strike, however, they went out without a word to the management, without
even signifying to it in any way the point they considered unjust. The
management did not send to inquire. After a few days it resumed work with
strike breakers. The former employees began picketing. The management
sent word to them that it would not employ against them, so long as they
were peaceful and within the law, any of the means of intimidation that
numbers of the other firms were using--special police and thugs. The
girls sent word back that they would picket peacefully and quietly. But
afterward, on their own admission, which was most disarming in its
candor, they became careless and "too gay." They went picketing in too
large numbers and were too noisy. Instantly the firm employed police.
Before this, however, the girls had begun to discuss and to realize the
unintelligence of their behavior in failing to send a committee to the
management to describe their position clearly and to obtain terms. They
now appointed and instructed such a committee, came rapidly to terms with
the management, and have been working for them in friendly relations ever
since.

While in general the strike was both peaceful in conduct and just in
demand and methods of demand on the part of the strikers, these
exceptions must, of course, be mentioned in the interests of truth.
Further, it would convey a false impression to imply that every striker
arrested had as much sense and force of character as Natalya Urusova.
Natalya was especially protected in her ordeal by a vital love of
observation and a sense of humor, charmingly frequent in the present
writer's experience of young Russian girls and women. With these
qualities she could spend night after night locked up with the women of
the street, in her funny, enormous prison clothes, and remain as
uninfluenced by her companions as if she had been some blossoming
geranium or mignonette set inside a filthy cellar as a convenience for a