Upton Sinclair

“ For a few moments Hal stood dazed. He saw a stream of men and boys pouring from the breaker; while from every street there appeared a stream of women; women old, women young--leaving their cooking on the stove, their babies in the crib, with their older children screaming at their skirts, they gathered in swarms about the pit-mouth, which was like the steaming crater of a volcano.
Cartwright, the superintendent, appeared, running toward the fan-house. Cotton joined him, and Hal followed. The fan-house was a wreck, the giant fan lying on the ground a hundred feet away, its blades smashed. ”

“ Back to the smoking pit-mouth the two men hurried, with Hal following. Here were a hundred, two hundred women crowded, clamouring questions all at once. They swarmed about the marshal, the superintendent, the other bosses--even about Hal, crying hysterically in Polish and Bohemian and Greek. When Hal shook his head, indicating that he did not understand them, they moaned in anguish, or shrieked aloud. Some continued to stare into the smoking pit-mouth; others covered the sight from their eyes, or sank down upon their knees, sobbing, praying with uplifted hands. ”

“ Hal tried to get to Cotton, to ask him questions; but the camp-marshal was surrounded, besieged. He was pushing the women back, exclaiming, "Go away! Go home!"
What? Go home? they cried. When their men were in the mine? They crowded about him closer, imploring, shrieking.
"Get out!" he kept exclaiming. "There's nothing you can do! There's nothing anybody can do yet! Go home! Go home!" He had to beat them back by force, to keep them from pushing one another into the pit-mouth.
Everywhere Hal looked were women in attitudes of grief: standing rigid, staring ahead of them as if in a trance ”