" He smiled around the table. "I
ought to get some sort of graft out of it."
"Mother!" Edith protested. "He mustn't sacrifice himself for us.
What are we to him anyhow? A lot of stones hung around his neck.
That's all."
It was after Willy had declared that this was his home now, and he
had a right to help keep it going, and after Ellen had observed that
she had some money laid by and would not take any wages during the
strike, that the meeting threatened to become emotional. Mrs. Boyd
shed a few tears, and as she never by any chance carried a
handkerchief, let them flow over her fichu. And Dan shook Willy's
hand and Ellen's, and said that if he'd had his way he'd be working,
and not sitting round like a stiff letting other people work for him.
But Edith got up and went out into the little back garden, and did
not come back until the meeting was both actually and morally broken
up. When she heard Dan go out, and Ellen and Mrs. Boyd go upstairs,
chatting in a new amiability brought about by trouble and sacrifice,
she put on her hat and left the house.
Ellen, rousing on her cot in Edith's upper room, heard her come in
some time later, and undress and get into bed.
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