with Eda on that summer day of the circus. Here was the ragpicker's shop,
the fence covered with bedraggled posters, the deserted grand-stand of
the base-ball park spread with a milky-blue mantle of snow; and beyond,
the monotonous frame cottages all built from one model. Now she descried
looming above her the outline of Torrey's Hill blurred and melting into a
darkening sky, and turned into the bleak lane where stood the
Franco-Belgian Hall--Hampton Headquarters of the Industrial Workers of
the World. She halted a moment at sight of the crowd of strikers
loitering in front of it, then went on again, mingling with them
excitedly beside the little building. Its lines were simple and
unpretentious, and yet it had an exotic character all its own, differing
strongly from the surrounding houses: it might have been transported from
a foreign country and set down here. As the home of that odd, cooperative
society of thrifty and gregarious Belgians it had stimulated her
imagination, and once before she had gazed, as now, through the yellowed,
lantern-like windows of the little store at the women and children
waiting to fill their baskets with the day's provisions. In the middle of
the building was an entrance leading up to the second floor. Presently
she gathered the courage to enter. Her heart was pounding as she climbed
the dark stairs and thrust open the door, and she stood a moment on the
threshold almost choked by the fumes of tobacco, bewildered by the scene
within, confused by the noise. Through a haze of smoke she beheld groups
of swarthy foreigners fiercely disputing among themselves--apparently on
the verge of actual combat, while a sprinkling of silent spectators of
both sexes stood at the back of the hall. At the far end was a stage,
still set with painted, sylvan scenery, and seated there, alone, above
the confusion and the strife, with a calmness, a detachment almost
disconcerting, was a stout man with long hair and a loose black tie. He
was smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper which he presently flung
down, taking up another from a pile on the table beside him. Suddenly one