But Willy had so well-grown a human curiosity that he was not averse to a glimpse of devils. Perhaps he heard himself, back home in the sleepy county, talking at the village post-office or in the churchyard before church. "Yes, and where else do you think I went? I went to a Socialist Meeting! Bomb-throwers--Socialists and Anarchists, you know!" Rachel, hardly more informed, was ready to-night for anything a little desperate. She would not have taken Hagar where she positively thought she ought not to go,--but if these were desperate people going in, they were, to say the least, pretty quiet and orderly and decent-looking;--and it could do no harm just to slip in and sit on a back seat for a few minutes and look on--just as you might go to mass in a cathedral abroad, disapproving all the time, of course. But Hagar had a book or two in her mind, and in addition the talk that Sunday afternoon at the Settlement.
When they had climbed the stairs and come into the hall, which was a small one, they found that the back seats were all taken. Apparently all seats were taken, but as they stood hesitating, a young man beckoned, and before they knew it they found themselves well down the place, seated near the platform. Rachel looked around a little uneasily. "Crowded, and they all look so intent! It's not going to be easy to get up and leave."
The hall was rude enough, and small, the light not brilliant, the platform a few bare boards. Upon it stood a deal table, and three or four chairs. Back of these, fastened against the wall, was a red flag, and on either side of this a strip of canvas with large letters. On one side, UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD, and on the other, WORKINGMEN, UNITE! Now standing beside the table, and slowly walking from end to end of the platform, a dark-eyed, well-knit man was speaking, quite conversationally, with a direct appeal, now to this quarter of the hall, now to that. His voice was deep and mellow; he spoke without denunciations, with a quiet reasonableness and conviction. At the moment he was stating a theory, giving the data upon which it was based, weighing it, comparing it with its counter theory. He used phrases--"Economic Determinism"--"Unearned Increment"--"Class-Consciousness"--"Problem of Distribution"--explained clearly what he meant by them, then put them aside. "They are phrases that will serve their ends and pass from speech," he said. "We shall bring in modifiers, we shall make other phrases, and they, too, in their turn, will pass from the tongues of men; but the idea behind them--the idea--the idea and its expression, the intellectual and moral sanction, the thing that is metaphysical and immortal, that will not pass! The very word Socialism may pass, but Socialism itself will be in the blood and bone and marrow of the world that is to be! And this is what is that Socialism." He began to speak in aphorisms, in words from old Wisdom-Religions, and then, for all they were stories of quite modern happenings, in parables--the woe of the world epitomized, a generalization of its needs, all lines of help synthesized into a world saviour, which, lo! was the world itself. He made an end, stood a moment with kindling eyes, then sat down. After an appreciable silence there came a strange, deep applause, men and women striking fist on palm, striking the bare floor with ill-shod feet.
