Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/259

 :—It is exasperating! Can you forsake your holiest duties in this world?


 * —What do you call my holiest duties?

husband and your children.
 * —Do you ask me that? Your duties to your


 * —I have other duties equally sacred.


 * —Impossible! What duties do you mean?


 * —My duties towards myself.


 * —Before all else you are a wife and a mother.

all else I am a human being, just as much as you are—or at least I will try to become one.
 * —That I no longer believe. I think that before

A Girl Strike-Leader

(American poetess, born 1886)

A white-faced, stubborn little thing Whose years are not quite twenty years, Eyes steely now and done with tears, Mouth scornful of its suffering—

The young mouth!—body virginal Beneath the cheap, ill-fitting suit, A bearing quaintly resolute, A flowering hat, satirical.

A soul that steps to the sound of the fife And banners waving red to war, Mystical, knowing scarce wherefore— A Joan in a modern strife.