From the day
Perspective: The Anxious Local · Sound
The distant clatter of the coal train is drowned out by the tinny, frantic piano of "Bill Bailey" blaring from the neighbor’s phonograph, but all I can hear is the grit of the strikers’ boots on the cobblestones. Blimey, the tension in the air is thick enough to choke on, and my heart hammers like a loose piston every time a troop transport rattles past toward the mines. I clutched my threadbare coat tighter, staring at the baker's window where a meager loaf now costs a staggering **$0.05**, a price that makes my head spin as fast as those new electric fans. If the riots don't break us, this shrinking purse surely will.