none will ever get across. There's no bottom to the ditch!”

He answered: “That's more than any ant can know. Mary. All they know is to go in. They cling to each other's bodies, even in death; they make a bridge, and the rest go over.”

“I'll step one side!” she declared, fiercely. “I'll not throw meself away.”

“You may step one side,” answered the other—“but you'll step back into line again. I know you better than you know yourself, Mary.”

There was silence in the little cabin. The winds of an early fall shrilled¹⁸ outside, and life suddenly seemed to Hal a stern and merciless thing. He had thought in his youthful fervour it would be thrilling to be a revolutionist; but to be an ant, one of millions and millions, to perish in a bottomless ditch—that was something a man could hardly bring himself to face! He looked at the bowed figure of this white haired toiler¹⁹, vague in the feeble lamplight, and found himself thinking of Rembrandt's painting, the Visit of Emmaus: the ill-lighted room in the dirty tavern²⁰, and the two ragged²¹ men, struck dumb by the glow of light about the forehead of their table-companion. It was not fantastic to imagine a glow of light about the forehead of this soft-voiced old man!

“I never had any hope it would come in my time,” the old man was saying gently. “I did use to hope my boys might see it—but now I'm not sure even of that. But in all my life I never doubted that some day the working-people will cross over to the promised land. They'll no longer be slaves, and what they make won't be wasted by idlers. And take it from one who knows, Mary—for a workingman or woman not to have that faith, is to have lost the reason for living.”

Hal decided²² that it would be safe to trust this man, and told him of his check-weighman plan. “We only want your advice,” he explained, remembering Mary's warning. “Your sick wife—”

But the old man answered, sadly, “She's almost gone, and I'll soon be following. What little strength I have left might as well be used for the cause.”

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

3 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

4 narrate   

v.讲，叙述

参考例句：

• They each narrate their own tale but are all inextricably linked together.她们各自讲述自己的故事，却又不可避免地联系在一起。
• He once holds the tear to narrate a such story to mine.他曾经含着泪给我讲述了这样的一个故事。

5 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

6 militia   

n.民兵，民兵组织

参考例句：

• First came the PLA men,then the people's militia.人民解放军走在前面，其次是民兵。
• There's a building guarded by the local militia at the corner of the street.街道拐角处有一幢由当地民兵团守卫的大楼。

7 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

8 stockade   

n.栅栏，围栏；v.用栅栏防护

参考例句：

• I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade.我跑了不到一百码，就到了栅栏前。
• A heavy stockade around the cabin protected the pioneer from attack.小屋周围的厚厚的栅栏保护拓荒者免受攻击。

9 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

10 rheumatism   

n.风湿病

参考例句：

• The damp weather plays the very devil with my rheumatism.潮湿的天气加重了我的风湿病。
• The hot weather gave the old man a truce from rheumatism.热天使这位老人暂时免受风湿病之苦。

11 imprisonment   

n.关押，监禁，坐牢

参考例句：

• His sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment.他的判决由死刑减为无期徒刑。
• He was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for committing bigamy.他因为犯重婚罪被判入狱一年。

12 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

13 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

14 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

15 hatred   

n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨

参考例句：

• He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
• The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。

16 corroding   

使腐蚀，侵蚀( corrode的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• That sour nature has started corroding those metal parts. 那酸质已开始腐蚀那金属部件。
• He was driven by a corroding rage for "perfection". 他受追求“完美境界”的极端热情所驱策。

17 traitors   

卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人

参考例句：

• Traitors are held in infamy. 叛徒为人所不齿。
• Traitors have always been treated with contempt. 叛徒永被人们唾弃。

18 shrilled   

（声音）尖锐的，刺耳的，高频率的( shrill的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Behind him, the telephone shrilled. 在他身后，电话铃刺耳地响了起来。
• The phone shrilled, making her jump. 电话铃声刺耳地响起，惊得她跳了起来。

19 toiler   

辛劳者，勤劳者

参考例句：

• Says the soul of the toiler to itself, "I shall soon be free. ”那些辛劳一天的人们在对自己说：“总算可以歇口气了。”
• What do you have in the way of toiler soap? 你们有哪些香皂？

20 tavern   

n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店

参考例句：

• There is a tavern at the corner of the street.街道的拐角处有一家酒馆。
• Philip always went to the tavern,with a sense of pleasure.菲利浦总是心情愉快地来到这家酒菜馆。

21 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

22 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。