The boy was eight. His mother and sisters were dead. The grippe, William thought, or scarlet fever. The lad had only his cooper father and two younger brothers. William thought of the poor father. His name was O'Neil. Out of work like him.

The boy had walked from town to Outer Cove. He had an aunt there. He thought she'd look after him. But she turned him out.

It was dark. The boy was tired. He fell into a snowbank and nearly died. Two men found him and looked after him for the night. In the morning they brought him back to town. The east end fire hall kept him until his father went to get him.

William rolled the paper up. It wasn't much comfort. Snow had begun to fall. He might get work shovelling. He slid the paper in his pocket and left the park bench.

On Water Street West a man let his horse drink at the horse fountain. Snow flakes melted on William's boots. He could see the factory where they made the boots, up on Job Street. At one time he would have got Nicholas Wadden's son to make his boots. He measured them, and made warm linings. But everything was factory work now.

William could not agree with it. No machine had the sense of a man. If you looked at the hands of a shoe-maker or a cooper you could see that.

This was what the cooper's strike in 1904 had been about, as far as he could see. Craft and skill.

William cast his mind back to the strike. We never asked for more money, he thought. All we wanted was work...