The Forrest City times., 1893-05-19
The strike is over.


 the office in the gray dawn, sick and dizzy with the horrors of the nights experience. 1 shut my eyes and the picture stands out before me-the dark night, the hall with its lights glowing out through the windows. the gay party of young people in the drawing-room; the gleam of the torches outside the mob of desperate men, the angry, up- turned faces. There was tramp of feet, hoarse shouts, and stone crashed through window and shattered the chandelier.
 The music stopped with discordant crash.m There was instant confusion, and above it all there were the hoarse cries for Jere Harman.
 1 sprang through the piazza window and faced the men. They knew me well. and Big John shouted:
 We've naught against you, John Spencer. We mean no harm to any, but the master must hear us. Bring out the master.'
 Come, like honest men, in daylight, and talk it over calmly" urged; mot at night, like mob of rutfians with stones TOT arguments.
 Jere Harman had come out to them. They greeted him with an angry shout:
 We are to be put off no longer. Is it our rights by fair means or by foul, Jere Harman?'
 ''Y our rights" began Jere Harman in his harsh stern voice. l saw that Nellie iiarman had slipped out to her fathers side and laid her hand plead ingly on his shoulder. She did not fear the angry men, for willingly not one of them would have harmed a hair of her dainty head. 1 saw that she would have pleaded with her father to be gentle with them.
 '.Yes. our rlghts,'' yelled voice in the crowd, with an awful oath. He was drunken or blind with rage--surely he did not see the girl at her fathers side. A stone whizzed through the air. It might have been Jere Harnan's death-blow; instead. it struck her. It cut great, cruel gash just above the temple.
 They sprang toward her-her friends, her lover--but Nellie Harman put her two hands out to me with a sharp gasp ing cry.
 Jack, Jaclxs' she said, and l caught her in my arms.
 have lived over the agony, the joy, of that moment. all through the long, lonely hours of this night.
 It was Big John himself who brought the doctor and cried like child when they told him she was dying. His little l.l l.;l T .l,D for, and it had died in her arms. Aye, and that harm should have come to her, who was more good and innocent of wrong than the angels.' muttered Big John, brokenly, as he went away soften ed and sorrowful.
 Jere lIarnan sent me out to tell the men that he had yielded, and in the silence of death they went away.
 The strike is over.
 As sit here in the gray dawn, wait ing, fearing, dreading the coming of the morning and the news it may bring, I hear the chatter of horses hoofs. It is servant from the Hasl riding to the village on some errand
 What news?" I call out hoarsely. and learn that the worst is over and that she will live.
 Nellie 1arman hovered between life and death for long weeks, and l worked as I had never worked before. Jere lIarman left much of the management of the mill in my hands, and l put heart and brain in the work or should have gone mad in those weeks with the longing to see her face. When she was well again I spent many evenings at the Hall, talking business with her father, who came seldom to the office in those days. He had broken in health with the recent troubles and had lost energy, but he was gentler and kinder than of old.
 Harry Desmond was always there. was but dull guest. I could not en- dure his light-heartedness, the triumph in his eyes, the happiness in his laugh. could not endure that he should call her by name or smile on her. was mad fool, I told Jere Harman that I must go away; that must have rest, change-a ! vacation. Gordon, the young foreman, could take my place, 1 urged, and he consented, though grudgingly.