There was a question in men's eyes.
Slowly at first it began to rumble through their minds. There was the
tap of feet clicking sharply on pavements. Groups formed, men laughed,
the groups disappeared only to again reappear. In the sun before
factory doors men stood talking, half understanding, beginning to
sense the fact that there was something big in the wind.
At first the movement did not get anywhere with the ranks of labour.
There would be a meeting, perhaps a series of meetings in one of the
little halls where labourers gather to attend to the affairs of their
unions. McGregor would speak. His voice harsh and commanding could be
heard in the streets below. Merchants came out of the stores and stood
in the doorways listening. Young fellows who smoked cigarettes stopped
looking at passing girls and gathered in crowds below the open
windows. The slow working brain of labour was being aroused.
After a time a few young men, fellows who worked at the saws in a box
factory and others who ran machines in a factory where bicycles were
made, volunteered to follow the lead of the men of the First Ward. On
summer evenings they gathered in vacant lots and marched back and
forth looking at their feet and laughing.
McGregor insisted upon the training.
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