and a hundred women suspended their irons or dropped them. It was
Mary who had screamed so terribly, and Saxon saw a strange black animal
flapping great claw-like wings and nestling on Mary's shoulder. With the
scream, Mary crouched down, and the strange creature, darting into the
air, fluttered full into the startled face of a woman at the next board.
This woman promptly screamed and fainted. Into the air again, the flying
thing darted hither and thither, while the shrieking, shrinking women
threw up their arms, tried to run away along the aisles, or cowered
under their ironing boards.

"It's only a bat!" the forewoman shouted. She was furious. "Ain't you
ever seen a bat? It won't eat you!"

But they were ghetto people, and were not to be quieted. Some woman
who could not see the cause of the uproar, out of her overwrought
apprehension raised the cry of fire and precipitated the panic rush for
the doors. All of them were screaming the stupid, soul-sickening high
note of terror, drowning the forewoman's voice. Saxon had been merely
startled at first, but the screaming panic broke her grip on herself and
swept her away. Though she did not scream, she fled with the rest. When
this horde of crazed women debouched on the next department, those who
worked there joined in the stampede to escape from they knew not what
danger. In ten minutes the laundry was deserted, save for a few men
wandering about with hand grenades in futile search for the cause of the
disturbance.

The forewoman was stout, but indomitable. Swept along half the length
of an aisle by the terror-stricken women, she had broken her way back
through the rout and quickly caught the light-blinded visitant in a
clothes basket.

"Maybe I don't know what God looks like, but take it from me I've seen
a tintype of the devil," Mary gurgled, emotionally fluttering back and
forth between laughter and tears.

But Saxon was angry with herself, for she had been as frightened as the
rest in that wild flight for out-of-doors.

"We're a lot of fools," she said. "It was only a bat. I've heard about
them. They live in the country. They wouldn't hurt a fly. They can't see
in the daytime. That was what was the matter with this one. It was only
a bat."

"Huh, you can't string me," Mary replied. "It was the devil." She
sobbed a moment, and then laughed hysterically again. "Did you see Mrs.
Bergstrom faint? And it only touched her in the face. Why, it was on
my shoulder and