felt the awful breath of it, have you? There wasn't even a
funeral. Twelve men, twelve pinches of ashes, were lost somewhere,
swallowed up in that mass--nothing more. There was no insurance,
and nobody took the blame. Another Jew family, a few more widowed
and fatherless foreigners, among that army, meant nothing.
Scarcely a month went by without accidents of some sort.

"The shock finished mother, for she was emotional and she had
imagination, too. I've never forgotten that day, nor the figure of
that shouting, swearing man who came through the Bessemer mill
crying for more speed, more speed, more speed--so that a broom
could be hoisted on a halyard and so that other men in other
cities, for one short month, could point to him with envy.

"I suppose I was too little to make any foolish vows of vengeance,
for I was only a ragged mite of a child among a horde of slaves,
but when I grew older I often dreamed of having that man in my
power, and--making him suffer. Who would--who COULD have imagined
that I'd ever be living on money wrung from the labor of men like
my father, and be in a position to meet that man on an equal
footing? _I_ never did--not in my wildest moments, and yet--here I
am. Steel-money bought these books, these rugs and paintings. Any
one of those pictures represents the wages of a lifetime for a man
like my father. He was murdered, so was my mother--but things are
queer. Anyhow, here I am, rich--and the day of reckoning gets
closer all the time."

She ended with an abruptness that evidenced her agitation. Rising,
she jerked a beaded chain that depended from the center lamp, and
the room was flooded with mellow light; then she drew out the