that Bert had a union
card in his pocket when he went away,--and if he died for that kind
of liberty, it's good enough for his old father to live for. I see how
wicked it was to be old fashioned.

ASHER. Wicked?

TIMOTHY. Isn't it the old fashioned nation we're fighting, with its
kings and emperors and generals that would crush the life and freedom
out of them that need life. And why wouldn't the men have the right to
organize, sir, the way that they'd have a word to say about what they'd
be doing?

ASHER. You--you ask me to sacrifice my principles and yield to men who
are deliberately obstructing the war?

TIMOTHY. Often times principles is nothing but pride, sir. And it might
be yourself that's obstructing the war, when with a simple word from you
they'd go on working.

ASHER (agitatedly). I can't, I won't recognize a labour union!

TIMOTHY. Have patience, sir. I know ye've a kind heart, and that ye've
always acted according to your light, the same as me. But there's more
light now, sir,--it's shining through the darkness, brighter than the
flashes of the cannon over there. In the moulding room just now it seems
to break all around me, and me crying like a child because the boy was
gone. There was things I hadn't seen before or if I saw them, it was
only dim-like, to trouble me (ASHER turns away) the same as you are
troubled now. And to think it's me that would pity you, Mr. Pindar! I
says to myself, I'll talk to him. I ain't got no learning, I can't find
the words I'm after--but maybe I can persuade him it ain't the same
world we're living in.

ASHER. I was ready to recognize that. Before they came to me this
morning I had made a plan to reorganize the shops, to grant many
privileges.

TIMOTHY. You'll excuse me, sir, but it's what they don't want,--anyone
to be granting them privileges, but to stand on their own feet, the same
as you. I never rightly understood until just now,--and that because I
was always looking up, while you'd be looking down, and seeing nothing
but the bent backs of them. It's inside we must be looking, sir,--and
God made us all the same, you and me, and Mr. George and my son Bert,
and the Polak and his wife and childher. It's the strike in every one of
us, sir,--and half the time we'd not know why we're striking!

ASHER. You're right there, Timothy

TIMOTHY. But that makes no difference, sir. It's what we can't be
reasoning, but the nature in us all--

(He flings his arm towa