“But I did not know how many workers in my shop had taken that oath at that meeting.  I could not tell how many would go on strike in our factory the next day,” said Natalya, afterward.  “When we came back the next morning to the factory, though, no one went to the dressing-room.  We all sat at the machines with our hats and coats beside us, ready to leave.  The foreman had no work for us when we got there.  But, just as always, he did not tell when there would be any, or if there would be any at all that day.  And there was whispering and talking softly all around the room among the machines:  ‘Shall we wait like this?’ ’There is a general strike,’ ‘Who will get up first?’ ’It would be better to be the last to get up, and then the company might remember it of you afterward, and do well for you,’ But I told them,” observed Natalya, with a little shrug, “‘What difference does it make which one is first and which one is last?’ Well, so we stayed whispering, and no one knowing what the other would do, not making up our minds, for two hours.  Then I started to get up.”  Her lips trembled.  “And at just the same minute all—­we all got up together, in one second.  No one after the other; no one before.  And when I saw it—­that time—­oh, it excites me so yet, I can hardly talk about it.  So we all stood up, and all walked out together.  And already out on the sidewalk in front the policemen stood with the clubs.  One of them said, ‘If you don’t behave, you’ll get this on your head.’  And he shook his club at me.

“We hardly knew where to go—­what to do next.  But one of the American girls, who knew how to telephone, called up the Woman’s Trade-Union League, and they told us all to come to a big hall a few blocks away.  After we were there, we wrote out on paper what terms we wanted:  not any night work, except as it would be arranged for in some special need for it for the trade; and shorter hours; and to have wages arranged by a committee to arbitrate the price for every one fairly; and to have better treatment from the bosses.

“Then a leader spoke to us and told us about picketing quietly, and the law.[15]

“Our factory had begun to work with a few Italian strike breakers.[16] The next day we went back to the factory, and saw five Italian girls taken in to work, and then taken away afterward in an automobile.  I was with an older girl from our shop, Anna Lunska.  The next morning in front of the factory, Anna Lunska and I met a tall Italian man going into the factory with some girls.  So I said to her:  ’These girls fear us in some way.  They do not understand, and I will speak to them, and ask them why they work, and tell them we are not going to harm them at all—­only to speak about our work.’

“I moved toward them to say this to them.  Then the tall man struck Anna Lunska in the breast so hard, he nearly knocked her down.  She couldn’t get her breath.  And I went to a policeman standing right there and said, ’Why do you not arrest this man for striking my friend?  Why do you let him do it?  Look at her.  She cannot speak; she is crying.  She did nothing at all,’ Then he arrested the man; and he said, ’But you must come, too, to make a charge against him.’  The tall Italian called a man out of the factory, and went with me and Anna Lunska and the three girls to the court.”