"A big, warm room," he described it.
"Comrade," said he, "I had murder in my heart that night." So he stood there looking in with the revolver ready cocked in his hand.
"And what do you think I seen there ?" he asked.
"I cannot guess," I said.
"Well," said Bill Hahn, "I seen the great Robert Winter that we had been fighting for five long months--and he was down on his hands and knees on the carpet--he had his little daughter on his back--and he was creepin' about with her--an' she was laughin'." Bill Hahn paused.
"I had a bead on him," he said, "but I couldn't do it--I just couldn't do it." He came away all weak and trembling and cold, and, "Comrade," he said, "I was cryin' like a baby, and didn't know why." The next day the strike collapsed and there was the familiar stampede for work--but Bill Hahn did not go back.

He knew it would be useless.

A week later his frail daughter died and was buried in the paupers field.
"She was as truly killed," he said, "as though some one had fired a bullet at her through a window." "And what did you do after that ?" I asked, when he had paused for a long time with his chin on his breast.
"Well," said he, "I did a lot of thinking them days, and I says to myself: 'This thing is wrong, and I will go out and stop it--I will go out and stop it.'" As he uttered these words, I looked at him curiously--his absurd flat fur hat with the moth-eaten ears, the old bulging overcoat, the round spectacles, the scarred, insignificant face--he seemed somehow transformed, a person elevated above himself, the tool of some vast incalculable force.
I shall never forget the phrase he used to describe his own feelings when he had reached this astonishing decision to go out and stop the wrongs of the World.

He said he "began to feel all clean inside." "I see it didn't matter what become o' me, and I began to feel all clean inside." It seemed, he explained, as though something big and strong had got hold of him, and he began to be happy.
"Since then," he said in a low voice, "I've been happier than I ever was before in all my life.

I ain't got any family, nor any home--rightly speakin'-- nor any money, but, comrade, you see here in front of you, a happy man." When he had finished his story we sat quiet for some time.
"Well," said he, finally, "I must be goin'.