‘‘He didn’t,’’ Johanna sobbed.
‘‘Let me get you some tea,’’ Mabel soothed.
I followed her into the butler’s pantry. She frowned back at Johanna and murmured to me, ‘‘Poor Johanna! She should not bestow her heart so easily.’’
‘‘Do you mean Officer Degan is not reliable?’’
She shrugged and placed the teapot on the tray. ‘‘When I mentioned Johanna’s hopes to Jake, he laughed and said Degan had more than one young lady at his beck and call.’’
‘‘Oh dear, poor Johanna. Mabel, I had another question. I may have dropped a bracelet while I was visiting here.’’ I described it as we carried the tea back to Johanna, who had risen from her chair and was pacing about the parlor.
‘‘I will look very carefully,’’ Mabel promised with a little frown. ‘‘Sit down, Johanna, have some tea!’’
We finally convinced Johanna that Matt might yet apologize and she stopped sobbing. Mabel maintained that Jake and the others were upset because of the labor unrest, and would be kind and loving once again when the work was not so frightening. ‘‘Jakey hates to feel frightened. He much prefers being angry.’’
I couldn’t help thinking of wise old Shakespeare, who said, ‘‘To be furious is to be frighted out of fear.’’ Captain Bonfield’s order to shoot had helped his men feel fury instead of fear; but laborers were men too, and Bonfield had given them cause to be more frightened than ever, and I wondered if their fear would turn to fury too.
Instead, they called another meeting.
At breakfast Johanna was silent, probably brooding on Matt Degan, but her brother Peter was reading the Arbeiter-Zeitung and I asked if it mentioned the shots at the McCormick works. ‘‘Oh, yes!’’ he said. ‘‘They write about the injustice of the police firing on unarmed men, and say workers should carry dynamite or revolvers in self-defense. They’ve called a meeting tonight. Look, it’s at the Haymarket, very close to the theatre! Our show will be over in time to hear the last speeches.’’
‘‘This is strong language,’’ his mother cautioned, pausing teapot in hand to frown over his shoulder at the paper. ‘‘ ‘Avenge the atrocious murder that has been committed upon your brothers today’-Do be careful, Peter.’’
But like Peter, I wanted to go. Peebles might well be there with answers about my bracelet-and perhaps the handsome, fiery August as well.
It was after nine and dark when Johanna and Peter and I departed from Kohl and Middleton’s, leaving the Saint Bernards to finish the evening performance. We walked a block to Desplaines and turned north toward the meeting, where Peter met his ruddy-faced friend Archie, a reporter for the Chicago Times. ‘‘Look at all the police Captain Bonfield has mustered,’’ Archie said.
‘‘Why do they call him Black Jack?’’ I asked.
‘‘He can be brutal. Like yesterday’s shooting,’’ Archie said. ‘‘Or last year during the streetcar strike, when he clubbed everyone in reach, even store owners who came out to see what was happening. A gas company worker named Kerwin is still laid up from that beating.’’
‘‘They ought to replace Bonfield,’’ Peter said.
‘‘The mayor might, but Marshall Field and his rich friends are nervous with this talk of dynamite, and they think Bonfield can frighten the eight-hour supporters. Look, he’s lining up reinforcements.’’ Archie gestured at the alley we were passing and made a note.
Johanna said nothing but I saw her crane her neck to look for Matt Degan among the massed officers. I tugged her arm and we moved on up Desplaines.
There was a large crowd ahead, and several men including the welkin-eyed August up on a wagon. The man speaking was nearly as appealing as August, but had coal black hair and mustache. His beautiful English had a hint of a Southern accent. ‘‘It’s Albert Parsons,’’ Archie told us. ‘‘He edits the English-language anarchist paper. That’s his wife and children on the next wagon, see them?’’
Parsons was saying, ‘‘I am not here for the purpose of inciting anybody, but to speak out, to tell the facts as they exist, even though it should cost me my life.’’
I was beginning to think that the rich folks had it all wrong about the anarchists, who claimed to be filled with the noblest of sentiments: truth-telling, cooperation, and love for family. Parsons mentioned Jay Gould, who owned railroads now instead of banks, and someone shouted, ‘‘Hang him!’’
‘‘No,’’ Parsons replied, ‘‘this is not a conflict against individuals, but for a change of system. Kill Jay Gould, and like a jack-in-a-box another or a hundred others like him will come up in his place.’’
‘‘Hang him!’’ cried a boy, and the huge crowd laughed.
Archie seemed disappointed and snapped his notebookclosed. ‘‘Won’t sell any papers with that peaceful stuff.’’
But it was my bracelet that I wanted to find. I excused myself and slipped into the crowd to search for Peebles.
After introducing the next speaker, a bearded British fellow named Fielden, Parsons left the speakers’ wagon and joined his family nearby. I continued searching through the crowd. There was a low rumble of thunder in the north, and a gust of wind blew papers about. Parsons called to Fielden, ‘‘It’s going to rain! Do you want to finish in Zepf’s Hall?’’
Fielden said, ‘‘I’m nearly done. Then we can all go home.’’ Parsons nodded and gathered his children to take them to Zepf’s for shelter.
Many people were glancing at the sky and leaving. Fearing that I would miss Peebles, I made my way up the entry steps of a building for a better look. At last, in the glimmer of the streetlight, I saw his yellow checked cap! He was making his way toward Lake Street, not far behind Parsons’ family. I started after. It seemed now that there was a faint thunder in the south as well, but I didn’t take my eyes from him until I heard a loud voice call out, ‘‘Disperse!’’ and Peebles stopped to look back.
I looked too, and hang it, I’d never seen so many policemen! The street was inky with them, rank on rank, filling Desplaines Street from the speakers’ wagon back toward the police station. At the head of the wall of police was Captain Bonfield, facing Fielden on the speakers’ wagon. Fielden said, ‘‘But we are peaceable!’’
‘‘Disperse!’’ insisted Bonfield’s spokesman.
Fielden didn’t argue. He said, ‘‘All right, we will go,’’ and jumped down from the wagon. The others shrugged and began climbing down, even August. I was about to turn back to Peebles when I saw a bright spark like a shooting star sizzle through the air from the east edge of the street into the center of the police ranks.
And then, lordy! A fearsome thunderclap. A flash as bright as noon. A blast of wind that blew me against the wall. Around me windows cracked.
For just an instant, silence quivered in the air. I looked for Peebles and he was standing there bedazzled, like the rest of us.
Then a woman shrieked, and a man groaned a spine-chilling groan, and others began screaming and swearing, and the terrified police began to fire, round after round after round.
I lit out of there quicker than a rabbit.
Oh, I know, I know, a proper lady would have stood there weeping prettily until rescued by a noble officer of the law. But hang it, I didn’t much like loud blasts, and I didn’t like wild shooting by frightened men, and frankly I hadn’t found Chicago policemen to be all that noble. Besides, Peebles was hightailing it away, so I followed.
The riot bell from the police station began to clang. As I chased Peebles past Zepf’s saloon I heard August call to someone, ‘‘It was a cannon, wasn’t it?’’
Well, I’m just a poor girl from Missouri, but my brother fought for the Union and he described a bomb to me, a bright flash and a thunderclap, and I wondered if these anarchists of noble sentiment knew what their audiences might do.