Of a sudden the fat man stopped. The advertising
man sat with pencil suspended above the paper.
From the walk below sharp commands rang out.
Again the sound of men moving about came in through
the windows.
The president of the bicycle company and the advertising
man ran to the window. There on the cement sidewalk
stood the men of the company formed into columns of
fours and separated into companies. At the head
of each company stood a captain. The captains
swung the men about. “Forward! March!”
they shouted.
The fat man stood with his mouth open and looked at
the men. “What’s going on down there?
What do you mean? Quit that!” he bawled.
A derisive laugh floated up through the window.
“Attention! Forward, guide right!”
shouted a captain.
The men went swinging down the broad cement sidewalk
past the window and the advertising man. In their
faces was something determined and grim. A sickly
smile flitted across the face of the grey-haired man
and then faded. The advertising man, without knowing
just what was going on felt that the older man was
afraid. He sensed the terror in his face.
In his heart he was glad to see it.
The manufacturer began to talk excitedly. “Now
what’s this?” he demanded. “What’s
going on? What kind of a volcano are we men of
affairs walking over? Haven’t we had enough
trouble with labour? What are they doing now?”
Again he walked up and down past the table where the
advertising man sat looking at him. “We’ll
let the book go,” he said. “Come
to-morrow. Come any time. I want to look
into this. I want to find out what’s going
on.”
Leaving the office of the bicycle company John Van
Moore ran along the street past stores and houses.
He did not try to follow the Marching Men but ran
forward blindly, filled with excitement. He remembered
the words of the newspaper man about the song of labour,
and was drunk with the thought that he had caught
the swing of it. A hundred times he had seen
men pouring out of factory doors at the end of the
day. Always before they had been just a mass
of individuals. Each had been thinking of his
own affairs and each man had shuffled off into his
own street and had been lost in the dim alleyways
between the tall grimy buildings. Now all of
this was changed. The men did not shuffle off
alone but marched along the street shoulder to shoulder.
A lump came also into the throat of this man and he
like that other by the factory wall began to say words.
“The song of labour is here. It has begun
to get itself sung!” he cried.
John Van Moore was beside himself. The face of
the fat man pale with terror came back into his mind.
On the sidewalk before a grocery store he stopped
and shouted with delight. Then he began dancing
wildly about, startling a group of children who with
fingers in their mouths stood with staring eyes watching.
