"
"When the looms give up, send men and women to the lunchroom."
"All right, sir."
Was it all right? If so, had he not been fighting a useless battle and
got worsted? But he could not talk with his soul that morning. He could
not even think. He sat passive and was dumb because it was evidently
God's doing. Perhaps he had been too proud of his long struggle, and it
was good spiritual correction for him to go down into the valley of
humiliation. Short ejaculatory prayers fell almost unconsciously from
his lips, mainly for the poor men and women he must lock out to poverty
and suffering.
Finally his being became all hearing. Life appeared to stand still a
moment as loom after loom stopped. A sudden total silence followed. It
was broken by a long piercing wail as if some woman had been hurt, and
in a few minutes Greenwood looked into his office and said, "They be all
waiting for you, sir." The man spoke calmly, even cheerfully, and John
roused himself and with an assumed air of hopefulness went to speak to
his workers.
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