What is a Strike?
- Margaret leaves her house with a heavy heart. She winds up at the Higginses' to check on Bessy. It seems like death is the main theme of her life lately.
- They talk a bit about the workers' strike. As you can imagine, Nicholas Higgins supports the workers' side of things in contrast to Mr. Thornton's perspective.
- Margaret plays devil's advocate and asks Nicholas what the good of striking is. He insists that it's to get a good wage for workers. She reminds him that the strike will hurt business and affect the whole town negatively.
- Margaret insists that the workers in the south of England never strike. Higgins argues that this is because they have no backbone. Margaret repeats what Mr. Thornton told her about trade being down this year. Higgins insists that this is all made up to keep wages low.
- This whole time, Bessy just sighs from the couch, wishing that all the conflict would be over.
- Higgins steps out for a moment to finish smoking his pipe. While he's gone, Bessy mentions to Margaret that her father is too easily tempted by tobacco and alcohol, and that she wishes he'd stop.
- After another sigh, Bessy says that she often believes that she was born to suffer. Margaret tells her to have hope. Margaret tells Bessy that there's plenty of suffering in the world, and she mentions how her own mother is dying.
- Margaret gets up to leave. Once she's gone, Bessy thinks to herself about how Margaret's company is like a breath of fresh air.