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Title
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THE MODE^f LIBRARY
of the World's Best Books
U. S. A,
The publishers will be pleased to send, upon
request, an illustrated folder setting jorth
the purpose and scope of THE MODERN
LIBRARY, and listing each volume in the
series. Every reader of boo\s will find titles
he has been looking for, handsomely printed,
in unabridged editions, and at an
unusually low price.
U. S. A.
I. The 42nd Parallel
II. Nineteen Nineteen
III. The Big Money
BY JOHN DOS PASSOS
^
THE MODERN LIBRARY
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1930, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937,
BY JOHN DOS PASSOS
THE MODERN LIBRARY
IS PUBLISHED BY
RANDOM HOUSE, INC.
BENNETT A. CERP DONA LD S . KLOPFER ROBERT K.HAAS
^Manufactured in the United States of America
By H. Wolff
JOHN DOS PASSOS
(1896- )
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR OF
"U.S.A."
By far the most ambitious undertaking of John Dos Passes'
career as a writer is the trilogy, U.S.A. The three novels, The
42nd Parallel, Nineteen Nineteen and The Big Money, are
brought together in one volume, thus fulfilling the author's
original intention of making these three panels an integrated lit-
erary pattern of contemporary American life.
Horn in Chicago, John Dos Passos received his early education
there and was graduated from Harvard University cum laude in
1916. Immediately afterward he served with the Harjcs, the
Red Cross and the U.S.A. Ambulance Services during the World
War. His novel, Three Soldiers, issued in 1921 (Modern Li-
brary No. 205), remains today one of the few war books to
survive as living literature. Since its appearance, each new work
of fiction has advanced John Dos Pnssos' development, and today
he is acknowledged!)* one of the 'world's foremost novelists. As a
participant in the American social struggle, notably as a cham-
pion of Sacco and Vanzctti, Dos Passos' record is quite as distin-
guished as is his achievement in the role of social commentator
and novelist.
U. S. A.
The young man walks fast by himself through the
crowd that thins into the night streets j feet are tired
from hours of walking; eyes greedy for warm curve of
faces, answering flicker of eyes, the set of a head, the
lift of a shoulder, the way hands spread and clench}
blood tingles with wants ; mind is a beehive of hopes
buzzing and stinging; muscles ache for the knowledge
of jobs, for the roadmender's pick and shovel work, the
fisherman's knack with a hook when he hauls on the
slithery net from the rail of the lurching trawler, the
swing of the bridgeman's arm as he slings down the
whitehot rivet, the engineer's slow grip wise on the
throttle, the dirtfarmer's use of his whole body when,
whoaing the mules, he yanks the plow from the fur-
row. The youhg man walks by himself searching
through the crowd with greedy eyes, greedy ears taut
to hear, by himself, alone.
The streets are empty. People have packed into
subways, climbed into streetcars and buses j in the sta-
tions they've scampered for suburban trains j they've
filtered into lodgings and tenements, gone up in eleva-
tors into apartmenthouses. In a showwindow two sal-
low windowdressers in their shirtsleeves are bringing
out a dummy girl in a red evening dress, at a corner
welders in masks lean into sheets of blue flame repair-
ing a cartrack, a few drunk bums shamble along, a sad
streetwalker fidgets under an arclight. From the river
comes the deep rumbling whistle of a steamboat leav-
ing dock. A tug hoots far away.
The young man walks by himself, fast but not
fast enough, far but not far enough (faces slide out of
sight, talk trails into tattered scraps, footsteps tap
fainter in alleys) $ he must catch the last subway, the
streetcar, the bus, run up the gangplanks of all the
steamboats, register at all the hotels, work in the cities,
answer the wantads, learn the trades, take up the jobs,
live in all the boardinghouses, sleep in all the beds.
One bed is not enough, one job is not enough, one life
is not enough. At night, head swimming with wants,
he walks by himself alone.
No job, no woman, no house, no city.
Only the ears busy to catch the speech are not
alone; the ears are caught tight, linked tight by the
tendrils of phrased words, the turn of a joke, the sing-
song fade of a story, the gruff fall of a sentence j link-
ing tendrils of speech twine through the city blocks,
spread over pavements, grow out along broad parked
avenues, speed with the trucks leaving on their long
night runs over roaring highways, whisper down sandy
byroads past wornout farms, joining up cities and fill-
ingstations, roundhouses, steamboats, planes groping
along airways j words call out on mountain pastures,
drift slow down rivers widening to the sea and the
hushed beaches.
It was not in the long walks through jostling
crowds at night that he was less alone, or in the train-
ing camp at Allentown, or in the day on the docks at
Seattle, or in the empty reek of Washington City hot
boyhood summer nights, or in the meal on Market
Street, or in the swim off the red rocks at San Diego,
or in the bed full of fleas in New Orleans, or in the
cold razorwind off the lake, or in the gray faces trem-
bling in the grind of gears in the street under Michigan
Avenue, or in the smokers of limited expresstrains, or
walking across country, or riding up the dry mountain
canyons, or the night without a sleepingbag among
frozen beartracks in the Yellowstone, or canoeing Sun-
days on the Quinnipiac;
vi
but in his mother's words telling about longago,
in his father's telling about when I was a boy, in the
kidding stories of uncles, in the lies the kids told at
school, the hired man's yarns, the tall tales the dough-
boys told after taps;
it was the speech that clung to the ears, the link
that tingled in the blood j U. S. A.
U. S. A. is the slice of a continent. U. S. A. is a
group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade
unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a
chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stock-
quotations rubbed out and written in by a Western
Union boy on a blackboard, a publiclibrary full of old
newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests
scrawled on the margins in pencil. U. S. A. is the
world's greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains
and hills, U. S. A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with
too many bankaccounts. U. S. A. is a lot of men buried
in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. U. S. A. is
the letters at the end of an address when you are away
from home. But mostly U. S. A. is the speech of the
people.
VII
THE
PARALLEL
CONTENTS
NEWSREEL i It was that emancipated race 3
The Camera Eye (i) when you walk along
the street you have to step carefully always 5
MAC 6
The Camera Eye (2) we hurry wallowing
like in a boat 13
MAC 14
NEWSREEL ii Come on and hear 23
The Camera Eye (3) O qu'il a dcs beaux yeux
said the lady 24
LOVER OF MANKIND 26
The Camera Eye (4) riding backwards through
the rain 28
MAC 29
NEWSREEL in "It takes nerve to live in this
world" 54
The Camera Eye (5) and we played the battle
of Port Arthur 55
NEWSREEL iv I met my love in the Alamo 56
The Camera Eye (6) Go it go it said Mr.
Linwood 57
NEWSREEL V BUGS DRIVE OUT BIOLOGIST 58
MAC 58
NEWSREEL vi Paris Shocked At Last 80
The Camera Eye (7) skating on the pond next
the silver company's mills 8 1
THE PLANT WIZARD 82
NEWSREEL VII SAYS THIS IS CENTURY WHERE
BILLIONS AND BRAINS ARE TO RULE 84
The Camera Eye (8) you sat on the bed un-
lacing your shoes 85
MAC 86
The Camera Eye (9) all day the fertilizer-
factories smelt something awful . 92
BIG BILL 93
The Camera Eye (10) the old major who
used to take me to the Capitol 96
MAC 98
NEWSREEL vni Prof Ferrer, former director of
the Modern School 107
The Camera Eye ( 1 1 ) the Pennypackers went
to the Presbyterian church 108
NEWSREEL IX FORFEIT STARS BY DRINKING IO9
MAC no
The Camera Eye (12) when everybody went
away for a trip 129
tfEWSREEL X MOON'S PATENT IS FIZZLE 130
The Camera Eye (13) he was a towboat cap-
tain and he knew the river 131
JANEY 133
The Camera Eye (14) Sunday nights when
we had fishballs and baked beans 1 47
vi
NEWSREEL xi the government of the United
States must insist 148
JANEY 150
The Camera Eye (15) in the mouth of the
Schuylkill 1 66
NEWSREEL xii Greeks in battle flee before cops 167
THE BOY ORATOR OF THE
PL ATT E 169
The Camera Eye (16) it was hot as a bake-
oven going through the canal 173
J. WARD MOOREHOUSE 174
The Camera Eye (17) the spring you could
see Halley's Comet 206
NEWSREEL xin I was in front of the national
palace 208
ELEANOR STODDARD 209
The Camera Eye ( 1 8) she was a very fashion-
able lady 223
ELEANOR STODDARD 224
The Camera Eye (19) the methodist min-
ister's wife was a tall thin woman 238
NEWSREEL XIV BOMBARDIER STOPS AUSTRALIAN 239
EMPEROR OF THE CARIBBEAN 241
The Camera Eye (20) when the streetcarmen
went out on strike 245
J. WARD MOOREHOUSE 246
The Camera Eye (21) that August it never
rained a drop 260
vii
NEWSREEL xv lights go out as Home Sweet
Home 262
PRINCE OF PEACE 264
The Camera Eye (22) all week the fog clung
to the sea 265
J. WARD MOOREHOUSE 267
NEWSREEL xvi the Philadelphia!! had com-
pleted the thirteenth lap 274
The Camera Eye (23) this friend of mother's
was a very lovely 275
ELEANOR STODDARD 276
The Camera Eye (24) raining in historic
Quebec it was raining 283
fANEY 285
THE ELECTRICAL WIZARD 297
The Camera Eye (25) those spring nights the
streetcarwheels screech 301
NEWSREEL xvn an attack by a number of hos-
tile airships 303
MAC 304
PROTEUS 325
JANEY 328
The Camera Eye (26) the garden was crowded
and outside 349
NEWSREEL xviii Goodby Piccadilly, farewell
Leicester Square 350
viii
ELEANOR STODDARD 351
NEWSREEL XIX U. S. AT WAR 361
The Camera Eye (27) there were priests and
nuns on the Es-pagne 362
FIGHTING BOB 365
CHARLEY ANDERSON 369
NEWSREEL 1
It was that emancipated race
That was char gin uf the hill
Up to where them insurrectos
Was afightin fit to kill
CAPITAL CITY'S CENTURY CLOSED
General Miles with his gaudy uniform and spirited
charger was the center for all eyes especially as his steed was
extremely restless. Just as the band passed the Commanding
General his horse stood upon his hind legs and was almost
erect. General Miles instantly reined in the frightened animal
and dug in his spurs in an endeavor to control the horse which
to the horror of the spectators, fell over backwards and landed
squarely on the Commanding General. Much to the gratifi-
cation of the people General Miles was not injured but con-
siderable skin was scraped off the flank of the horse. Almost
every inch of General Miles's overcoat was covered with the
dust of the street and between the shoulders a hole about an
inch in diameter was punctured. Without waiting for anyone
to brush the dust from his garments General Miles remounted
his horse and reviewed the parade as if it were an everyday
occurrence.
The incident naturally attracted the attention of the
crowd, and this brought to notice the fact that the Command-
ing General never permits a flag to be carried past him with-
out uncovering and remaining so until the colors have past
And the Captain bold of Co?npany B
Was afightin in the lead
Just like a trueborn soldier he
Of them bullets took no heed
OFFICIALS KNOW NOTHING OF VICE
Sanitary trustees turn water of Chicago River into drain-v
age canal LAKE MICHIGAN SHAKES HANDS WITH
THE FATHER OF THE WATERS German zuchter
3
rerein singing contest for canary-birds opens the fight for
bimetallism at the ratio of 16 to I has not been lost says Bryan
BRITISH BEATEN AT MAFEKING
For there's many a man been murdered in Luzon
CLAIMS ISLANDS FOR ALL TIME
Hamilton Club Listens to Oratory by Ex-Congressman
Posey of Indiana
NOISE GREETS NEW CENTURY
LABOR GREETS NEW CENTURY
CHURCHES GREET NEW CENTURY
Mr. McKinley is hard at work in his office when the new
year begins.
NATION GREETS CENTURY'S DAWN
Responding to a toast, Hail Columbia! at the Columbia
Club banquet in Indianapolis, Ind., ex-President Benjamin
Harrison said in part: I have no argument to make here or
anywhere against territorial expansion; but I do not, as some
do, look upon territorial expansion as the safest and most attrac-
tive avenue of national development. By the advantages of
abundant and cheap coal and iron, of an enormous over-
production of food products and of invention and economy in
production, we are now leading by the nose the original and
the greatest of the colonizing nations.
Society Girls Shocked: Danced with Detectives
For there's many a man been murdered in Luzon
and Mindanao
GAIETY GIRLS MOBBED IN NEW JERSEY
One of the lithographs of the leading lady represented her
in less than Atlantic City bathing costume, sitting on a red-hot
stove; in one hand she held a brimming glass of wine, in the
other ribbons drawn over a pair of rampant lobsters.
4
For then** many a man been murdered m Luzon
and Mindanao
and in Samaf
In responding to the toast, "The Twentieth Century,"
Senator Albert J. Beveridge said in part: The twentieth cen-
tury will be American. American thought will dominate it.
American progress will give it color and direction. American
deeds will make it illustrious.
Civilization will never lose its hold on Shanghai. CiviUza-
tion will never depart from Hongkong. The gates of Peking
will never again be closed to the methods of modern man.
The regeneration of the world y physical as well as moral y has
begun, and revolutions never move backwards.
There y s been many a good man murdered in the Philippine
Lies sleeping in some lonesome grave.
THE CAMERA EYE (i)
when you walk along the street you have to step
carefully always on the cobbles so as not to step on the
bright anxious grassblades easier if you hold Mother's
hand and hang on it that way you can kick up your toes
but walking fast you have to tread on too many grass-
blades the poor hurt green tongues shrink under your
feet maybe thats why those people are so angry and
follow us shaking their fists they're throwing stones
grownup people throwing stones She's walking fast and
we're running her pointed toes sticking oxit sharp among
the poor trodden grassblades under the shaking folds of
5
the brown cloth dress Englander a pebble tinkles
dong the cobbles
Quick darling quick in the postcard shop its quiet the
angry people are outside and cant come in non nein
nicht englander amerikanisch americain Hoch Amerika
Vive PAmerique She laughs My dear they had me right
frightened
war on the veldt Kruger Bloemfontein Ladysmith
and Queen Victoria an old lady in a pointed lace cap sent
chocolate to the soldiers at Christmas
under the counter it's dark and the lady the nice
Dutch lady who loves Americans and has relations in
Trenton shows you postcards that shine in the dark
pretty hotels and palaces O que c'est beau schon
prittie prittie and the moonlight ripple ripple under a
bridge and the little reverberes are alight in the dark
under the counter and the little windows of hotels around
the harbor O que c'est beau la lune
and the big moon
MAC
When the wind set from the silver factories across the
river the air of the gray fourfamily frame house where
Fainy McCreary was born was choking all day with the
smell of whaleoil soap. Other days it smelt of cabbage
and babies and Mrs. McCreary's washboilers. Fainy could
6
never play at home because Pop, a lame cavechested man
with a whispy blondegray mustache, was nightwatchman
at the Chadwick Mills and slept all day. It was only round
five o'clock that a curling whiff of tobacco smoke would
seep through from the front room into the kitchen. That
was a sign that Pop was up and in good spirits, and would
soon be wanting his supper.
Then Fainy would be sent running out to one of two
corners of the short muddy street of identical frame
houses where they lived.
To the right it was half a block to Finley's where he
would have to wait at the bar in a forest of mudsplattered
trouserlegs until all the rank brawling mouths of grown-
ups had been stopped with beers and whiskeys. Then he
would walk home, making each step very carefully, with
the handle of the pail of suds cutting into his hand.
To the left it was half a block to Maginnis's Fancy
Groceries, Home and Imported Products. Fainy liked the
cardboard Cream of Wheat darkey in the window, the
glass case with different kinds of salami in it, the barrels
of potatoes and cabbages, the brown smell of sugar, saw-
dust, ginger, kippered herring, ham, vinegar, bread, pep-
per, lard.
"A loaf of bread, please, mister, a half pound of butter
and a box of ginger snaps."
Some evenings, when Mom felt poorly, Fainy had to
go further j round the corner past Maginnis's, down Riv-
erside Avenue where the trolley ran, and across the red
bridge over the little river that flowed black between icy
undercut snowbanks in winter, yellow and spuming in the
spring thaws, brown and oily in summer. Across the river
all the way to the corner of Riverside and Main, where
the drugstore was, lived Bohunks and Polaks. Their kids
were always fighting with the kids of the Murphys and
O'Haras and O'Flanagans who lived on Orchard Street.
Fainy would walk along with his knees quaking, the
7
inedicine bottle in its white paper tight in one mittened
hand. At the corner of Quince was a group of boys he'd
have to pass. Passing wasn't so bad; it was when he was
about twenty yards from them that the first snowball
would hum by his ear. There was no comeback. If he
broke into a run, they'd chase him. If he dropped the
medicine bottle he'd be beaten up when he got home. A
soft one would plunk on the back of his head and the snow
began to trickle down his neck. When he was a half a
block from the bridge he'd take a chance and run for it.
"Scared cat ... Shanty Irish . . . Bowlegged Mur-
phy . . . Running home to tell the cop" . . . would
yell the Polak and Bohunk kids between snowballs. They
made their snowballs hard by pouring water on them and
leaving them to freeze overnight; if one of those hit him
it drew blood.
The backyard was the only place you could really feel
safe to pjay in. There were brokendown fences, dented
garbage cans, old pots and pans too nearly sieves to mend,
a vacant chickencoop that still had feathers and droppings
on the floor, hogweed in summer, mud in winter; but the
glory of the McCrearys' backyard was Tony Harriman's
rabbit hutch, where he kept Belgian hares. Tony Harri-
man was a consumptive and lived with his mother on the
ground floor left. He wanted to raise all sorts of other
small animals too, raccoons, otter, even silver fox, he'd get
rich that way. The day he died nobody could find the key
to the big padlock on the door of the rabbit hutch. Fainy
fed the hares for several days by pushing in cabbage and
lettuce leaves through the double thickness of chickenwire.
Then came a week of sleet and rain when he didn't go out
in the yard. The first fine day, when he went to look, one
of the hares was dead. Fainy turned white; he tried to tell
himself the hare was asleep, but it lay gawkily stiff, not
asleep. The other hares were huddled in a corner looking
8
about with twitching noses, their big ears flopping helples*
over their backs. Poor hares; Fainy wanted to cry. He ran
upstairs to his mother's kitchen, ducked under the ironing
board and got the hammer out of the drawer in the
kitchen table. The first time he tried he mashed his finger,
but the second time he managed to jump the padlock. In-
side the cage there was a funny, sour smell. Fainy picked
the dead hare up by its ears. Its soft white belly was be-
ginning to puff up, one dead eye was scaringly open.
Something suddenly got hold of Fainy and made him
drop the hare in the nearest garbage can and run upstairs.
Still cold and trembling, he tiptoed out onto the back
porch and looked down. Breathlessly he watched the other
hares. By cautious hops they were getting near the door
of the hutch into the yard. One of them was out. It sat
up on its hind legs, limp ears suddenly stiff. Mom called
him to bring her a flatiron from the stove. When he got
back to the porch the hares were all gone.
That winter there was a strike in the Chadwick Mills
and Pop lost his job. He would sit all day in the front
room smoking and cursing:
"Ablebodied man by Jesus, if I couldn't lick any one
of those damn Polaks with my crutch tied behind my
back ... I says so to Mr. Barry; I ain't goin' to join no
strike. Mr. Barry, a sensible quiet man, a bit of an invalid,
with a wife an' kiddies to think for. Eight years I've been
watchman, an' now you give me the sack to take on a bunch
of thugs from a detective agency. The dirty pugnosed
son of a bitch."
"If those damn lousy furreners hadn't a walked out,"
somebody would answer soothingly.
The strike was not popular on Orchard Street. It meant
that Mom had to work harder and harder, doing bigger
and bigger boilersful of wash, and that Fainy and his
older sister Milly had to help when they came home
from school. And then one day Mom got sick and had to
go back to bed instead of starting in on the ironing, and
lay with her round white creased face whiter than the pil-
low and her watercreased hands in a knot under her chin.
The doctor came and the district nurse, and all three
rooms of the flat smelt of doctors and nurses and drugs,
and the only place Fainy and Milly could find to sit was
on the stairs. There they sat and cried quietly together.
Then Mom's face on the pillow shrank into a little creased
white thing like a rumpled up handkerchief and they said
that she was dead and took her away.
The funeral was from the undertaking parlors on River-
side Avenue on the next block. Fainy felt very proud and
important because everybody kissed him and patted his
head and said he was behaving like a little man. He had
a new black suit on, too, like a grownup suit with pockets
and everything, except that it had short pants. There were
all sorts of people at the undertaking parlors he had never
been close to before, Mr. Russell, the butcher and Father
O'Donnell and Uncle Tim O'Hara who'd come on from
Chicago, and it smelt of whisky and beer like at Finley's.
Uncle Tim was a skinny man with a knobbed red face and
blurry blue eyes. He wore a loose black silk tie that wor-
ried Fainy, and kept leaning down suddenly, bending
from the waist as if he was going to close up like a jack-
knife, and whispering in a thick voice in Fainy's ear.
"Don't you mind 'em, old sport, they're a bunch o j
bums and hypocrytes, stewed to the ears most of 'em
already. Look at Father O'Donnell the fat swine already
figurin' up the burial fees. But don't you mind 'em, re-
member you're an O'Hara on your mother's side. I don't
mind 'em, old sport, and she was my own sister by birth
and blood."
When they got home he was terribly sleepy and his feet
were cold and wet. Nobody paid any attention to him. He
sat whimpering on the edge of the bed in the dark. In
tta front room there were voices and a sound of knives
TO
and forks, but he didn't dare go in there. He curled up
against the wall and went to sleep. Light in his eyes woke
him up. Uncle Tim and Pop were standing over him talk-
ing loud. They looked funny and didn't seem to be stand-
ing very steady. Uncle Tim held the lamp.
"Well, Fainy, old sport," said Uncle Tim giving the
lamp a perilous wave over Fainy's head. "Fenian O'Hara
McCreary, sit up and take notice and tell us what you
think of our proposed removal to the great and growing
city of Chicago. Middletown's a terrible bitch of a dump
if you ask me ... Meanin' no offense, John . . . But
Chicago . . . Jesus God, man, when you get there you'll
think you've been dead and nailed up in a coffin all these
years."
Fainy was scared. He drew his knees up to his chin and
looked tremblingly at the two big swaying figures of men
lit by the swaying lamp. He tried to speak but the words
dried up on his lips.
"The kid's asleep, Tim, for all your speechifyin' . . .
Take your clothes off, Fainy, and get into bed and get a
good night's sleep. We're leavin' in the mornin'."
And late on a rainy morning, without any breakfast,
with a big old swelltop trunk tied up with rope joggling
perilously on the roof of the cab that Fainy had been sent
to order from Hodgeson's Livery Stable, they set out.
Milly was crying. Pop didn't say a word but sucked on
an unlit pipe. Uncle Tim handled everything, making
little jokes all the time that nobody laughed at, pulling
a roll of bills out of his pocket at every juncture, or taking
great gurgling sips out of the flask he had in his pocket.
Milly cried and cried. Fainy looked out with big dry eyes
at the familiar streets, all suddenly odd and lopsided, that
rolled past the cab*, the red bridge, the scabshingled
houses where the Polaks lived, Smith's and Smith's cor-
ner drugstore . . . there was Billy Hogan just coming
ii
out with a package of chewing gum in his hand. Playing
hookey again. Fainy had an impulse to yell at him, but
something froze it ... Main with its elms and street
cars, blocks of stores round the corner of Church, and
then the fire department. Fainy looked for the last time
into the dark cave where shone entrancingly the brass and
copper curves of the engine, then past the cardboard fronts
of the First Congregational Church, The Carmel Baptist
Church, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church built of brick and
set catercornered on its lot instead of straight with a stern
face to the street like the other churches, then the three
castiron stags on the lawn in front of the Commercial
House, and the residences, each with its lawn, each with
its scrollsaw porch, each with its hydrangea bush. Then
the houses got smaller, and the lawns disappeared j the
cab trundled round past Simpson's Grain and Feed Ware-
house, along a row of barbershops, saloons and lunch-
rooms, and they were all getting out at the station.
At the station lunchcounter Uncle Tim set everybody
up to breakfast. He dried Milly's tears and blew Fainy's
nose in a big new pockethandkerchief that still had the tag
on the corner and set them to work on bacon and eggs and
coffee. Fainy hadn't had coffee before, so the idea of sit-
ting up like a man and drinking coffee made him feel
pretty good. Milly didn't like hers, said it was bitter.
They were left all alone in the lunchroom for sometime
with the empty plates and empty coffee cups under the
beady eyes of a woman with the long neck and pointed
face of a hen who looked at them disapprovingly from
behind the counter. Then with an enormous, shattering
rumble, sludgepuff sludge . . . puff, the train came into
the station. They were scooped up and dragged across
the platform and through a pipesmoky car and before
they knew it the train was moving and the wintry russet
Connecticut landscape was clattering by.
THE CAMERA EYE (2)
we hurry wallowing like in a boat in the musty
stablysmelling herdic cab He kept saying What would
you do Lucy if I were to invite one of them to my table?
They're very lovely people Lucy the colored people and
He had cloves in a little silver box and a rye whisky smell
on his breath hurrying to catch the cars to New York
and She was saying Oh dolly I hope we wont be
late and Scott was waiting with the tickets and we had to
run up the platform of the Seventh Street Depot and all
the little cannons kept falling out of the Olympia and
everybody stooped to pick them up and the conductor
Allaboard lady quick lady
they were little brass cannons and were bright in the
sun on the platform of the Seventh Street Depot and Scott
hoisted us all up and the train was moving and the engine
bell was ringing and Scott put in your hand a little handful
of brass tiny cannons just big enough to hold the smallest
size red firecracker at the battle of Manila Bay and said
Here's the artillery Jack
and He was holding forth in the parlor car Why
Lucy if it were necessary for the cause of humanity I
would walk out and be shot any day you would Jack
wouldn't you? wouldn't you porter? who was bringing
appolinaris and He had a flask in the brown grip where
13
the silk initialed handkerchiefs always smelt of bay rum
and when we got to Havre de Grace He said Re-
member Lucy we used to have to ferry across the Susque-
hanna before the bridge was built
and across Gunpowder Creek too
.MAC
Russet hills, patches of woods, farmhouses, cows, a red
colt kicking up its heels in a pasture, rail fences, streaks
of marsh.
"Well, Tim, I feel like a whipped cur ... So long as
I've lived, Tim, I've tried to do the right thing," Pop
kept repeating in a rattling voice. "And now what can they
be asayin' about me?"
"Jesus God, man, there was nothin* else you could do,
was there? What the devil can you do if you haven't any
money and haven't any job and a lot o' doctors and under-
takers and landlords come round with their bills and you
with two children to support?"
"But I've been a quiet and respectable man, steady and
misfortunate ever since I married and settled down. And
now what'll they be thinkin' of me sneakin' out like a
whipped cur?"
"John, take it from me that Fd be the last one to want
to bring disrespect on the dead that was my own sister by
birth and blood , . . But it ain't your fault and it ain't
my fault . . . it's the fault of poverty, and poverty's the
fault of the system . . . Fenian, you listen to Tim
O'Hara for a minute and Milly you listen too, cause a
girl ought to know these things just as well as a man and
for once in his life Tim O'Hara's tellin' the truth . . .
It's the fault of the system that don't give a man the fruit
of his labor . . . The only man that gets anything out of
capitalism is a crook, an' he gets to be a millionaire in
short order . . . But an honest workin' man like John or
muself we can work a hundred years and not leave enough
to bury us decent with."
Smoke rolled white in front of the window shaking out
of its folds trees and telegraph poles and little square
shingleroofed houses and towns and trolleycars, and long
rows of buggies with steaming horses standing in line.
"And who gets the fruit of our labor, the goddam busi-
ness men, agents, middlemen who never did a productive
piece of work in their life."
Fainy's eyes are following the telegraph wires that sag
and soar.
"Now, Chicago ain't no paradise, I can promise you
that, John, but it's a better market for a workin' man's
muscle and brains at present than the East is ... And
why, did you ask me why . . . ? Supply and demand,
they need workers in Chicago."
"Tim, I tellyer 1 feel like a whipped cur."
"It's the system, John, it's the goddam lousy system."
A great bustle in the car woke Fainy up. It was dark,
Milly was crying again. He didn't know where he was.
"Well, gentlemen," Uncle Tim was saying, "we're
about to arrive in little old New York."
In the station it was light j that surprised Fainy, who
thought it was already night. He and Milly were left a
long time sitting on a suitcase in the waitingroom. The
waitingroom was huge, full of unfamiliarlooking people,
scary like people in picturebooks. Milly kept crying.
"Hey, Milly, I'll biff you one if you don't stop crying."
"Why?" whined Milly, crying all the more.
Fainy stood as far away from her as possible so that
people wouldn't think they were together. When he was
15
about ready to cry himself Pop and Uncle Tim came and
took them and the suitcase into the restaurant. A strong
smell of fresh whisky came from their breaths, and they
seemed very bright around the eyes. They all sat at a table
with a white cloth and a sympathetic colored man in a
white coat handed them a large card full of printing.
"Let's eat a good supper," said Uncle Tim, "if it's the
last thing we do on this earth."
"Damn the expense," said Pop, "it's the system that's
to blame."
"To hell with the pope," said Uncle Tim. "We'll make
a social-democrat out of you yet."
They gave Fainy fried oysters and chicken and ice-
cream and cake, and when they all had to run for the train
he had a terrible stitch in his side. They got into a day-
coach that smelt of coalgas and armpits. "When are we
going to bed?" Milly began to whine. "We're not going
to bed," said Uncle Tim airily. "We're going to sleep
right here like little mice . . . like little mice in a
cheese." "I doan like mice," yelled Milly with a new
flood of tears as the train started.
Fainy 's eyes smarted j in his ears was the continuous
roar, the clatter clatter over crossings, the sudden snarl
under bridges. It was a tunnel, all the way to Chicago it
was a tunnel. Opposite him Pop's and Uncle Tim's faces
looked red and snarling, he didn't like the way they
looked, and the light was smoky and jiggly and outside
it was all a tunnel and his eyes hurt and wheels and rails
roared in his ears and he fell asleep.
When he woke up it was a town and the train was run-
ning right through the main street. It was a sunny morn-
ing. He could see people going about their business, stores,
buggies and spring-wagons standing at the curb, newsboys
selling newspapers, wooden Indians outside of cigarstores.
&t first he thought he was dreaming, but then he remem-
bered and decided it must be Chicago. Pop and Uncle Tim
16
were asleep on the seat opposite. Their mouths were open,
their faces were splotched and he didn't like the way they
looked. Milly was curled up with a wooly shawl all ovei
her. The train was slowing down, it was a station. If it wai
Chicago they ought to get off. At that moment the con-
ductor passed, an old man who looked a little like Fathei
O'Donnell.
"Please, mister, is this Chicago?" "Chicago's a long way
off yet, son," said the conductor without smiling. "This is
Syracuse."
And they all woke up, and for hours and hours the
telephone poles went by, and towns, frame houses, brick
factories with ranks and ranks of glittering windows,
dumping grounds, trainyards, plowed land, pasture, and
cows, and Milly got trainsick and Fainy's legs felt like
they would drop off from sitting in the seat so long; some
places it was snowing and some places it was sunny, and
Milly kept getting sick and smelt dismally of vomit, and
it got dark and they all slept; and light again, and then
the towns and the framehouses and the factories all started
drawing together, humping into warehouses and elevators,
and the trainyards spread out as far as you could see and
it was Chicago.
But it was so cold and the wind blew the dust so hard
in his face and his eyes were so stuck together by dust and
tiredness that he couldn't look at anything. After they had
waited round a long while, Milly and Fainy huddled to-
gether in the cold, they got on a streetcar and rode and
rode. They were so sleepy they never knew exactly where
the train ended and the streetcar began. Uncle Tim's voice
went on talking proudly excitedly, Chicago, Chicago, Chi-
cago. Pop sat with his chin on his crutch. "Tim, I feel like
a whipped cur."
Fainy lived ten years in Chicago.
At first he went to school and played baseball on back
lots on Saturday afternoons, but then came his last com-
mencement, and all the children sang My Country y 'Tis
Of Thee, and school was over and he had to go to work.
Uncle Tim at that time had his own jobprinting shop on
a dusty side street off North Clark in the ground floor of
a cranky old brick building. It only occupied a small sec-
tion of the building that was mostly used as a ware-
house and was famous for its rats. It had a single wide
plateglass window made resplendent by gold Old English
lettering: TIMOTHY O'HARA, JOB PRINTER.
"Now, Fainy, old sport," said Uncle Tim, "you'll have
a chance to learn the profession from the ground up." So
he ran errands, delivered packages of circulars, throw-
aways, posters, was always dodging trolleycars, ducking
from under the foamy bits of big truckhorses, bumming
rides on deliverywagons. When there were no errands to
run he swept out under the presses, cleaned type, emptied
the office wastepaper basket, or, during rush times, ran
round th corner for coffee and sandwiches for the type-
setter, or for a small flask of bourbon for Uncle Tim.
Pop puttered round on his crutch for several years,
always looking for a job. Evenings he smoked his pipe
and cursed his luck on the back stoop of Uncle Tim's
house and occasionally threatened to go back to Middle-
town. Then one day he got pneumonia and died quietly
at the Sacred Heart Hospital. It was about the same time
that Uncle Tim bought a linotype machine.
Uncle Tim was so excited he didn't take a drink for
three days. The floorboards were so rotten they had to
build a brick base for the linotype all the way up from
the cellar. "Well, when we get another one we'll concrete
the whole place," Uncle Tim told everybody. For a whole
day there was no work done. Everybody stood around
looking at the tall black intricate machine that stood there
like an organ in a church. When the machine was work-
ing and the printshop filled with the hot smell of molten
metal, everybody's eyes followed the quivering inquisitive
18
arm that darted and flexed above the keyboard. When
they handed round the warm shiny slugs of type the old
German typesetter who for some reason they called Mike
pushed back his glasses on his forehead and cried. "Fifty-
five years a printer, and now when I'm old I'll have to
carry hods to make a living."
The first print Uncle Tim set up on the new machine
was the phrase: Workers of the world unite 5 you have
nothing to lose but your chains.
When Fainy was seventeen and just beginning to worry
about skirts and ankles and girls' underwear when he
walked home from work in the evening and saw the lights
of the city bright against the bright heady western sky,
there was a strike in the Chicago printing trades. Tim
O'Hara had always run a union shop and did all the union
printing at cost. He even got up a handbill signed, A Citi-
zen, entitled An Ernest Protest, which Fainy was allowed
to set up on the linotype one evening after the operator
had gone home. One phrase stuck in Fainy's mind, and
he repeated it to himself after he had gone to bed that
night: It is time for all honest men to band together to
resist the ravages of greedy privilege.
The next day was Sunday, and Fainy went along
Michigan Avenue with a package of the handbills to dis-
tribute. It was a day of premature spring. Across the rot-
ting yellow ice on the lake came little breezes that smelt
unexpectedly of flowers. The girls looked terribly pretty
and their skirts blew in the wind and Fainy felt the spring
blood pumping hot in him, he wanted to kiss and to roll
on the ground and to run out across the icecakes and to
make speeches from the tops of telegraph poles and to
vault over trolleycars; but instead he distributed hand-
bills and worried about his pants being frayed and wished
he had a swell looking suit and a swell looking girl to
walk with.
"Hey, young feller, where's your permit to distribute
them handbills?" It was a cop's voice growling in his ear,
Fainy gave the cop one look over his shoulder, dropped
the handbills and ran. He ducked through between the
shiny black cabs and carriages, ran down a side street and
walked and walked and didn't look back until he managed
to get across a bridge just before the draw opened. The
cop wasn't following him anyway.
He stood on the curb a long time with the whistle of
a peanutstand shrilling derisively in his ear.
That night at supper his uncle asked him about the
handbills.
"Sure I gave 'em out all along the lakeshore ... A
cop tried to stop me but I told him right where to get
off." Fainy turned burning red when a hoot went up from
everybody at the table. He filled up his mouth with
mashed potato and wouldn't say any more. His aunt and
his uncle and their three daughters all laughed and
laughed. "Well, it's a good thing you ran faster than the
cop," said Uncle Tim, "else I should have had to bail you
out and that would have cost money."
The next morning early Fainy was sweeping out the
office, when a man with a face like a raw steak walked up
the steps; he was smoking a thin black stogy of a sort
Fainy had never seen before. He knocked on the ground
glass door.
"I want to speak to Mr. O'Hara, Timothy O'Hara."
"He's not here yet, be here any minute now, sir. Will
you wait?"
"You bet I'll wait." The man sat on the edge of a
chair and spat, first taking the chewed end of the stogy
out of his mouth and looking at it meditatively for a long
time. When Tim O'Hara came the office door closed with
a bang. Fainy hovered nervously around, a little bit afraid
the man might be a detective following up the affair of
the handbills. Voices rose and fell, the stranger's voice in
short rattling tirades, O'Hara's voice in long expostulating
20
clauses, now and then Fainy caught the word foreclose,
until suddenly the door flew open and the stranger shot
out, his face purpler than ever. On the iron stoop he
turned and pulling a new stogy from his pocket, lit it from
the old one; growling the words through the stogy and
the blue puff of smoke, he said, "Mr. O'Hara, you have
twenty-four hours to think it over ... A word from you
and proceedings stop immediately." Then he went off
down the street leaving behind him a long trail of rancid
smoke.
A minute later, Uncle Tim came out of the office, his
face white as paper. "Fenian, old sport," he said, "you
go get yourself a job. I'm going out of business . . *
Keep a weather eye open. I'm going to have a drink."
And he was drunk for six days. By the end of that time
a number of meeklooking men appeared with summonses,
and Uncle Tim had to sober up enough to go down to the
court and put in a plea of bankruptcy.
Mrs. O'Hara scolded and stormed, "Didn't I tell you, .
Tim O'Hara, no good'll ever come with your fiddlin 1
round with these godless labor unions and social-democrats
and knights of labor, all of 'em drunk and loafin' bums
like yourself, Tim O'Hara. Of course the master printers
ud have to get together and buy up your outstandin'
paper and squash you, and serve you right too, Tim
O'Hara, you and your godless socialistic boosin' ways only
they might have thought of your poor wife and her help-
less wee babes, and now we'll starve all of us together, ui
and the dependents and hangers on youVe brought into
the house."
"Well, I declare," cried Fainy's sister Milly. "If I
haven't slaved and worked my fingers to the bone for
every piece of bread I've eaten in this house," and she
got up from the breakfast table and flounced out of the
room. Fainy sat there while the storm raged above his
head; then he got up, slipping a corn muffin into his
21
pocket as he went. In the hall he found the "help wanted"
section of the Chicago Tnbune y took his cap and went out
into a raw Sunday morning full of churchbells jangling
in his ears. He boarded a streetcar and went out to Lin-
coln Park. There he sat on a bench for a long time munch-
ing the muffin and looking down the columns of adver-
tisements: Boy Wanted. But they none of them looked
very inviting. One thing he was bound, he wouldn't get
another job in a printing shop until the strike was over.
Then his eye struck
Bright boy wanted with amb. and lit. taste, knowledge
of print, and pub. business. Conf. sales and distrib. propo-
sition $15 a week apply by letter P.O. Box i256b
Fainy's head suddenly got very light. Bright boy, that's
me, ambition and literary taste . . . Gee, I must finish
Looking Backward . . . and jez, I like reading fine,
an' I could run a linotype or set up print if anybody'd let
me. Fifteen bucks a week . . . pretty soft, ten dollars'
raise. And he began to write a letter in his head, apply-
ing for the job.
DEAR SIR (Mr DEAR SIR)
or maybe GENTLEMEN,
In applying for the position you offer in today's
Sunday Tribune I want to apply, (allow me to state) that
I'm seventeen years old, no, nineteen, with several years'
experience in the printing and publishing trades, ambitious
and with excellent knowledge and taste in the printing and
publishing trades,
no, I can't say that twice . . . And I'm very anxious
for the job ... As he went along it got more and more
muddled in his head.
He found he was standing beside a peanut wagon. It
was cold as blazes, a razor wind was shrieking across the
broken ice and the black patches of water of the lake. He
22
tore out the ad and let the rest of the paper go with th*
wind. Then he bought himself a warm package of peanuts.
NEWSREEL II
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
In his address to the Michigan state Legislature the retir-
ing governor, Hazen S. Pingree, said in part: I make the pre-
diction that unless those in charge and in whose hands legisla-
tion is reposed do not change the present system of inequality,
there will be a bloody revolution in less than a quarter of a
century in this great country of ours.
CARNEGIE TALKS OF HIS EPITAPH
Alexander*! Ragtime Band
It is the best
It is the best
the luncheon which was served in the physical laboratory
was replete with novel features. A miniature blastfurnace four
feet high was on the banquet table and a narrow gauge rail-
road forty feet long ran round the edge of the table. Instead
of molten metal the blastfurnace poured hot punch into small
cars on the railroad. Icecream was served in the shape of rail-
road ties and bread took the shape of locomotives.
Mr. Carnegie, while extolling the advantages of higher
education in every branch of learning, came at last to this con-
clusion: Manual labor has been found to be the best foundation
for the greatest work of the brain.
VICE PRESIDENT EMPTIES A BANK
Come on and hear
Alexander's Ragtime Band
23
It is the best
It is the best
brother of Jesse James declares play picturing him as
bandit trainrobber and outlaw is demoralizing district battle
ends with polygamy, according to an investigation by Salt Lake
ministers, still practiced by Mormons clubwomen gasp
It Is the best band in the land
say circus animals only eat Chicago horsemeat Taxsale of
Indiana lots marks finale of World's Fair boom uses flag as
ragbag killed on cannibal isle keeper falls into water and sea-
lions attack him.
The launch then came alongside the half deflated balloon
of the aerostat which threatened at any moment to smother
Santos Dumont. The latter was half pulled and half clam-
bered over the gunwale into the boat.
The prince of Monaco urged him to allow himself to be
taken on board the yacht to dry himself and change his clothes.
Santos Dumont would not leave the launch until everything
that could be saved had been taken ashore, then, wet but
smiling and unconcerned, he landed amid the frenzied cheers
of the crowd.
THE CAMERA EYE (3)
O qu'il a des beaux yeux said the lady in the seat
opposite but She said that was no way to talk to children
and the little boy felt all hot and sticky but it was dusk
and the lamp shaped like half a melon was coming on
dim red and the train rumbled and suddenly I've been
asleep and it's black dark and the blue tassel bobs on the
of the dark shade shaped like a melon and every-
24
where there are pointed curved shadows (the first time
He came He brought a melon and the sun was coming in
through the tall lace windowcurtains and when we cut it
the smell of melons filled the whole room) No don't eat
the seeds deary they give you appendicitis
but you're peeking out of the window into the black
rumbling dark suddenly ranked with squat chimneys and
you're scared of the black smoke and the puffs of flame
that flare and fade out of the squat chimneys Potteries
dearie they work there all night Who works there all
night? Workingmen and people like that laborers travail-
leurs greasers
you were scared
but now the dark was all black again the lamp in the
train and the sky and everything had a blueblack shade
on it and She was telling a story about
Longago Beforetheworldsfair Beforeyouwereborn and
they went to Mexico on a private car on the new interna-
tional line and the men shot antelope off the back of the
train and big rabbits jackasses they called them and once
one night Longago Beforetheworldsfair Beforeyouwereborn
one night Mother was so frightened on account of all the*
rifleshots but it was allright turned out to be nothing but
a little shooting they'd been only shooting a greaser thaf
was all
that was in the early days
LOVER OF MANKIND
Debs was a railroad man, born in a weather-
boarded shack at Terre Haute.
He was one of ten children.
His father had come to America in a sailingship
in '49,
an Alsatian from Colmarj not much of a money-
maker, fond of music and reading,
he gave his children a chance to finish public
school and that was about all he could do.
At fifteen Gene Debs was already working as a
machinist on the Indianapolis and Terre Haute Rail-
way.
He worked as locomotive fireman,
clerked in a store
joined the local of the Brotherhood of Locomo-
tive Firemen, was elected secretary, traveled all over
the country as organizer.
He was a tall shamblefooted man, had a sort of
gusty rhetoric that set on fire the railroad workers in
their pineboarded halls
made them want the world he wanted,
a world brothers might own
where everybody would split even:
I am not a labor leader. I don't want you to fol-
low me or anyone else. If you are looking for a Moses
to lead you out of the capitalist wilderness you will stay
right where you are. I would not lead you into this
promised land if I could y because if I could lead you
in> someone else would lead you out.
That was how he talked to freighthandlers and
gandywalkers, to firemen and switchmen and engi-
neers, telling them it wasn't enough to organize the
railroadmen, that all workers must be organized, that
26
all workers must be organized in the workers' coopers
tive commonwealth.
Locomotive fireman on many a long night's run,
under the smoke a fire burned him up, burned in
gusty words that beat in pineboarded halls j he wanted
his brothers to be free men.
That was what he saw in the crowd that met hinv
at the Old Wells Street Depot when he came out of
jail after the Pullman strike,
those were the men that chalked up nine hundred
thousand votes for him in nineteen twelve and scared
the frockcoats and the tophats and diamonded hostesses
at Saratoga Springs, Bar Harbor, Lake Geneva with
the bogy of a socialist president.
But where were Gene Debs' brothers in nineteen
eighteen when Woodrow Wilson had him locked up
in Atlanta for speaking against war,
where were the big men fond of whisky and fond
of each other, gentle rambling tellers of stories over
bars in small towns in the Middle West,
quiet men who wanted a house with a porch to
putter around and a fat wife to cook for them, a few
drinks and cigars, a garden to dig in, cronies to chew
the rag with
and wanted to work for it
and others to work for itj
where were the locomotive firemen and engineers
when they hustled him off to Atlanta Penitentiary?
And they brought him back to die in Terrc Haute
to sit on his porch in a rocker with a cigar in his
mouth,
27
beside him American Beauty roses his wife fixed
in a bowl;
and the people of Terre Haute and the people in
Indiana and the people of the Middle West were fond
of him and afraid of him and thought of him as an old
kindly uncle who loved them, and wanted to be with
him and to have him give them candy,
but they were afraid of him as if he had contracted
a social disease, syphilis or leprosy, and thought it was
too bad,
but on account of the flag
and prosperity
and making the world safe for democracy,
they were afraid to be with him,
or to think much about him for fear they might
6elieve him;
for he said:
While there is a lower class I am of it, while there
\s a criminal class I am of it y while there is a soul in
prison I am not free.
THE CAMERA EYE (4)
riding backwards through the rain in the rumbly cab
looking at their two faces in the jiggly light of the four-
wheeled cab and Her big trunks thumping on the roof
ind He reciting Othello in his lawyer's voice
Her father loved me, oft invited me
Still questioned me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes
28
That I have fast.
I ran it throtigh y even from my boyish days.
To th y very moment that he bade me tell it
Wherein I s-poke of the most disastrous chances
Of moving accidents by flood and field
Of hairbreadth 'scales f th* imminent deadly breach
why that's the Schuylkill the horse's hoofs rattle
sharp on smooth wet asphalt after cobbles through the
gray streaks of rain the river shimmers ruddy with winter
mud When I was your age Jack I dove off this bridge
through the rail of the bridge we can look way dowi
into the cold rainyshimmery water Did you have any
clothes on? Just my shirt
MAC
Fainy stood near the door in the crowded elevated
train j against the back of the fat man who held on to the
strap in front of him, he kept rereading a letter on crisp
watermarked stationery:
The Truthseeker Literary Distributing Co., Inc.
General Offices 1104 S. Hamlin Avenue
Chicago, 111. April 14, 1904
Fenian O'H. McCreary
456 N. Wood Street
Chicago, 111.
DEAR SIR:
We take the pleasure to acknowledge yours of thi
loth inst.
29
In reference to the matter in hand we feel that much
could be gained by a personal interview. If you will be so
good as to step around to the above address on Monday
April 1 6th at nine o'clock, we feel that the matter of your
adaptability for the position for which you have applied
can be thoroughly thrashed out.
Yours in search for Truth,
EMMANUEL R. BINGHAM, D.D.
Fainy was scared. The train got to his station too soon,
He had fifteen minutes to walk two blocks in. He loafed
along the street, looking in store windows. There was a
golden pheasant, stuffed, in a taxidermist's; above it hung
a big flat greenish fish with a sawtoothed bill from which
dangled a label:
SAWFISH (pristis perrotetti)
Habitat Gulf and Florida waters. Frequents shallow
bays and inlets.
Maybe he wouldn't go at all. In the back of the window
was a lynx and on the other side a bobtailed cat, each on
its limb of a tree. Suddenly he caught his breath. He'd be
late. He went tearing off down the block,
He was breathless and his heart was pounding to beat
the cars when he reached the top of the fourth flight of
stairs. He studied the groundglass doors on the landing j
THE UNIVERSAL CONTACT COMPANY
F. W. Perkins
Assurance
THE WINDY CITY MAGIC AND NOVELTY
COMPANY
Dr. Noble
Hospital and Sickroom Supplies
30
The last one was a grimy door in the back beside tho
toilet. The goldleaf had come off the letters, but he was
able to spell out from the outlines:
THE GENERAL OUTFITTING AND MER-
CHANTIZING CORPORATION
Then he saw a card on the wall beside the door with
a hand holding a torch drawn out on it and under it the
words "Truthseeker Inc." He tapped gingerly on the
glass. No answer. He tapped again.
"Come in ... Don't knock," called out a deep voice.
Fainy found himself stuttering as he opened the door and
stepped into a dark, narrow room completely filled up by
two huge rolltop desks:
"Please, I called to see Mr. Bingham, sir."
At the further desk, in front of the single window sat
a big man with a big drooping jaw that gave him a little
of the expression of a setter dog. His black hair was long
and curled a little over each ear, on the back of his head
was a broad black felt hat. He leaned back in his chair and
looked Fainy up and down.
"How do you do, young man? What kind of books are
you inclined to purchase this morning? What can I do for
you this morning?" he boomed.
"Are you Mr. Bingham, sir, please?"
"This is Doc Bingham right here before you."
"Please, sir, I ... I came about that job."
Doc Bingham's expression changed. He twisted his
mouth as if he'd just tasted something sour. He spun
round in his swivelchair and spat into a brass spittoon in
the corner of the room. Then he turned to Fainy again
and leveled a fat finger at him, "Young man, how do you
spell experience?"
"E . . . x . . . p . . . er . . . er . . . er . . . i
... a ... n ..."
"That'll do ... No education ... I thought aa
much . . . No culture, none of those finer feelings that
distinguish the civilized man from the savage aborigines
of the wilds ... No enthusiasm for truth, for bringing
light into dark places . . . Do you realize, young man,
that it is not a job I'm offering you, it is a great oppor-
tunity ... a splendid opportunity for service and self-
improvement. I'm offering you an education gratis."
Fainy shuffled his feet. He had a husk in his throat.
"If it's in the printin' line I guess I could do it."
"Well, young man, during the brief interrogatory
through which Pm going to put you, remember that you
stand on the threshold of opportunity."
Doc Bingham ferreted in the pigeonholes of his desk
for a long time, found himself a cigar, bit off the end, lit
it, and then turned again to Fainy, who was standing first
on one foot and then on the other
"Well, if you'll tell me your name."
"Fenian O'Hara McCreary . . ."
"Hum . . . Scotch and Irish . . . that's pretty good
}tock . . . that's the stock I come from."
"Religion?"
"Fainy squirmed. "Pop was a Catholic but . . ." He
turned red.
Dr. Bingham laughed, and rubbed his hands.
"Oh, religion, what crimes are committed in thy name.
I'm an agnostic myself . . . caring nothing for class or
creed when among friends; though sometimes, my boy,
you have to bow with the wind . . . No, sir, my God is
the truth, that rising ever higher in the hands of honest
men will dispel the mists of ignorance and greed, and
bring freedom and knowledge to mankind . . . Do you
agree with me?"
"I've been working for my uncle. He's a social-
democrat."
"Ah, hotheaded youth . . . Can you drive a horse?' 1
"Why, yessir, I guess I could."
32
"Well, I don't see why I shouldn't hire you."
"The advertisement in the Tribune said fifteen dollars
a week."
Doc Bingham's voice assumed a particularly velvety
tone.
"Why, Fenian my boy, fifteen dollars a week will be
the minimum you will make . . . Have you ever heard
of the cooperative system? That is how I'm going to hire
you ... As sole owner and representative of the Truth-
seeker Corporation, I have here a magnificent line of
small books and pamphlets covering every phase of human
knowledge and endeavor ... I am embarking immedi-
ately on a sales campaign to cover the whole country.
You will be one of my distributors. The books sell at
from ten to fifty cents. On each ten-cent book you make
a cent, on the fifty-cent books you make five cents . . .*
"And don't I get anything every week?" stammered
Fainy.
"Would you be penny-wise and pound- foolish? Throw-
ing away the most magnificent opportunity of a lifetime
for the assurance of a paltry pittance. No, I can see by
your flaming eye, by your rebellious name out of old Ire-
land's history, that you are a young man of spirit and
determination . . . Are we on? Shake hands on it then
and by gad, Fenian, you shall never regret it."
Doc Bingham jumped to his feet and seized Fainy's
hand and shook it.
'Now, Fenian, come with me; we have an important
preliminary errand to perform." Doc Bingham pulled his
hat forward on his head and they walked down the stairs
to the front doorj he was a big man and the fat hung
loosely on him as he walked. Anyway, it's a job, Fainy
told himself.
First they went to a tailorshop where a longnosed yel-
low man whom Doc Bingham addressed as Lee shuffled
ou* to meet them. The tailorshop smelt of steamed cloth
33
*nd cleansing fluid. Lee talked as if he had no palate to
his mouth.
" 'M pretty sick man," he said. "Spen' mor'n thou'an 1
dollarm on doctor, no get well."
"Well, I'll stand by you 5 you know that, Lee."
"Hure, Mannie, hure, only you owe me too much
money."
Dr. Emmanuel Bingham glanced at Fainy out of the
corner of his eye.
"I can assure you that the entire financial situation will
be clarified within sixty days . . . But what I want you
to do now is to lend me two of your big cartons, those
cardboard boxes you send suits home in."
"What you wan' to do?"
"My young friend and I have a little project."
"Don't you do nothin' crooked with them cartons j my
name's on them."
Doc Bingham laughed heartily as they walked out the
door, carrying under each arm one of the big flat cartons
that had Levy and Goldstein, Reliable Tailoring, written
on them in florid lettering.
"He's a great joker, Fenian," he said. "But let that
man's lamentable condition be a lesson to you . . . The
poor unfortunate is suffering from the consequences of a
horrible social disease, contracted through some youthful
folly."
They were passing the taxidermist's store again. There
were the wildcats and the golden pheasant and the big
sawfish . . . Frequents shallow bays and inlets. Fainy
had a temptation to drop the tailor's cartons and run for
it. But anyhow, it was a job.
"Fenian," said Doc Bingham, confidentially, c< do you
know the Mohawk House?"
"Yessir, we used to do their printing for them."
"They don't know you there, do they?"
34
"Naw, chey wouldn't know me from Adam ... I jusi
delivered some writin' paper there once."
"That's superb . . . Now get this right; my room is
303. You wait and come in about five minutes. You're the
boy from the tailor's, see, getting some suits to be cleaned.
Then you come up to my room and get the suits and take
'em round to my office. If anybody asks you where you're
going with 'em, you're goin' to Levy and Goldstein, see?"
Fainy drew a deep breath.
"Sure, I get you."
When he reached the small room in the top of the
Mohawk House, Doc Bingham was pacing the floor.
"Levy and Goldstein, sir," said Fainy, keeping his face
straight.
"My boy," said Doc Bingham, "you'll be an able assist-
ant; I'm glad I picked you out. I'll give you a dollar in
advance on your wages." While he talked he was taking
clothes, papers, old books, out of a big trunk that stood
in the middle of the floor. He packed them carefully in
one of the cartons. In the other he put a furlined over-
coat. "That coat cost two hundred dollars, Fenian, a rem-
nant of former splendors . . . Ah, the autumn leaves at
Vallombrosa . . . Et tu in Arcadia vixisti . . . That's
Latin, a language of scholars."
"My Uncle Tim who ran the printing shop where 1
Worked knew Latin fine."
"Do you think you can carry these, Fenian . . . they're
not too heavy?"
"Sure I can carry 'em." Fainy wanted to ask about the
dollar.
"All right, you'd better run along . . . Wait for me
at the office."
In the office Fainy found a man sitting at the second
rolltop desk. "Well, what's your business?" he yelled out
in a rasping voice. He was a sharpnosed waxyskinned
young man with straight black hair standing straight up.-
35
Fainy was winded from running up the stairs. His arms
were stiff from carrying the heavy cartons. "I suppose
this is some more of Mannie's tomfoolishness. Tell him
he's got to clear out of here; Pve rented the other desk."
"But Dr. Bingham has just hired me to work for the
Truthseeker Literary Distributing Company."
"The hell he has."
"He'll be here in a minute."
"Well, sit down and shut up; can't you see I'm busy?"
Fainy sat down glumly in the swivelchair by the win-
dow, the only chair in the office not piled high with small
papercovered books. Outside the window he could see a
few dusty roofs and fire escapes. Through grimy windows
he could see other offices, other rolltop desks. On the desk
in front of him were paperwrapped packages of books.
Between them were masses of loose booklets. His eye
caught a title:
THE QUEEN OF THE WHITE SLAVES
Scandalous revelations of Milly Meecham stolen jrom
her parents at the age of sixteen y tricked by her vile
seducer into a life of infamy and shame.
He started reading the book. His tongue got dry and
he felt sticky all over.
"Nobody said anything to you, eh?" Doc Bingham's
booming voice broke in on his reading. Before he could
answer the voice of the man at the other desk snarled out:
"Look here, Mannie, you've got to clear out of here . . .
I've rented the desk."
"Shake not thy gory locks at me, Samuel Epstein. My
young friend and I are just preparing an expedition
among the aborigines of darkest Michigan. We are leav-
ing for Saginaw tonight. Within sixty days I'll come back
and take the office off your hands. This young man is
coming with me to learn the business."
36
"Business, hell," growled the other man, and shoved
his face back down among his papers again.
"Procrastination, Fenian, is the thief of time," said Doc
Bingham, putting one fat hand Napoleonfashion into his
doublebreasted vest. "There is a tide in the affairs of men
that taken at its full . . ." And for two hours Fainy
sweated under his direction, packing booklets into brown
paper packages, tying them and addressing them to Truth-
seeker Inc., Saginaw, Mich.
He begged off for an hour to go home to see his folks.
Milly kissed him on the forehead with thin tight lips.
Then she burst out crying. "You're lucky j oh, I wish I
was a boy," she spluttered and ran upstairs. Mrs. O'Hara
said to be a good boy and always live at the Y.M.C.A.
that kept a boy out of temptation, and to let his Uncle
Tim be a lesson to him, with his boozin' ways.
His throat was pretty tight when he went to look for
his Uncle Tim. He found him in the back room at
O'Grady's. His eyes were a flat bright blue and his lowei
lip trembled when he spoke, "Have one drink with me,
son, you're on your own now." Fainy drank down a beer
without tasting it.
"Fainy, you're a bright boy ... I wish I could have
helped you more; you're an O'Hara every inch of you.
You read Marx . . . study all you can, remember that
you're a rebel by birth and blood . . . Don't blame peo-
ple for things . . . Look at that terrible forktongued
virago I'm married to j do I blame her? No, I blame the
system. And don't ever sell out to the sons of bitches, son;
it's women'll make you sell out every time. You know
what I mean. All right, go on ... better cut along or
you'll miss your train." "I'll write you from SaginaWj
Uncle Tim, honest I will."
Uncle Tim's lanky red face in the empty cigarsmoky
room, the bar and its glint of brass and the pinkarmed
barkeep leaning across it, the bottles and the mirrors and
37
the portrait of Lincoln gave a misty half turn in his head
and he was out in the shiny rainy street under the shiny
clouds, hurrying for the Elevated station with his suitcase
in his hand.
At the Illinois Central station he found Doc Bingham
waiting for him, in the middle of a ring of brown paper
parcels. Fen felt a little funny inside when he saw him,
the greasy sallow jowls, the doublebreasted vest, the
baggy black ministerial coat, the dusty black felt hat that
made the hair stick out in a sudden fuzzycurl over the
beefy ears. Anyway, it was a job.
"It must be admitted, Fenian," began Doc Bingham as
soon as Fainy had come up to him, "that confident as I
am of my knowledge of human nature I was a little afraid
you wouldn't turn up. Where is it that the poet says that
difficult is the first fluttering course of the fledgeling from
the nest.. Put these packages on the train while I go pur-
chase tickets, and be sure it's a smoker."
After the train had started and the conductor had
punched the tickets Doc Bingham leaned over and tapped
Fainy on the knee with a chubby forefinger. "I'm glad
you're a neat dresser, my boy 5 you must never forget the
importance of putting up a fine front to the world.
Though the heart be as dust and ashes, yet must the outer
man be sprightly and of good cheer. We will go sit for
a while in the pullman smoker up ahead to get away from
the yokels."
It was raining hard and the windows of the train were
striped with transverse beaded streaks against the dark-
ness. Fainy felt uneasy as he followed Doc Bingham
lurching through the greenplush parlor car to the small
leather upholstered smokingcompartment at the end.
There Doc Bingham drew a large cigar from his pocket
and began blowing a magnificent series of smoke rings.
Fainy sat beside him with his feet under the seat trying
to take up as little room as possible.
3*
Gradually the compartment filled up vfah silent men
and crinkly spiralling cigarsmoke. Outside the rain beat
against the windows with a gravelly sound. For a long
time nobody said anything. Occasionally a man cleared his
throat and let fly towards the cuspidor with a big gob of
phlegm or a jet of tobacco juice.
"Well, sir," a voice began, coming from nowhere in
particular, addressed to nowhere in particular, "it was a
great old inauguration even if we did freeze to death;"
"Were you in Washington?"
"Yessir, I was in Washington."
"Most of the trains didn't get in till the next day."
"I know it 5 I was lucky, there was some of them
snowed up for forty-eight hours."
"Some blizzard all right."
All day the gusty northwind bore
The lessening drift its breath before
Low circling through its southern zone
The sun through dazzling snowmist shone,
recited Doc Bingham coyly, with downcast eyes.
"You must have a good memory to be able to recite
verses right off the reel like that."
"Yessir, I have a memory that may I think, without
undue violation of modesty, be called compendious. Were
it a natural gift I should be forced to blush and remain
silent, but since it is the result of forty years of study o!
what is best in the world's epic lyric and dramatic litera-
tures, I feel that to call attention to it may sometimes
encourage some other whose feet are also bound on the
paths of enlightenment and selfeducation." He turned
suddenly to Fainy. "Young man, would you like to hear
Othello's address to the Venetian senate?"
"Sure I would," said Fainy, blushing.
"Well, at last Teddy has a chance to carry out his word
about fighting the trusts." "I'm telling you the insurgent
39
farmer vote of the great Northwest . . ." "Terrible thing
the wreck of those inauguration specials."
But Doc Bingham was off:
Most potent grave and reverend signiors,
My very noble <md a-pfnroved good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter
It is most true; true, I have married her . . .
"They won't get away with those antitrust laws, be-
lieve me they won't. You can't curtail the liberty of the
individual liberty in that way." "It's the liberty of the
individual business man that the progressive wing of the
Republican party is trying to protect."
But Doc Bingham was on his feet, one hand was tucked
into his doublebreasted vest, with the other he was mak-
ing broad circular gestures:
Rude am I in speech
And little blessed with the soft phrase of -peace,
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pth
Till now some nine moons wasted they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field.
"The farmer vote," the other man began shrilly, but
nobody was listening. Doc Bingham had the floor.
And little of the great world can I speak
More than pertains to broils and battle
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In sneaking for myself.
The train began to slacken speed. Doc Bingham's voice
sounded oddly loud in the lessened noise. Fainy felt his
back pushing into the back of the seat and then suddenly
there was stillness and the sound of an engine bell in the
distance and Doc Bingham's voice in a queasy whisper:
"Gentlemen, I have here in pahiphlet form a complete
and unexpurgated edition of one of the world's classics, the
40
famous Decameron of Boccaccio, that for four centuries has
been a byword for spicy wit and ribald humor . . ." He
took a bundle of little books out of one of his sagging
pockets and began dandling them in his hand. "Just as an
act of friendship I would be willing to part with some if
any of you gentlemen care for them . . . Here, Fenian,
take these and see if anybody wants one; they're two dol-
lars apiece. My young friend here will attend to distribu-
tion . . . Goodnight, gentlemen." And he went off and
the train had started again and Fainy found himself stand-
ing with the little books in his hand in the middle of the
lurching car with the suspicious eyes of all the smoker*
boring into him like so many gimlets.
"Let's see one," said a little man with protruding ears
who sat in the corner. He opened the book and started
reading greedily. Fainy stood in the center of the car,
feeling pins and needles all over. He caught a white glint
in the corner of an eyeball as the little man looked down
the line of cigars through the crinkly smoke. A touch of
pink came into the protruding ears.
"Hot stuff," said the little man, "but two dollars is too
much."
Fainy found himself stuttering: "They're nnnot
mmmine, sirj I don't know . . ."
"Oh, well, what the hell . . ." The little man dropped
two dollar bills in Fainy's hand and went back to his read-
ing. Fainy had six dollars in his pocket and two books left
when he started back to the daycoach. Half way down the
car he met the conductor. His heart almost stopped beat-
ing. The conductor looked at him sharply but said noth-
ing.
Doc Bingham was sitting in his seat with his head in his
hand and his eyes closed as if he were dozing. Fainy
. slipped into the seat beside him.
"How many did they take?" asked Doc Bingham, talk-
ing out of the corner of his mouth without opening his
eyes.
"I got six bucks . . . Golly, the conductor scared me,
the way he looked at me."
"You leave the conductor to me, and remember that it's
never a crime in the face of humanity and enlightenment
to distribute the works of the great humanists among the
merchants and moneychangers of this godforsaken coun-
try ... You better slip me the dough."
Fainy wanted to ask about the dollar he'd been prom-
ised, but Doc Bingham was off on Othello again:
// after every tempest there come such calms as this
Then may the laboring bark climb hills of seas
Olympus high.
They slept late at the Commercial House in Saginaw,
and ate a large breakfast, during which Doc Bingham
discoursed on the theory and practice of book salesman-
ship. "I am very much afraid that through the hinterland
to which we are about to penetrate," he said as he cut up
three fried eggs and stuffed his mouth with bakingpowder
biscuit, "that we will find the yokels still hankering after
Maria Monk."
Fainy didn't know who Maria Monk was, but he didn't
like to ask. He went with Doc Bingham round to Hum-
mer's livery stable to hire a horse and wagon. There fol-
lowed a long wrangle between the firm of Truthseeker
Inc., and the management of Hummer's Livery Stable
as to the rent of a springwagon and an elderly piebald
horse with cruppers you could hang a hat on, so that it
was late afternoon before they drove out of Saginaw with
their packages of books piled behind them, bound for the
road.
It was a chilly spring day. Sagging clouds moved in a
gray blur over a bluish silvery sky. The piebald kept
slackening to a walk} Fainy clacked the reins continually
42
on his caving rump and clucked with his tongue until hi$
mouth was dry. At the first whack the piebald would g<J
into a lope that would immediately degenerate into an
irregular jogtrot and then into a walk. Fainy cursed and
clucked, but he couldn't get the horse to stay in the lope
or the jogtrot. Meanwhile Doc Bingham sat beside him
with his broad hat on the back of his head, smoking a
cigar and discoursing: "Let me say right now, Fenian, that
the attitude of a man of enlightened ideas, is, A plague
on both your houses ... I myself am a pantheist . . .
but even a pantheist . . . must eat, hence Maria Monk."
A few drops of rain, icy and stinging as hail, had begun
to drive in their faces. "I'll get pneumonia at this rate,
and it'll be your fault, too; I thought you said you could
drive a horse . . . Here, drive into that farmhouse on
the left. Maybe they'll let us put the horse and wagon in
.their barn."
As they drove up the lane towards the gray house and
the big gray barn that stood under a clump of pines a little
off from the road, the piebald slowed to a walk and began
reaching for the bright green clumps of grass at the edge
of the ditch. Fainy beat at him with the ends of the reins,
and even stuck his foot over the dashboard and kicked
him, but he wouldn't budge.
"Goddam it, give me the reins."
Doc Bingham gave the horse's head a terrible yank, but
all that happened was that he turned his head and looked
at them, a green foam of partly chewed grass between his
Jong yellow teeth. To Fainy it looked as if he were laugh-
ing. The rain had come on hard. They put their coat col-
lars up. Fainy soon had a little icy trickle down the back
of his neck.
"Get out and walk} goddam it to hell, lead it if you
can't drive it," sputtered Doc Bingham. Fainy jumped
out and led the horse up to the back door of the farm-
43
house , the rain ran down his sleeve from the hand he
held the horse by.
"Good afternoon, ma'am." Doc Bingham was on his
feet bowing to a little old woman who had come out of
the door. He stood beside her on the stoop out of the
rain. "Do you mind if I put my horse and wagon in your
barn for a few moments? I have valuable perishable ma-
terials in the wagon and no waterproof covering . . ."
The old woman nodded a stringy white head. "Well,
that's very kind of you, I must say . . . All right,
Fenian, put the horse in the barn and come here and
bring in that little package under the seat ... I was
just saying to my young friend here that I was sure that
some good Samaritan lived in this house who would take
\n two weary wayfarers." "Come inside, mister . . .
maybe you'd like to set beside the stove and dry your-
self. Cojpe inside, mister-er?" "Doc Bingham's the name
* . . the Reverend Doctor Bingham," Fainy heard him
say as he went in the house.
He was soaked and shivering when he went into the
house himself, carrying a package of books under his arm.
Doc Bingham was sitting large as life in a rocking chair
in front of the kitchen stove. Beside him on the well-
scrubbed deal table was a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.
The kitchen had a warm cosy smell of apples and bacon
grease and lamps. The old woman was leaning over the
kitchen table listening intently to what Doc Bingham was
saying. Another woman, a big scrawny woman with her
scant sandy hair done up in a screw on top of her head,
stood in the background with her redknuckled hands on
her hips. A black and white cat, back arched and tail in
the air, was rubbing against Doc Bingham's legs.
"Ah, Fenian, just in time," he began in a voice that
purred like the cat, "I was just telling . . . relating to
your kind hostesses the contents of our very interesting
and educational library, the prime of the world's devo-
44
tional and inspirational literature. They have been so
kind to us during our little misfortune with the weather
that I thought it would be only fair to let them see a few
of our titles."
The big woman was twisting her apron. "I like a mite
o' readin' fine," she said, shyly, "but I don't git much
chanct for it, not till wintertime."
Benignly smiling, Doc Bingham untied the string and
pulled the package open on his knees. A booklet dropped
to the floor. Fainy saw that it was The Queen of the
White Slaves. A shade of sourness went over Doc Bing-
ham's face. He put his foot on the dropped book.
"These are Gospel Talks, my boy," he said. "I wanted
Doctor Sfikenard's Short Sermons for All Occasions."
He handed the halfopen package to Fainy, who snatched
it to him. Then he stooped and picked the book up from
under his foot with a slow sweeping gesture of the hand
and slipped it in his pocket. "I suppose I'll have to go
find them myself," he went on in his purringest voice,
When the kitchen door closed behind them he snarled in
Fainy's ear, "Under the seat, you little rat ... If you
play a trick like that again I'll break every goddam
bone in your body." And he brought his knee up so hard
into the seat of Fainy's pants that his teeth clacked to-
gether and he shot out into the rain towards the barn.
"Honest, I didn't do it on purpose," Fainy whined. But
Doc Bingham was already back in the house and his voice
was burbling comfortably out into the rainy dusk with
the first streak of lamplight.
This time Fainy was careful to open the package before
he brought it in. Doc Bingham took the books out of his
hand without looking at him and Fainy went round be-
hind the stovepipe. He stood there in the soggy steam of
his clothes listening to Doc Bingham boom. He was
hungry, but nobody seemed to think of offering him a
piece of pie.
45
"Ah, my dear friends, how can I tell you with what
gratitude to the Great Giver a lonely minister of the
gospel of light, wandering among the tares and troubles
of this world, finds ready listeners. Pm sure that these
Uttle books will be consoling, interesting and inspirational
to all that undertake the slight effort of perusal. I feel
this so strongly that I always carry a few extra copies with
me to dispose of for a moderate sum. It breaks my heart
that I can't yet give them away free gratis."
"How much are they? 7 ' asked the old woman, a sud-
den sharpness coming over her features. The scrawny
woman let her arms drop to her side and shook her head.
"Do you remember, Fenian," asked Doc Bingham,
leaning genially back in his chair, "what the cost price of
these little booklets was?" Fainy was sore. He didn't
answer. "Come here, Fenian," said Doc Bingham in
honied tpnes, "allow me to remind you of the words of
the immortal bard:
Lowliness is your ambition's ladder
Whereto the climber upward turns his face
But when he once attains the topmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back
"You must be hungry. You can eat my pie."
"I reckon we can find the boy a piece of pie," said the
old woman.
"Ain't they ten cents?" said Fainy, coming forward.
"Oh, if they're only ten cents I think I'd like one,"
said the old woman quickly. The scrawny woman started
to say something, but it was too late.
The pie had hardly disappeared into Fainy's gullet and
the bright dime out of the old tobaccobox in the cup-
board into Doc Bingham's vest pocket when there was a
sound of clinking harness and the glint of a buggylamp
through the rainy dark outside *he window. The old
woman got to her feet and looked nervously at the door,
46
which immediately opened. A heavyset grayhaired man
with a small goatee sprouting out of a round red face
came in, shaking the rain off the flaps of his coat. After
him came a skinny lad about Fainy's age.
"How do you do, sir $ how do you do, son?" boomed
Doc Bingham through the last of his pie and coffee.
"They asked if they could put their horse in the barfi
until it should stop rainin'. It's all right, ain't it, James?"
asked the old woman nervously. "I reckon so," said the
older man, sitting down heavily in the free chair. The old
woman had hidden the pamphlet in the drawer of the
kitchen table. "Travelin' in books, I gather." He stared
hard at the open package of pamphlets. "Well, we don't
need any of that trash here, but you're welcome to stay
the night in the barn. This is no night to throw a human
being out inter."
So they unhitched the horse and made beds for them-
selves in the hay over the cowstable. Before they left the
house the older man made them give up their matches.
"Where there's matches there's danger of fire," he said.
Doc Bingham's face was black as thunder as he wrapped
himself in a horseblanket, muttering about "indignity to
a wearer of the cloth." Fainy was excited and happy. He
lay on his back listening to the beat of the rain on the
roof and its gurgle in the gutters, and the muffled stirring
and chomping of the cattle and horse, under themj his
nose was full of the smell of the hay and the warm
meadowsweetness of the cows. He wasn't sleepy. He
wished he had someone his own age to talk to. Anyway,
it was a job and he was on the road.
He had barely got to sleep when a light woke him.
The boy he'd seen in the kitchen was standing over him
with a lantern. His shadow hovered over them enormous
against the rafters.
"Say, I wanner buy a book."
"What kind of a book?" Fainy yawned and sat up.
47
"You know . . . one o' them books about chorus girls
an' white slaves an' stuff like that."
"How much do you want to pay, son?" came Doc
Bingham's voice from under the horseblanket. "We have
a number of very interesting books stating the facts of
life frankly and freely, describing the deplorable licen-
tiousness of life in the big cities, ranging from a dollar to
five dollars. The Complete Sexology of Dr. Eurnslde^
is six fifty."
"I couldn't go higher'n a dollar . . . Say, you won't
tell the ole man on me?" the young man said, turning
from one to another. "Seth Hardwick, he lives down the
road, he went into Saginaw onct an' got a book from a
man at the hotel. Gosh, it was a pippin." He tittered un-
easily.
"Fenian, go down and get him The Queen of the White
Slaves for a dollar," said Doc Bingham, and settled back
to sleep.
Fainy and the farmer's boy went down the rickety
ladder.
"Say, is she pretty spicy? . . . Gosh, if pop finds it
he'll give me a whalin' . . . Gosh, I bet you've read all
them books."
"Me?" said Fainy haughtily. "I don't need to read
books. I kin see life if I wanter. Here it is ... it's about
fallen women."
"Ain't that pretty short for a dollar? I thought you
could get a big book for a dollar."
"This one's pretty spicy."
"Well, I guess I'll take it before dad ketches me
suoopin' around . . . Goodnight." Fainy went back to
his bed in the hay and fell fast asleep. He was dreaming
that he was going up a rickety stair in a barn with his
sister Milly who kept getting all the time bigger and
whiter and fatter, and had on a big hat with ostrich
plumes all round it and her dress began to split from the
48
neck, and lower and lower and Doc Bingham's voice was
saying, She's Maria Monk, the queen of the white slaves,
and just as he was going to grab her, sunlight opened his
eyes. Doc Bingham stood in front of him, his feet wide
apart, combing his hair with a pocketcomb and reciting:
"Let us de-part, the universal sun
Confines not to one land his blessed beams
Nor is man rooted like a tree . . .
"Come, Fenian," he boomed, when he saw that Fainy
was awake, "let us shake the dust of this inhospitable farm,
latcheting our shoes with a curse like philosophers of old
. . . Hitch up the horse; we'll get breakfast down the
road."
This went on for several weeks, until one evening they
found themselves driving up to a neat yellow house in
a grove of feathery dark tamaracks. Fainy waited in the
wagon while Doc Bingham interviewed the people in the
house. After a while Doc Bingham appeared in the door,
a broad smile creasing his cheeks. "We're going to be very
handsomely treated, Fenian, as befits a wearer of the cloth
and all that . . . You be careful how you talk, will you?
Take the horse to the barn and unhitch."
"Say, Mr. Bingham, how about my money? It's three
weeks now." Fainy jumped down and went to the horse's
head.
An expression of gloom passed over Doc Bingham'a
/ace. "Oh, lucre, lucre . . .
"Examine well
His milkwhite hand y the -palm is hardly clean
But here and there an ugly smutch appears,
Fohy 'twas a bribe that left it. . . .
"I had great plans for a cooperative enterprise that
you are spoiling by your youthful haste and greed . . .
but if you must I'll hand over to you this very night
49
everything due you and more. All right, unhitch the horse
and bring me that little package with Maria Monk, and
The Popsh Plot."
It was a warm day. There were robins singing round
the barn. Everything smelt of sweetgrass and flowers.
The barn was red and the yard was full of white leg-
horns. After he had unhitched the spring wagon and put
the horse in a stall, Fainy sat on a rail of the fence look-
ing out over the silvergreen field of oats out back, and
smoked a cigarette. He wished there was a girl there he
could put his arm round or a fellow to talk to.
A hand dropped onto his shoulder. Doc Bingham was
standing beside him.
"Fenian, my young friend, we are in clover," he said.
"She is alone in the house, and her husband has gone to
town for two days with the hired man. There'll be nobody
there but her two little children, sweet bairns. Perhaps I
shall play Romeo. You've never seen me in love. It's
my noblest role. Ah, some day I'll tell you about my
headstrong youth. Come and meet the sweet charmer."
When they went in the kitchen door a dimplefaced
pudgy woman in a lavender housecap greeted them coyly.
"This is my young assistant, ma'am," said Doc Bing-
ham, with a noble gesture. "Fenian, this is Mrs. Kovach."
"You must be hungry. We're having supper right
away."
The last of the sun lit up a kitchen range that was
crowded with saucepans and stewpots. Fragrant steam rose
in little jets from round wellpolished lids. As she spoke
Mrs. Kovach leaned over so that her big blue behind with
starched apronstrings tied in a bow above it stood up
straight in the air, opened the oven door and pulled out
a great pan of cornmuffins that she dumped into a dish
on the dining table already set next the window. Their
warm toasted smoke filled the kitchen. Fainy felt his
mouth watering. Doc Bingham was rubbing his hands and
50
roiling his eyes. They sat down, and the two blue-eyed
smearyfaced children were sat down and started gobbling
silently, and Mrs. Kovach heaped their plates with stewed,
tomatoes, mashed potatoes, beef stew and limabeans with
pork. She poured them out coffee and then said with
moist eyes, as she sat down herself:
"I love to see men eat."
Her face took on a crushed pansy look that made Fainjf
turn away his eyes when he found himself looking at it
After supper she sat listening with a pleased, frightened
expression while Doc Bingham talked and talked, nov*
and then stopping to lean back and blow a smoke ring 1 ,
at the lamp.
"While not myself a Lutheran as you might say, ma'am*
I myself have always admired, nay, revered, the grea/
figure of Martin Luther as one of the lightbringers of
mankind. Were it not for him we would be still groveling
under the dread domination of the Pope of Rome."
"They'll never get into this country; land sakes, it giver
me the creeps to think of it."
"Not while there's a drop of red blood in the veins of
freeborn Protestants . . . but the way to fight darkness
ma'am, is with light. Light comes from education, reading
of books and studies . . ."
"Land sakes, it gives me a headache to read most books,
an' I don't get much time, to tell the truth. My husband?
he reads books he gets from the Department of Agricul-
ture. He tried to make me read one once, on raisin' poul-
try, but I couldn't make much sense out of it. His folks
they come from the old country ... I guess people feels
different over there."
"It must be difficult being married to a foreigner like
that."
"Sometimes I don't know how I stand it; course h<>
was awful goodlookin' when I married him ... I never
could resist a goodlookin' man."
51
Doc Bingham leaned further across the table. His eyes
rolled as if they were going to drop out.
"I never could resist a goodlooking lady."
Mrs. Kovach sighed deeply.
Fainy got up and went out. He'd been trying to get in
i word about getting paid, but what was the use? Outside
it was chilly j the stars were bright above the roofs of the
barns and outhouses. From the chickencoop came an occa-
sional sleepy cJuck or the rustle of feathers as a hen lost
her balance on her perch. He walked up and down the
barnyard cursing Doc Bingham and kicking at an occa-
sional clod of manure.
Later he looked into the lamplit kitchen. Doc Bingham
had his arm around Mrs. Kovach's waist and was declaim-
ing verses, making big gestures with his free hand:
. . . These things to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline
But still the house affairs would draw her hence
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch
She'd come again and with a greedy ear . . .
Fainy shook his fist at the window. "Goddam your
hide, I want my money," he said aloud. Then he went for
a walk down the road. When he came back he was sleepy
and chilly. The kitchen was empty and the lamp was
turned down low. He didn't know where to go to sleep,
feo he settled down to warm himself in a chair beside the
fire. His head began to nod and he fell asleep.
A tremendous thump on the floor above and a woman's
shrieks woke him. His first thought was that Doc Bing-
ham was robbing and murdering the woman. But im-
mediately he heard another voice cursing and shouting
in broken English. He had half gotten up from the chair,
when Doc Bingham dashed past him. He had on only
Ms flannel unionsuit. In one hand were his shoes, in the
52
other his clothes. His trousers floated after him at the
end of his suspenders like the tail of a kite.
"Hey, what are we going to do?" Fainy called after
him, but got no answer. Instead he found himself face to
face with a tall dark man with a scraggly black beard who
was coolly fitting shells into a doublebarrelled shotgun.
"Buckshot. I shoot the sonabitch."
"Hey, you can't do that," began Fainy. He got the butt
of the shotgun in the chest and went crashing down into
the chair again. The man strode out the door with a long
elastic stride, and there followed two shots that went
rattling among the farm buildings. Then the woman's
shrieks started up again, punctuating a longdrawnout
hysterical tittering and sobbing.
Fainy sat in the chair by the stove as if glued to it.
He noticed a fiftycent piece on the kitchen floor that
must have dropped out of Doc Bingham's pants as he
ran. He grabbed it and had just gotten it in his pocket
when the tall man with the shotgun came back.
"No more shells," he said thickly. Then he sat down
on the kitchen table among the uncleared supper dishes
and began to cry like a child, the tears trickling through
the knobbed fingers of his big dark hands. Fainy stole out
of the door and went to the barn. "Doc Bingham," he
called gently. The harness lay in a heap between the
shafts of the wagon, but there was no trace of Doc Bing-
ham or of the piebald horse. The frightened clucking of
the hens disturbed in the hencoop mixed with the woman's
shrieks that still came from upstairs in the farmhouse.
"What the hell shall I do?" Fainy was asking himself
when he caught sight of a tall figure outlined in the
bright kitchen door and pointing the shotgun at him.
Just as the shotgun blazed away he ducked into the barn
and out through the back door. Buckshot whined over hia
head. "Gosh, he found shells." Fainy was off as fast as
53
his legs could carry him across the oatfield. At last, with-
out any breath in his body, he scrambled over a railfence
full of briars that tore his face and hands and lay flat in
& dry ditch to rest. There wa3 nobody following him.
NEWSREEL III
"IT TAKES NERVE TO LIVE IN THIS
WORLD" LAST WORDS OF GEORGE SMITH
HANGED WITH HIS BROTHER BY MOB IN
KANSAS MARQUIS OF QUEENSBERRY DEAD
FLAMES WRECK SPICE PLANT COURT SETS
ZOLA FREE
a few years ago the anarchists of New Jersey, wearing the
McKinley button and the red badge of anarchy on their coats
and supplied with beer by the republicans, plotted the death of
one of the crowned heads of Europe and it is likely that the
plan to assassinate the president was hatched at the same time
or soon afterward
It's moonlight fair tonight ufon the W abash
From the fields there comes the breath of neivmown h*y
Through the sycamores the candlelight is gleaming
On the banks of the W abash for away
OUT FOR BULLY GOOD TIME
Six Thousand Workmen at Smolensk Parade With Plac-
ards Saying Death To Czar Assassin.
riots and streetblockades mark opening of teamster's strike
WORLD'S GREATEST SEA BATTLE NEAR
Madrid police clash with 5000 workmen carrying black
flag
spectators become dizzy while dancer ^ats orange break-
ing record that made man insane
THE CAMERA EYE (5)
and we played the battle of Port Arthur in the bath-
tub and the water leaked down through the drawing-
room ceiling and it was altogether too bad but in Kew
Gardens old Mr. Garnet who was still hale and hearty
although so very old came to tea and we saw him first
through the window with his red face and John Bull
whiskers and aunty said it was a sailor's rolling gait and he
was carrying a box under his arm and Vickie and Pompom
barked and here was Mr. Garnet come to tea and he
took a gramophone out of a black box and put a cylindei
on the gramophone and they pushed back the tea-things
off the corner of the table Be careful not to drop it
now they scratch rather heasy Why a hordinary
sewin' needle would do maam but I ave special needles
and we got to talking about Hadmiral Togo and
the Banyan and how the Roosians drank so much vodka
and killed all those poor fisherlads in the North Sea and
he wound it up very carefully so as not to break the spring
and the needle went rasp rasp Yes I was a bluejacket
miself miboy from the time I was a little shayver not
much bigger'n you rose to be bosun's mite on the first
British hironclad the Warrior and I can dance a ornpip*.
yet maam and he had a mariner's compass in red and-
blue on the back of his hand and his nails looked black
55
grindy noise in the little black horn came (iod Save the
King and the little dogs howled
NEWSREEL IV
I met my love in the Alamo
When the moon was on the rise
Her beauty quite bedimmed its light
So radiant were her eyes
during the forenoon union pickets turned back a wagon
loaded with 50 campchairs on its way to the fire engine house
at Michigan Avenue and Washington street. The chairs it is
reported, were ordered for the convenience of policemen de-
tailed on strike duty
FLEETS MAY MEET IN BATTLE TODAY
WEST OF LUZON
three big wolves were killed before the dinner,
A grand parade is proposed here in which President
Roosevelt shall ride so that he can be seen by citizens. At the
head will be a caged bear recently captured after killing a
dozen dogs and injuring several men. The bear will be given
an hour's start for the hills then the packs will be set on the
trail and President Roosevelt and the guides will follow in
pursuit
three Columbia students start auto trip to Chicago on
wager
GENERAL STRIKE NOW THREATENS
It's moonlight fair tonight upon the Wa-abash
5$
OIL KING'S HAPPYEST DAY
one cherub every five minutes market for all classes of
real estate continues to be healthy with good demand for fac-
tory sites residence and business properties court bills break
labor
BLOODY SUNDAY IN MOSCOW
lady angels are smashed troops guard oilfields America
tends to become empire like in the days of the Caesars $5 poem
gets rich husband eat less says Edison rich poker player falls
dead when he draws royal flush charges graft in Cicero
STRIKE MAY MEAN REVOLT IN RUSSIA
lake romance of two yachts murder ends labor feud Michi-
gan runs all over Albion red flags in St. Petersburg
CZAR YIELDS TO PEOPLE
holds dead baby forty hours families evicted hv bursting
watermain
CZAR GRANTS CONSTITUTION
From the fields there comes the breath of neivmown hay
Through the sycamores the candlelight is gleaming
THE CAMERA EYE (6)
Go it go it said Mr. Linwood the headmaster when
one was running up the field kicking the round ball footer
they called it in Hampstead and afterwards it was time
to walk home and one felt good because Mr. Linwood
had said Go it
Taylor said There's another American come and he
had teeth like Teddy in the newspapers and a turncdup
57
nose and a Rough Rider suit and he said Who are you
going to vote for? and one said I dunno and he stuck his
chest out and said I mean who your folks for Roosevelt
or Parker? and one said Judge Parker
the other American's hair was very black and he
stuck his fists up and his nose turned up and he said Pm for
Roosevelt wanto fight? all trembly one said Pm for Judge
Parker but Taylor said Who's got tuppence for ginger
beer? and there wasn't any fight that time
NEWSREEL V
BUGS DRIVE OUT BIOLOGIST
elopers bind and gag; is released by dog
EMPEROR NICHOLAS II FACING REVOLT OF
EMPIRE GRANTS SUBJECTS LIBERTY
paralysis stops surgeon's knife by the stroke of a pen the
last absolute monarchy of Europe passes into history miner of
Death Valley and freak advertiser of Santa Fe Road may die
sent to bridewell for stealing plaster angel
On the banks of the W abash jar away.
MAC
Next morning soon after daylight Fainy limped out of
a heavy shower into the railroad station at Gaylord. There
58
was a big swagbellied stove burning in the station waiting
room. The ticket agent's window was closed. There was
nobody in sight. Fainy took off first one drenched shoe
and then the other and toasted his feet till his socks were
dry. A blister had formed and broken on each heel and
the socks stuck to them in a grimy scab. He put on his
shoes again and stretched out on the bench. Immediately
he was asleep.
Somebody tall in blue was speaking to him. He tried to
raise his head but he was too sleepy.
"Hey, bo, you better not let the station agent find
you," said a voice he'd been hearing before through his
sleep. Fainy opened his eyes and sat up. "Jeez, I thought
you were a cop."
A squareshouldered young man in blue denim shirt and
overalls was standing over him. "I thought I'd better
wake you up, station agent's so friggin' tough in this
dump."
"Thanks." Fainy stretched his legs. His feet were so
swollen he could hardly stand on them. "Golly, I'm stiff."
"Say, if we each had a quarter I know a dump where
we could get a bully breakfast."
"I gotta dollar an' a half," said Fainy slowly. He stood
with his hands in his pockets, his back to the warm stove
looking carefully at the other boy's square bull jawed face
wid blue eyes.
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from Duluth . . . I'm on the bum more or less.
Where are you from?"
"Golly, I wish I knew. I had a job till last night."
"Resigned?"
"Say, suppose we go eat that breakfast."
"That's slick. I didn't eat yesterday. . . . My name's
George Hall . . . The fellers call me Ike. I ain't exactly
on the bum, you know. I want to see the world."
"I guess I'm going to have to see the world now," said
59
Fainy. "My name's McCreary. Pm from Chi. But I was
born back east in Middletown, Connecticut."
As they opened the screen door of the railroad men's
boarding house down the road they were met by a smell
of ham and coffee and roachpowder. A horsetoothed
blonde woman with a rusty voice set places for them.
"Where do you boys work? I don't remember seein'
you before."
"I worked down to the sawmill," said Ike.
"Sawmill shet down two weeks ago because the super-
intendent blew out his brains."
"Don't I know it?"
"Maybe you boys better pay in advance."
"I got the money," said Fainy, waving a dollar bill in
her face.
"Well, if you got the money I guess you'll pay all
right," said the waitress, showing her long yellow teeth
in a smile/*
"Sure, peaches and cream, we'll pay like millionaires,"
said Ike.
They filled up on coffee and hominy and ham and eggs
and big heavy white bakingpowder biscuits, and by the
end of breakfast they had gotten to laughing so hard over
Fainy's stories of Doc Bingham's life and loves that the
waitress asked them if they'd been drinking. Ike kidded
her into bringing them each another cup of coffee with-
out extra charge. Then he fished up two mashed ciga-
rettes from the pocket of his overalls. "Have a coffin
nail, Mac?"
"You can't smoke here," said the waitress. "The missus
won't stand for smokin'."
"All right, bright eyes, we'll skidoo."
"How far are you goin'?"
"Well, I'm headed for Duluth myself. That's where
my folks are . . ." "So you're from Duluth, are you?"
60
"Well, what's the big joke about Duluth?" "It's no joke;
it's a misfortune."
"You don't think you can kid me, do you?" "'Tain't
worth my while, sweetheart." The waitress tittered as she
cleared off the table. She had big red hands and thick
nails white from kitchenwork.
"Hey, got any noospapers? I want somethin' to read
waitin' for the train." "I'll get you some. The missus
takes the American from Chicago." "Gee, I ain't seen a
paper in three weeks." "I like to read the paper, too,' 1
said Mac. "I like to know what's goin' on in the world.' 1
"A lot of lies most of it ... all owned by the in-
terests."
"Hearst's on the side of the people."
"I don't trust him any more'n the rest of 'em."
"Ever read The Appeal to Reason?"
"Say, are you a Socialist?"
"Sure; I had a job in my uncle's printin' shop till tha
big interests put him outa business because he took the
side of the strikers."
"Gee, that's swell . . . put it there . . . me, too. . . .
Say, Mac, this is a big day for me ... I don't ofter
meet a guy thinks like I do."
They went out with a roll of newspapers and sat under
a big pine a little way out of town. The sun had come
out warm; big white marble clouds sailed through the
sky. They lay on their backs with their heads on a piece
of pinkish root with bark like an alligator. In spite of
last night's rain the pine needles were warm and dry
under them. In front of them stretched the singletrack
line through thickets and clearings of wrecked woodland
where fireweed was beginning to thrust up here and there
a palegreen spike of leaves. They read sheets of the week-
old paper turn and turn about and talked.
"Maybe in Russia it'll start j that's the most backward
country where the people are oppressed worst . . ,
61
There was a Russian feller workin' down to the sawmill,
an educated feller who's fled from Siberia ... I used
to talk to him a lot ... That's what he thought. He
said the social revolution would start in Russia an' spread
all over the world. He was a swell guy. I bet he was some-*
body."
"Uncle Tim thought it would start in Germany."
"Oughter start right here in America . . . We got
free institutions here already . . . All we have to do is
get out from under the interests." "Uncle Tim says we're
too well off in America ... we don't know what op-
pression or poverty is. Him an' my other uncles was
Fenians back in Ireland before they came to this country.
That's what they named me Fenian . . . Pop didn't like
it, I guess ... he didn't have much spunk, I guess."
"Ever read Marx?"
"No . . . golly, I'd like to though." "Me neither,
[ read Bellamy's Looking Backward, though ; that's what
made me a Socialist." "Tell me about it; I'd just started
readin' it when I left home." "It's about a galoot that
goes to sleep an' wakes up in the year two thousand and
the social revolution's all happened and everything's so-
cialistic an' there's no jails or poverty and nobody works
for themselves an' there's no way anybody can get to be
a rich bondholder or capitalist and life's pretty slick for
the working class." "That's what I always thought . . .
It's the workers who create wealth and they ought to
have it instead of a lot of drones." "If you could do away
with the capitalist system and the big trusts and Wall
Street things 'ud be like that."
"Gee."
"All you'd need would be a general strike and have
the workers refuse to work for a boss any longer . . .
God damn it, if people only realized how friggin' easy
it would be. The interests own all the press and keep
knowledge and education from the workin'men."
62
"I know printing pretty good, an' linotypin'. . .
Golly, maybe some day I could do somethin'."
Mac got to his feet. He was tingling all over. A cloud
had covered the sun, but down the railroad track the
scrawny woods were full of the goldgreen blare of young
birch leaves in the sun. His blood was like fire. He stood
with his feet apart looking down the railroad track. Round
the bend in the far distance a handcar appeared with a
section gang on it, a tiny cluster of brown and dark blue.
He watched it come nearer. A speck of red flag fluttered
in the front of the handcar j it grew bigger, ducking into
patches of shadow, larger and more distinct each time it
came out into a patch of sun.
"Say, Mac, we better keep out of sight if we want to
hop that freight. There's some friggin' mean yard detec-
tives on this road." "All right." They walked off a hun-
dred yards into the young growth of scrub pine and birch,
Beside a big greenlichened stump Mac stopped to make
water. His urine flowed bright yellow in the sun, disap-
pearing at once into the porous loam of rotten leaves and
wood. He was very happy. He gave the stump a kick.
It was rotten. His foot went through it and a little powder
like smoke went up from it as it crashed over into the
alderbushes behind.
Ike had sat down on a log and was picking his teeth
with a little birchtwig.
"Say, ever been to the coast, Mac?"
"No."
"Like to?"
"Sure."
"Well, let's you an' me beat our way out to Duluth
... I want to stop by and say hello to the old woman,
see. Haven't seen her in three months. Then we'll take
in the wheat harvest and make Frisco or Seattle by fall.
Tell me they have good free night-schools in Seattle. I
63
want to do some studying see? I dunno a friggin' thing
yet."
"That's slick."
"Ever hopped a freight or ridden blind baggage, Mac?"
"Well, not exactly."
"You just follow me and do what I do. You'll be all
right."
Down the track they heard the hoot of a locomotive
whistle.
"There is number three comin' round the bend now
. . . We'll hop her right after she starts outa the station.
She'll take us into Mackinaw City this afternoon."
Late that afternoon, stiff and cold, they went into a
little shed on the steamboat wharf at Mackinaw City to
get shelter. Everything was hidden in a driving rain-
streaked mist off the lake. They had bought a ten-cent
package of Sweet Caps, so that they only had ninety cents
left between them. They were arguing about how much
they ought to spend for supper when the steamboat agent,
a thin man wearing a green eyeshade and a slicker came
out of his office. "You boys lookin' for a job?" he asked.
"Cause there's a guy here from the Lakeview House
lookin' for a coupla pearldivers. Agency didn't send 'em
enough help I guess. They're openin' up tomorrer."
"How much do they pay ye?" asked Ike. "I don't reckon
it's much, but the grub's pretty good." "How about it,
Mac? We'll save up our fare an' then we'll go to Duluth
like a coupla dudes on the boat."
So they went over that night on the steamboat to
Mackinac Island. It was pretty dull on Mackinac Island.
There was a lot of small scenery with signs on it reading
"Devil's Cauldron," "Sugar Loaf," "Lover's Leap," and
wives and children of mediumpriced business men from
Detroit, Saginaw and Chicago. The grayfaced woman who
ran the hotel, known as The Management, kept them
Working from six in the morning till way after sundown.
64
It wasn't only dishwashing, it was sawing wood, running
errands, cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors, smashing bag-
gage and a lot of odd chores. The waitresses were all old
maids or else brokendown farmers' wives whose husbands
drank. The only other male in the place was the cook, a
hypochondriac French Canadian halfbreed who insisted
on being called Mr. Chef. Evenings he sat in his little
log shack back of the hotel drinking paregoric and mum-
bling about God.
When they got their first month's pay they packed up
their few belongings in a newspaper and sneaked on board
the Jwniata for Duluth. The fare took all their capital,
but they were happy as they stood in the stern watching
the spruce and balsamcovered hill of Mackinac disappear
into the lake.
Duluth ; girderwork along the waterfront, and the
shack-covered hills and the tall thin chimneys and the
huddle of hunch-shouldered grain elevators under the
smoke from the mills scrolled out dark against a huge
salmon-colored sunset. Ike hated to leave the boat on
account of a pretty dark-haired girl he'd meant all the
time to speak to. "Hell, she wouldn't pay attention to
you, Ike, she's too swank for you," Mac kept saying. "The
old woman'll be glad to see us anyway," said Ike as they
hurried off the gangplank. "I half expected to see her at
the dock, though I didn't write we was jcoming. Boy, I bet
she'll give us a swell feed."
"Where does she live?"
"Not far. I'll show you. Say, don't ask anythin' about
my ole man, will ye; he don't amount to much. He's in
jail, I guess. Ole woman's had pretty tough sleddin 7
bringin' up us kids ... I got two brothers in Buffalo
... I don't get along with 'em. She does fancy needle-
work and preservin' an' bakes cakes an' stuff like that,
She used to work in a bakery but she's got the lumba^c
65
too bad now. She'd V been a real bright woman if we
hadn't always been so friggin' poor."
They turned up a muddy street on a hill. At the top
of the hill was a little prim house like a schoolhouse.
"That's where we live . . . Gee, I wonder why there's
no light."
They went in by a gate in the picket fence. There was
sweetwilliam in bloom in the flowerbed in front of the
house. They could smell it though they could hardly see,
it was so dark. Ike knocked.
"Damn it, I wonder what's the matter." He knocked
again. Then he struck a match. On the door was nailed a
card "FOR SALE" and the name of a realestate agent.
"Jesus Christ, that's funny, she musta moved. Now I think
of it, I haven't had a letter in a couple of months. I hope
she ain't sick . . . I'll ask at Bud Walker's next door."
Mac sat down on the wooden step and waited. Over-
head in a^ash in the clouds that still had the faintest
stain of red from the afterglow his eye dropped into
empty black full of stars. The smell of the sweetwilliams
tickled his nose. He felt hungry.
A low whistle from Ike roused him. "Come along," he
said gruffly and started walking fast down the hill with
his head sunk between his shoulders.
"Hey, what's the matter?"
"Nothin'. The old woman's gone to Buffalo to live with
my brothers. The lousy bums got her to sell out so's they
could spend the dough, I reckon."
"Jesus, that's hell, Ike."
Ike didn't answer. They walked till they came to the
corner of a street with lighted stores and trolleycars. A
tune from a mechanical piano was tumbling out from a
saloon. Ike turned and slapped Mac on the back. "Let's
go have a drink, kid ... What the hell."
There was only one other man at the long bar. He
Was a very drunken tall elderly man in lumbermen's boots
66
with a sou'wester on his head who kept yelling in an in-
audible voice, Whoop her up, boys/ and making a pass
at the air with a long grimy hand. Mac and Ike drank
down two whiskies each, so strong and raw that it pretty
near knocked the wind out of them. Ike put the change
from a dollar in his pocket and said:
"What the hell, let's get out of here." In the cool air
of the street they began to feel lit. "Jesus, Mac, let's get
outa here tonight . . . It's terrible to come back to a
town where you was a kid . . . I'll be meetin' all the
crazy galoots I ever knew and girls I had crushes on . . -
I guess I always get the dirty end of the stick, all right."
In a lunchroom down by the freight depot they go',
hamburger and potatoes and bread and butter and coffee
for fifteen cents each. When they'd bought some ciga-
rettes they still had eight seventyfive between them,
"Golly, we're rich," said Mac. "Well, where do we go? n
"Wait a minute. I'll go scout round the freight depot.
Used to be a guy I knowed worked there."
Mac loafed round under a lamp post at the street-
corner and smoked a cigarette and waited. It was warmer
since the wind had gone down. From a puddle somewhere
in the freight yards came the peep peep peep of toads.
Up on the hill an accordion was playing. From the yards
came the heavy chugging of a freight locomotive and the
clank of shunted freightcars and the singing rattle of tha
wheels.
After a while he heard Ike's whistle from the dark
side of the street. He ran over. "Say, Mac, we gotta hurry.
I found the guy. He's goin' to open up a boxcar for as
on the westbound freight. He says it'll carry us clear out
to the coast if we stick to it."
"How the hell will we eat if we're locked up in 7
freightcar?"
"We'll eat fine. You leave the eatin' to me."
"But, Ike . . ."
67
"Keep your trap shut, can't you . . . Do you want
everybody in the friggin' town to know what we're tryin'
to do?"
They walked along tiptoe in the dark between two
tracks of boxcars. Then Ike found a door half open and
darted in. Mac followed and they shut the sliding door
very gently after them.
"Now all we got to do is go to sleep," whispered Ike,
his lips touching Mac's ear. "This here galoot, see, said
there wasn't any yard dicks on duty tonight."
In the end of the car they found hay from a broken
bale. The whole car smelt of hay. "Ain't this hunky
dory?" whispered Ike.
"It's the cat's nuts, Ike."
Pretty soon the train started, and they lay down to
sleep side by side in the sparse hay. The cold night wind
streamed in through the cracks in the floor. They slept
fitfully. The train started and stopped and started and
shunted back and forth on sidings and the wheels rattled
and rumbled in their ears and slambanged over crossings.
Towards morning they fell into a warm sleep and the thin
layer of hay on the boards was suddenly soft and warm.
Neither of them had a watch and the day was overcast
so they didn't know what time it was when they woke
up. Ike slid open the door a little so that they could peek
out; the train was running through a broad valley brim-
full-like with floodwater, with the green ripple of full-
grown wheat. Now and then in the distance a clump of
woodland stood up like an island. At each station was
the hunched blind bulk of an elevator. "Gee, this must be
the Red River, but I wonder which way we're goin',"
said Ike. "Golly, I could drink a cup of coffee," said Mac.
"We'll have swell coffee in Seattle, damned if we won't,
Mac."
They went to sleep again, and when they woke up they
s thirsty and stiff. The train had stopped. There was
68
no sound at all. They lay on their backs stretching and
listening. "Gee, I wonder where in hell we are." After a
long while they heard the cinders crunching down the
track and someone trying the fastenings of the boxcar
doors down the train. They lay so still they could hear
both their hearts beating. The steps on the cinders
crunched nearer and nearer. The sliding door slammed
open, and their car was suddenly full of sunlight. They
lay still. Mac felt the rap of a stick on his chest and sat
up blinking. A Scotch voice was burring in his ears:
"I thought I'd find some Pullman passengerrs . . .
All right, byes, stand and deliver, or else you'll go to the
constabulary."
"Aw hell," said Ike, crawling forward.
"Currsin' and swearin' won't help ye ... If you get
a couple o' quid you can ride on to Winnipeg an' take yout
chances there ... If not you'll be doin' a tidy bit on
the roads before you can say Jack Robinson."
The brakeman was a small blackhaired man with a
mean quiet manner.
"Where are we, guv'ner?" asked Ike, trying to talk
like an Englishman.
"Gretna . . . Ycu're in the Dominion of Canada. Yov
can be had up, too, for illegally crossin' Her Majesty's
frontier as well as for bein' vags."
'Well, I guess we'd better shell out . . . You see
we're a couple of noblemen's sons out for a bit of a bloody
lark, guv'ner."
"No use currsin' and prevarricatin'. How much hava
Coupla dollars."
"Let's see it quick."
Ike pulled first one dollar, then another, out of his
pocket y folded in the second dollar was a five. The Scotch-
man swept the three bills up with one gesture and
slammed the sliding door to. They heard him slip down
the catch on the outside. For a long time they sat there
quiet in the dark. Finally Ike said, "Hey, Mac, gimme a
sock in the jaw. That was a damn fool thing to do ...
Never oughta had that in my jeans anyway . . . oughta
had it inside my belt. That leaves us with about seventy-
five cents. We're up shit creek now for fair . . . He'll
probably wire ahead to take us outa here at the next big
town." "Do they have mounted police on the railroad,
too?" asked Mac in a hollow whisper. "Jez, I don't know
any more about it than you do."
The train started again and Ike rolled over on his face
and went glumly to sleep. Mac lay on his back behind him
looking at the slit of sunlight that made its way in through
the crack in the door and wondered what the inside of a
Canadian jail would be like.
That night, after the train had lain still for some time
In the middle of the hissing and clatter of a big freight-
yard, they heard the catch slipped off the door. After a
while Ike got up his nerve to slide the door open and they
dropped, stiff and terribly hungry, down to the cinders.
There was another freight on the next track, so all they
sould see was a bright path of stars overhead. They got
out of the freightyards without any trouble and found
themselves walking through the deserted streets of a large
widescattered city.
"Winnipeg's a pretty friggin' lonelylookin' place, take
it from me," said Ike.
"It must be after midnight."
They tramped and tramped and at last found a little
lunchroom kept by a Chink who was just closing up.
They spent forty cents on some stew and potatoes and
coffee. They asked the Chink if he'd let them sleep on
the floor behind the counter, but he threw them out and
they found themselves dogtired tramping through the
broad deserted streets of Winnipeg again. It was too cold
to sit down anywhere, and they couldn't find anyplace
70
that looked as if it would give them a flop for thirtyfivc
cents, so they walked and walked y and anyway the sky
was beginning to pale into a slow northern summer dawn
When it was fully day they went back to the Chink's and
spent the thirtyfive cents on oatmeal and coffee. Then they
went to the Canadian Pacific employment office and signed
up for work in a construction camp at Banff. The hours
they had to wait till traintime they spent in the public
library. Mac read part of Bellamy's Looking Backward
and Ike, not being able to find a volume of Karl Marx,
read an instalment of "When the Sleeper Wakes" in
the Strand Magazine. So when they got on the train they
were full of the coming Socialist revolution and started
talking it up to two lanky redfaced lumberjacks who sat
opposite them. One of them chewed tobacco silently all
the while, but the other spat his quid out of the windoM
and said, "You blokes '11 keep quiet with that kinder talk
if you knows what's 'ealthy for ye." "Hell, this is a free
country, ain't it? A guy's free to talk, ain't he?" said Ike.
"A bloke kin talk so long as his betters don't tell him to
keep his mouth shut." "Hell, I'm not tryin' to pick a
fight," said Ike. "Better not," said the other man, and
didn't speak again.
They worked for the C. P. R. all summer and by the
first of October they were in Vancouver. They had new
suitcases and new suits. Ike had forty-nine dollars and
fifty cents and Mac had eighty-three fifteen in a brand
new pigskin wallet. Mac had more because he didn't play
poker. They took a dollar and a half room between them
and lay in bed like princes their first free morning. They
were tanned and toughened and their hands were horny*
After the smell of rank pipes and unwashed feet and thrt
bedbugs in the railroad bunkhouses the small cleanboardecf
hotel room with its clean beds seemed like a palace.
When he was fully awake Mac sat up and reached foi
his Ingersoll. Eleven o'clock. The sunlight on the win'
dowledge was ruddy from the smoke of forestfires up the
coast. He got up and washed in cold water at the wash-
basin. He walked up and down the room wiping his face
and arms in the towel. It made him feel good to follow
the contours of his neck and the hollow between his
shoulderblades and the muscles of his arms as he dried
himself with the fresh coarse towel.
"Say, Ike, what do you think we oughta do? I think we
oughta go down on the boat to Seattle, Wash., like a
coupla dude passengers. I wanta settle down an' get a
printin' job; there's good money in that. I'm goin' to
study to beat hell this winter. What do you think, Ike?
I want to get out of this lime juicy hole an' get back to
God's country. What do you think, Ike?"
Ike groaned and rolled over in bed.
"Say, wake up, Ike, for crissake. We want to take a
look at this burg an' then twentythree."
Ike sat .up in bed. "God damn it, I need a woman."
"I've heard tell there's swell broads in Seattle, honest,
Ike."
Ike jumped out of bed and began splattering himself
from head to foot with cold water. Then he dashed into
his clothes and stood looking out the window combing
the water out of his hair.
"When does the friggin' boat go? Jez, I had two wet
dreams last night, did you?"
Mac blushed. He nodded his head.
"Jez, we got to get us women. Wet dreams weakens a
guy."
"I wouldn't want to get sick."
"Aw, hell, a man's not a man until he's had his three
doses."
"Aw, come ahead, let's go see the town."
"Well, ain't I been waitin' for ye this half hour?"
They ran down the stairs and out into the street. They
walked round Vancouver, sniffing the winey smell of
72
lumber-mills along the waterfront, loafing under the big
trees in the park. Then they got their tickets at the steam-
boat office and went to a haberdashery store and bought
themselves striped neckties, colored socks and four-dollar
silk shirts. They felt like millionaires when they walked
up the gangplank of the boat for Victoria and Seattle,
with their new suits and their new suitcases and their silk
shirts. They strolled round the deck smoking cigarettes
and looking at the girls. "Gee, there's a couple looks
kinda easy ... I bet they're hookers at that," Ike
whispered in Mac's ear and gave him a dig in the ribs with
his elbow as they passed two girls in Spring Maid hats
who were walking round the deck the other way. "Shit,
let's try pick 'em up."
They had a couple of beers at the bar, then they went
back on deck. The girls had gone. Mac and Ike walked
disconsolately round the deck for a while, then they found
the girls leaning over the rail in the stern. It was a cloudy
moonlight night. The sea and the dark islands covered
with spiring evergreens shone light and dark in a mottling
silvery sheen. Both girls had frizzy hair and dark circles
under their eyes. Mac thought they looked too old, but
as Ike had gone sailing ahead it was too late to say any-
thing. The girl he talked to was named Gladys. He liked
the looks of the other one, whose name was Olive, better,
but Ike got next to her first. They stayed on deck kidding
and giggling until the girls said they were cold, then they
went in the saloon and sat on a sofa and Ike went and
bought a box of candy.
"We ate onions for dinner today," said Olive. "Hope
you fellers don't mind. Gladys, I told you we oughtn't
to of eaten them onions, not before comin' on the boat."
"Gimme a kiss an' I'll tell ye if I mind or not," said
Ike.
"Kiddo, you can't talk fresh like that to us, not on this
73
boat," snapped Olive, two mean lines appearing on either
Bide of her mouth.
"We have to be awful careful what -we do on the boat/'
explained Gladys. "They're terrible suspicious of two
girls travelin' alone nowadays. Ain't it a crime?"
"It sure is." Ike moved up a little closer on the seat.
"Quit that . . . Make a noise like a hoop an' roll away.
[ mean it." Olive went and sat on the opposite bench.
Ike followed her.
"In the old days it was liberty hall on these boats, but
not so any more," Gladys said, talking to Mac in a low
intimate voice. "You fellers been workin' up in the
canneries?"
"No, we been workin' for the C.P.R. all summer."
"You must have made big money." As she talked to
him, Mac noticed that she kept looking out of the corner
of her eye at her friend.
"Yare\ . . not so big ... I saved up pretty near a
century."
"An' now you're going to Seattle."
"I want to get a job linotypist."
"That's where we live, Seattle. Olive an' I've got an
apartment . . . Let's go out on deck, it's too hot in
here."
As they passed Olive and Ike, Gladys leaned over and
whispered something in Olive's ear. Then she turned to
Mac with a melting smile. The deck was deserted. She
let him put his arm round her waist. His fingers felt the
bones of some sort of corset. He squeezed. "Oh, don't
be too rough, kiddo," she whined in a funny little voice.
He laughed. As he took his hand away he felt the con-
tour of her breast. Walking, his leg brushed against her
leg. It was the first time he'd been so close to a girl.
After a while she said she had to go to bed. "How
about me goin' down with ye?" She shook her head. "Not
on this boat. See you tomorrow} maybe you and your
74
pal '11 come and see us at our apartment. We'll show you
the town." "Sure," said Mac. He walked on round the
deck, his heart beating hard. He could feel the pound of
the steamboat's engines and the arrowshaped surge of
broken water from the bow and he felt like that. He
met Ike.
"My girl said she had to go to bed." "So did mine.'
"Get anywheres, Mac?" "They got an apartment in
Seattle." "I got a kiss off mine. She's awful hot. Jez, 1
thought she was going to feel me up." "We'll get it to
morrow all right."
The next day was sunny $ the Seattle waterfront was
sparkling, smelt of lumberyards, was noisy with rattle
of carts and yells of drivers when they got off the boat.
They went to the Y.M.C.A. for a room. They were
through with being laborers and hobos. They were going
to get clean jobs, live decently and go to school nights*
They walked round the city all day, and in the evening
met Olive and Gladys in front of the totempole on Pioneet
Square.
Things happened fast. They went to a restaurant and
had wine with a big feed and afterwards they went to 3
beergarden where there was a band, and drank whiskey-
sours. When they went to the girls' apartment they took
a quart of whiskey with them and Mac almost dropped
it on the steps and the girls said, "For crissake don't make
so much noise or you'll have the cops on us," and the
apartment smelt of musk and facepowder and there was
women's underwear around on all the chairs and the girls
got fifteen bucks out of each of them first thing. Mac was
in the bathroom with his girl and she smeared liprouge
on his nose and they laughed and laughed until he got
rough and she slapped his face. Then they all sat together
round the table and drank some more and Ike danced *
Solomeydance in his bare feet. Mac laughed, it was so
very funny, but he was sitting on the floor and when h
7f
tried to get up he fell on his face and all of a sudden he
was being sick in the bathtub and Gladys was cursing hell
out of him. She got him dressed, only he couldn't find
his necktie, and everybody said he was too drunk and
pushed him out and he was walking down the street sing-
ing Make a Noise Like a Hoof and Just Roll Away,
Roll Away, and he asked a cop where the Y.M.C.A. was
and the cop pushed him into a cell at the stationhouse and
locked him up.
He woke up with his head like a big split millstone.
There was vomit on his shirt and a rip in his pants. He
went over all his pockets and couldn't find his pocketbook.
A cop opened the cell door and told him to make himself
scarce and he walked out into the dazzling sun that cut
into his eyes like a knife. The man at the desk at the Y
looked at him queerly when he went in, but he got up to
his room and fell into bed without anybody saying any-
thing to him. Ike wasn't back yet. He dozed off feeling
his headache all through his sleep. When he woke up
Ike was sitting on the bed. Ike's eyes were bright and his
cheeks were red. He was still a little drunk. "Say, Mac,
did they roll yer? I can't find my pocketbook an' I tried
to go back but I couldn't find the apartment. God, I'd
have beat up the goddam floosies . . . Shit, I'm drunk
as a pissant still. Say, the galoot at the desk said we'd
have to clear out. Can't have no drunks in the Y.M.C.A."
"But jez, we paid for a week." "He'll give us part of it
back . . . Aw, what the hell, Mac . . . We're flat, but
I feel swell . . . Say, I had a rough time with your Jane
after they'd thrown you out."
"Hell, I feel sick as a dog."
"I'm afraid to go to sleep for fear of getting a hang-
over. Come on out, it'll do you good."
It was three in the afternoon. They went into a little
Chinese restaurant on the waterfront and drank coffee.
They had two dollars they got from hocking their suit-
cases. The pawnbroker wouldn't take the silk shirts be^
cause they were dirty. Outside it was raining pitchforks.
"Jesus, why the hell didn't we have the sense to keep
sober? God, we're a coupla big stiffs, Ike."
"We had a good party . . . Jez, you looked funny
with that liprouge all over your face."
"I feel like hell ... I wanta study an' work for
things; you know what I mean, not to get to be a god-
dam slavedriver but for socialism and the revolution an'
like that, not work an' go on a bat an' work an' go on a
bat like those damn yaps on the railroad."
"Hell, another time we'll have more sense an' leave
our wads somewhere safe . . . Gee, I'm beginning to
sink by the bows myself."
"If the damn house caught fire I wouldn't have the
strength to walk out."
They sat in the Chink place as long as they could and
then they went out in the rain to find a thirtycent flop-
house where they spent the night, and the bedbugs ate
them up. In the morning they went round looking for
jobs, Mac in the printing trades and Ike at the shipping
agencies. They met in the evening without having had
any luck and slept in the park as it was a fine night
Eventually they both signed up to go to a lumbercamp
up the Snake River. They were sent up by the agency or*
a car full of Swedes and Finns. Mac and Ike were the*
only ones who spoke English. When they got there thej>
found the foreman so hardboiled and the grub so rotten
and the bunkhouse so filthy that they lit out at the end
of a couple of days, on the bum again. It was already cokJ
in the Blue Mountains and they would have starved to
death if they hadn't been able to beg food in the cook-
houses of lumbercamps along the way. They hit the rail-
road at Baker City, managed to beat their way back to
Portland on freights. In Portland they couldn't find jobs
because their clothes were so dirty, so they hiked south'
77
ward along a big endless Oregon valley full of fruit-
ranches, sleeping in barns and getting an occasional meal
by cutting wood or doing chores around a ranch house.
In Salem, Ike found that he had a dose and Mac
wouldn't sleep nights worrying for fear he might have it
too. They tried to go to a doctor in Salem. He was a big
roundfaced man with a hearty laugh. When they said
they didn't have any money he guessed it was all right
and that they could do some chores to pay for the con-
sultation, but when he heard it was a venereal disease he
threw them out with a hot lecture on the wages of sin.
They trudged along the road, hungry and footsore ;
Ike had fever and it hurt him to walk. Neither of them
said anything. Finally they got to a small fruitshipping
station where there were watertanks, on the main line of
the Southern Pacific. There Ike said he couldn't walk
any further, that they'd have to wait for a freight. "Jesus
Christ, jail 'ud be better than this."
"When you're outa luck in this man's country, you
certainly are outa luck," said Mac and for some reason
they both laughed.
Among the bushes back of the station they found *n
old tramp boiling coffee in a tin can. He gave them some
coffee and bread and baconrind and they told him their
troubles. He said he was headed south for the winter and
that the thing to cure it up was tea made out of cherry
pits and stems. "But where the hell am I going to get
cherry pits and stems?" Anyway he said not to worry,
it was no worse than a bad cold. He was a cheerful old
man with a face so grimed with dirt it looked like a brown
leather mask. He was going to take a chance on a freight
that stopped there to water a little after sundown. Mac
dozed off to sleep while Ike and the old man talked.
When he woke up Ike was yelling at him and they were
all running for the freight that had already started. In
the dark Mac missed his footing and fell flat on the ties.
He wrenched his knee and ground cinders into his nose
and by the time he had got to his feet all he could see
were the two lights on the end of the train fading into
the November haze.
That was the last he saw of Ike Hall.
He got himself back on the road and limped along until
he came to a ranch house. A dog barked at him and
worried his ankles but he was too down and out to care.
Finally a stout woman came to the door and gave him
some cold biscuits and applesauce and told him he could
sleep in the barn if he gave her all his matches. He limped
to the barn and snuggled into a pile of dry sweetgrasi
and went to sleep.
In the morning the rancher, a tall ruddy man named
Thomas, with a resonant voice, went over to the barn and
offered him work for a few days at the price of his board
and lodging. They were kind to him, and had a pretty
daughter named Mona that he kinder fell in love with.
She was a plump rosycheeked girl, strong as a boy and
afraid of nothing. She punched him and wrestled with
himj and, particularly after he'd gotten fattened up a
little and rested, he could hardly sleep nights for think-
ing of her. He lay in his bed of sweetgrass telling over
the touch of her bare arm that rubbed along his when
she handed him back the nozzle of the sprayer for the
fruittrees, or was helping him pile up the pruned twigs to
burn, and the roundness of her breasts and her breath
sweet as a cow's on his neck when they romped and played
tricks on each other evenings after supper. But the
Thomases had other ideas for their daughter and told
Mac that they didn't need him any more. They sent him
off kindly with a lot of good advice, some old clothes and
a cold lunch done up in newspaper, but no money. Mona
ran after him as he walked off down the dustyrutted
wagonroad and kissed him right in front of her parents.
tt Pm stuck on you," she said. "You make a lot of money
79
and come back and marry me." "By gum, HI do that,"
said Mac, and he walked off with tears in his eyes and
feeling very good. He was particularly glad he hadn't
got the clap off that girl in Seattle.
NEWSREEL VI
Paris Shocked At Last
HARRIMAN SHOWN AS RAIL COLOSSUS
noted swindler run to earth
TEDDY WIELDS BIG STICK
straphangers demand relief.
We were sailing along
On moonlight bay
You can hear the voices ringing
They seem to say
You have stolen my heart, now don't go away
Just as we sang
love's
old
sweet
songs
On moonlight bay
MOB LYNCHES AFTER PRAYER
when the metal poured out of the furnace I saw the men
running to a place of safety. To the right of the furnace I
saw a party of ten men all of them running' wildly and their
clothes a mass of flames. Apparently some of them had been
injured when the explosion occurred and several of them
tripped and fell. The hot metal ran over the poor men in a
moment.
PRAISE MONOPOLY AS BOON TO ALL
80
industrial foes work for peace at Mrs. Potter Palmer's
love's
old
sweet
song
We were sailing along
on moonlight bay
THE CAMERA EYE (7)
skating on the pond next the silver company's mills
where there was a funny fuzzy smell from the dump
whaleoil soap somebody said it was that they used in
cleaning the silver knives and spoons and forks putting
shine on them for sale there was shine on the ice early
black ice that rang like a sawblade just scratched white by
the first skaters I couldn't learn to skate and kept fall-
ing down look out for the muckers everybody said
bohunk and polak kids put stones in their snowballs write
dirty words up on walls do dirty things up alleys their
folks work in the mills
we clean young American Rover Boys handy with
tools Deerslayers played hockey Boy Scouts and cut figure
eights on the ice Achilles Ajax Agamemnon I couldn't
learn to skate and kept falling down
THE PLANT WIZARD
Luther Burbank was born in a brick farmhouse in
Lancaster Mass,
he walked round the woods one winter
crunching through the shinycrusted snow
stumbled into a little dell where a warm spring
was
and found the grass green and weeds sprouting
and skunk cabbage pushing up a potent thumb,
He went home and sat by the stove and read
Darwin
Struggle for Existence Origin of Species Natural
Selection that wasn't what they taught in church,
so Luther Burbank ceased to believe moved to
Lunenburg,
found a seedball in a potato plant
sowed the seed and cashed in on Mr. Darwin's
Natural
Selection
on Spencer and Huxley
with the Burbank Potato.
Young man go west;
Luther Burbank went to Santa Rosa
full of his dream of green grass in winter ever-
blooming flowers ever-
bearing berries; Luther Burbank
could cash in on Natural Selection Luther Bur-
bank
carried his apocalyptic dream of green grass in
winter
and seedless berries and stoneless plums and.
rhornless roses brambles cactus
82
winters were bleak in that bleak
brick farmhouse in bleak Massachusetts
out to sunny Santa Rosaj
and he was a sunny old man
where roses bloomed all year
everblooming everbearing
hybrids.
America was hybrid
America should cash in on Natural Selection.
He was an infidel he believed in Darwin and
Natural
Selection and the influence of the mighty dead
and a good firm shipper's fruit
suitable for canning.
He was one of the grand old men until trie
churches
and the congregations
got wind that he was an infidel and believed
in Darwin.
Luther Burbank had never a thought of evil,
selecting improved hybrids for America
those sunny years in Santa Rosa.
But he brushed down a wasp's nest that time;
he wouldn't give up Darwin and Natural Selection
and they stung him and he died
puzzled.
They buried him under a cedartree.
His favorite photograph
was of a little tot
standing beside a bed of hybrid
everblooming double Shasta daisies
with never a thought of evil
And Mount Shasta
83
in the background, used to be a volcano
but they don't have volcanos
any more.
NEWSREEL VII
SAYS THIS IS CENTURY WHERE BILLIONS AND BRAINS ARE
TO RULE
infant born in Minneapolis comes here in incubator
Cheyenne Cheyenne
Hof on my fony
says Jim Hill hits oil trust on 939 counts
BIG FOUR TRAIN BLOWN TO PIECES
woman and children blotted out admits he saw floggings
and even mutilations but no frightful outrages
TRUTH ABOUT THE CONGO FREE STATE
Find Bad Fault In Dreadnaught Santos Dumont tells ot
rival of bird of prey wives prime aim of Congo natives ex-
traordinary letter ordering away U.S. marines
WHITES IN CONGO LOSE MORAL SENSE
WOMAN HELD A CAPTIVE BY AMBULANCE CHASERS
Thaw Faces Judge in Fateful Fight
LABOR MENACE IN POLITICS
last of Salome seen in New York heroism of mother un*
availing
There's room here for two y dear y
But after the ceremony
Two, dear, as one y dear> mill ride back on my fony
From old Cheyenne
THE CAMERA EYE (8)
you sat on the bed unlacing your shoes Hey
Frenchie yelled Tylor in the door you've got to fight
the Kid doan wanna fight him gotto fight him
hasn't he got to fight him fellers? Freddie pushed his
face through the crack in the door and made a long nose
Gotta fight him umpyaya and all the fellows on the top
floor were there if not you 're a girlboy and I had on
my pyjamas and they pushed in the Kid and the Kid
hit Frenchie and Frenchie hit the Kid and your mouth
tasted bloody and everybody yelled Go it Kid except
Gummer and he yelled Bust his jaw Jack and Frenchie
had the Kid down on the bed and everybody pulled him
off and they all had Frenchie against the door and he
was slamming right an' left and he couldn't see who was
hitting him and everybody started to yell the Kid licked
him and Tylqr and Freddy held his arms and told the
Kid to come and hit him but the Kid wouldn't and the
Kid was crying
the bloody sweet puky taste and then the bell rang
for lights and everybody ran to their rooms and you got
into bed with your head throbbing and you were crying
when Gumn\er tiptoed in an' said you had him licked
Jack it was a fucking shame it was Freddy hit you that
85
time, but Hoppy was tiptoeing round the hall and caught
Gummer trying to get back to his room and he got his
MAC
By Thanksgiving Mac had beaten his way to Sacra-
mento, where he got a job smashing crates in a dried
fruit warehouse. By the first of the year he'd saved up
enough to buy a suit of dark clothes and take the steam-
boat down the river to San Francisco.
It was around eight in the evening when he got in.
With his suitcase in his hand, he walked up Market Street
from the dock. The streets were full of lights. Young
Jnen anci pretty girls in brightcolored dresses were walk-
ing fast through a big yanking wind that fluttered dresses
and scarfs, slapped color into cheeks, blew grit and papers
into the air. There were Chinamen, Wops, Portuguese,
Japs in the streets. People were hustling to shows and
restaurants. Music came out of the doors of bars, frying,
buttery foodsmells from restaurants, smells of winecasks
and beer. Mac wanted to go on a party but he only had
four dollars so he went and got a room at the Y and ate
.some soggy pie and coffee in the deserted cafeteria down-
stairs.
When he got up in the bare bedroom like something in
a hospital he opened the window, but it only gave on an
airshaft. The room smelt of some sort of cleaning fluid
and when he lay down on the bed the blanket smelt of
formaldehyde. He felt too well. He could feel the pranc-
ing blood steam all through him. He wanted to talk to
somebody, to go to a dance or have a drink with a fellow
he knew or kid a girl somewhere. The smell of rouge and
86
musky facepowder in the room of those girls in Seattle
came back to him. He got up and sat on the edge of the
bed swinging his legs. Then he decided to go out, but
before he went he put his money in his suitcase and locked
it up. Lonely as a ghost he walked up and down the
streets until he was deadtired; he walked fast not looking
to the right or left, brushing past painted girls at street-
corners, touts that tried to put addresscards into his hand,
drunks that tried to pick fights with him, panhandlers
whining for a handout. Then, bitter and cold and tired,
he went back to his room and fell into bed.
Next day he went out and got a job in a small print
shop run and owned by a baldheaded Italian with big
whiskers and a flowing black tie, named Bonello. Bonello
told him he had been a redshirt with Garibaldi and was
now an anarchist. Ferrer was his great hero 5 he hired
Mac because he thought he might make a convert out of
him. All that winter Mac worked at Bonello's, ate
spaghetti and drank red wine and talked revolution with
him and his friends in the evening, went to Socialist pic^
nics or libertarian meetings on Sundays. Saturday nights
he went round to whorehouses with a fellow named
Miller whom he'd met at the Y. Miller was studying to
be a dentist. He got to be friends with a girl named
Maisie Spencer who worked in the millinery department
at the Emporium. Sundays she used to try to get him
to go to church. She was a quiet girl with big blue eyes
that she turned up to him with an unbelieving smile when
he talked revolution to her. She had tiny regular pearly
teeth and dressed prettily. After a while she got so that
she did not bother him so much about church. She liked
to have him take her to hear the band play at the Presidio
or to look at the statuary in Sutro Park.
The morning of the earthquake Mac's first thought,
when he got over his own terrible scare, was for Maisie.
The house where her folks lived on Mariposa Street was
87
still standing when he got there, but everyone had cleared
out. It was not till the third day, three days of smoke
and crashing timbers and dynamiting he spent working in
a firefighting squad, that he found her in a provision line
at the entrance to Golden Gate Park. The Spencers were
living in a tent near the shattered greenhouses.
She didn't recognise him because his hair and eye-
brows were singed and his clothes were in tatters and he
was soot from head to foot. He'd never kissed her be-
fore, but he took her in his arms before everybody and
kissed her. When he let her go her face was all sooty
from his. Some of the people in the line laughed and
dapped, but the old woman right behind, who had her
hair done in a pompadour askew so that the rat showed
through and who wore two padded pink silk dressing
gowns one above the other said spitefully, "Now you'll
have to go and wash your face."
After % that they considered themselves engaged, but
they couldn't get married, because Bonello's printshop
had been gutted with the rest of the block it stood in, and
Mac was out of a job. Maisie used to let him kiss her and
hug her in dark doorways when he took her home at
night, but further than that he gave up trying to go.
In the fall he got a job on the Bulletin. That was night
Work and he hardly ever saw Maisie except Sundays, but
they began to talk about getting married after Christmas.
When he was away from her he felt somehow sore at
Maisie most of the time, but when he was with her he
melted absolutely. He tried to get her to read pamphlets
on socialism, but she laughed and looked up at him with
her big intimate blue eyes and said it was too deep for
her. She liked to go to the theater and eat in restaurants
where the linen was starched and there were waiters in
dress suits.
About that time he went one night to hear Upton Sin-
tlair speak about the Chicago stockyards. Next to him was
88
a young man in dungarees. He had a nose like a hawk and
gray eyes and deep creases under his cheekbones and
talked in a slow drawl. His name was Fred Hoff. After
the lecture they went and had a beer together and talked,
Fred Hoff belonged to the new revolutionary organiza-
tion called The Industrial Workers of the World. He
read Mac the preamble over a second glass of beer. Fred
Hoff had just hit town as donkeyengme man on a
freighter. He was sick of the bum grub and hard life on
the sea. He still had his pay in his pocket and he was
bound he wouldn't blow it in on a bust. He'd heard that
there was a miners' strike in Goldfield and he thought
he'd go up there and see what he could do. He made Mac
feel that he was leading a pretty stodgy life helping print
lies against the working class. "Godalmighty, man, you're
just the kind o' stuff we need out there. We're goin' to
publish a paper in Goldfield, Nevada."
That night Mac went round to the local and filled out
a card, and went home to his boarding house with his
head swimming. I was just on the point of selling out to
the sons of bitches, he said to himself.
The next Sunday he and Maisie had been planning to
go up the Scenic Railway to the top of Mount Tamalpais.
Mac was terribly sleepy when his alarmclock got him out
of bed. They had to start early because he had to be on
the job again that night. As he walked to the ferrystation
where he was going to meet her at nine the clank of the
presses was still in his head, and the sour smell of ink and
paper bruised under the presses, and on top of that the
smell of the hall of the house he'd been in with a coupla
of the fellows, the smell of moldy rooms and sloppails
and the small of armpits and the dressingtable of the
frizzyhaired girl he'd had on the clammy bed and the
taste of the stale beer they'd drunk and the cooing me-
chanical voice, "Goodnight, dearie, come round soon* 3 *
"God, I'm a swine," he said to himself.
For once it was a clear morning, all the colors in the
street shone like bits of glass. God, he was sick of whor-
ing round. If Maisie would only be a sport, if Maisie was
only a rebel you could talk to like you could to a friend.
And how the hell was he going to tell her he was throw-
ing up his job?
She was waiting for him at the ferry looking like a
Gibson girl with her neat sailorblue dress and picture hat.
They didn't have time to say anything as they had to run
for the ferry. Once on the ferryboat she lifted up her face
to be kissed. Her lips were cool and her gloved hand
rested so lightly on his. At Sausalito they took the trolley-
car and changed and she kept smiling at him when they
ran to get good places in the scenic car and they felt so
alone in the roaring immensity of tawny mountain and
blue sky and sea. They'd never been so happy together.
She ran ahead of him all the way to the top. At the ob-
servatory they were both breathless. They stood against a
Wall out of sight of the other people and she let him kiss
her all over her face, all over her face and neck.
Scraps of mist flew past cutting patches out of their
view of the bay and the valleys and the shadowed moun-
tains. When they went round to the seaward side an icy
wind was shrilling through everything. A churning mass
of fog was welling up from the sea like a tidal wave. She
gripped his arm. "Oh, this scares me, Fainy!" Then sud-
denly he told her that he'd given up his job. She looked
up at him frightened and shivering in the cold wind and
little and helpless ; tears began to run down either side of
her nose. "But I thought you loved me, Fenian . . . Do
you think it's been easy for me waitin' for you all this
time, wantin' you and lovin' you? Oh, I thought you
loved me!"
He put his arm round her. He couldn't say anything.
They started walking towards the gravity car.
90
"1 don't want all those people to see I've been crying,
We were so happy before. Let's walk down to Muir
Woods." "It's pretty far, Maisie." "I don't care; I want
to." "Gee, you're a good sport, Maisie." They started
down the footpath and the mist blotted out everything.
After a couple of hours they stopped to rest. They left
the path and found a patch of grass in the middle of a big
thicket of cistus. The mist was all around but it was bright
overhead and they could feel the warmth of the sun
through it. "Ouch, I've got blisters," she said and made
a funny face that made him laugh. "It can't be so awful
far now," he said; "honest, Maisie." He wanted to explain
to her about the strike and the wobblies and why he wa?
going to Goldfield, but he couldn't. All he could do was
kiss her. Her mouth clung to his lips and her arms were
tight round his neck.
"Honest, it won't make any difference about our gettin'
married; honest, it won't . . . Maisie, I'm crazy about
you . . . Maisie, do let me ... You must let me ...
Honest, you don't know how terrible it is for me, lovin'
you like this and you never lettin' me."
He got up and smoothed down her dress. She lay there
with her eyes closed and her face white; he was afraid she
had fainted. He kneeled down and kissed her gently on
the cheek. She smiled ever so little and pulled his head
down arid ruffled his hair. "Little husband," she said.
After a while they got to their feet and walked through
the redwood grove, without seeing it, to the trolleystation.
Going home on the ferry they decided they'd get married
inside of the week. Mac promised not to go to Nevada.
Next morning he got up feeling depressed. He was
selling out. When he was shaving in the bathroom he
looked at himself in the mirror and said, half aloud: "You
bastard, you're selling out to the sons of bitches."
He went back to his room and wrote Maisie a letter.
91
DEAR MAISIE:
Honestly you mustn't think for one minute I don't
love you ever so much, but I promised to go to Goldfield
to help the gang run that paper and Pve got to do it. Pli
send you my address as soon as I get there and if you
really need me on account of anything, PU come right
back, honestly I will.
A whole lot of kisses and love
FAINY
He went down to the Bulletin office and drew his pay,
packed his bag and went down to the station to see when
he could get a train for Goldfield, Nevada.
THE CAMERA EYE (9)
all day the fertilizerfactories smelt something awful
*nd at night the cabin was full of mosquitoes fit to carry
you away but it was Crisfield on the Eastern Shore and if
Ive had a gasoline boat to carry them across the bay here we
could ship our tomatoes and corn and early peaches ship
'em clear to New York instead of being jipped by the
commissionmerchants in Baltimore we'd run a truck farm
ship early vegetables irrigate fertilize enrich the tobacco-
exhausted land of the Northern Neck if we had a gasoline
boat we'd run oysters in her in winter raise terrapin for
the market
but up on the freight siding I got talking to a young
couldn't have been much older 'n me was asleep in
92
one of the boxcars asleep right there in the sun and the
smell of cornstalks and the reek of rotting menhaden
from the fertilizer factories he had curly hair and
wisps of hay in it and through his open shirt you could see
his body was burned brown to the waist I guess he wasn't
much account but he'd bummed all way from Minnesota
he was going south and when I told him about Chesa-
peake Bay he wasn't surprised but said I guess it's too fur
to swim it I'll git a job in a menhaden boat
BIG BILI
Big Bill Haywood was born in sixty nine in a
boardinghouse in Salt Lake City.
He was raised in Utah, got his schooling in Ophir
a mining camp with shooting scrapes, faro Saturday
nights, whisky spilled on pokertables piled with new
silver dollars.
When he was eleven his mother bound him out
to a farmer, he ran away because the farmer lashed
him with a whip. That was his first strike.
He lost an eye whittling a slingshot out of scrub-
oak.
He worked for storekeepers, ran a fruitstandj
ushered in the Salt Lake Theatre, was a messengerboy,
bellhop at the Continental Hotel.
When he was fifteen
he went out to the mines in Humboldt County,
Nevada,
93
his outfit was overalls, a jumper, a blue shirt,
mining boots, two pair of blankets, a set of chessmen,
boxinggloves and a big lunch of plum pudding his
mother fixed for him.
When he married he went to live in Fort Me-
Dermitt built in the old days against the Indians,
abandoned now that there was no more frontier;
there his wife bore their first baby without doctor
or midwife. Bill cut the navelstring, Bill buried the
afterbirth j
the child lived. Bill earned money as he could
surveying, haying in Paradise Valley, breaking colts,
riding a wide rangy country.
One night at Thompson's Mill, he was one of five
men who met by chance and stopped the night in the
abandoned ranch. Each of them had lost an eye, they
were the only oneeyed men in the county.
They lost the homestead, things went to pieces,
his wife was sick, he had children to support. He went
to work as a miner at Silver City.
At Silver City, Idaho, he joined the W.F.M.,
there he held his first union office , he was delegate of
the Silver City miners to the convention of the West-
ern Federation of Miners held in Salt Lake City in '98.
From then on he was an organizer, a speaker, an
exhorter, the wants of all the miners were his wants ;
he fought Coeur D'Alenes, Telluride, Cripple Creek,
joined the Socialist Party, wrote and spoke
through Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Montana, Colorado to
miners striking for an eight hour day, better living, a
share of the wealth they hacked out of the hills.
In Chicago in January 1905 a conference was
called that met at the same hall in Lake Street where
94
the Chicago anarchists had addressed meetings twenty
years before.
William D. Haywood was permanent chairman.
It was this conference that wrote the manifesto that
brought into being the I.W.W.
When he got back to Denver he was kidnapped
to Idaho and tried with Moyer and Pettibone for the
murder of the sheepherder Steuenberg, exgovernor of
Idaho, blown up by a bomb in his own home.
When they were acquitted at Boise (Darrow was
their lawyer) Big Bill Haywood was known as a
workingclass leader from coast to coast.
Now the wants of all the workers were his wants,
he was the spokesman of the West, of the cowboys and
the lumberjacks and the harvesthands and the miners.
(The steamdrill had thrown thousands of miners
out of workj the steamdrill had thrown a scare into all
the miners of the West.)
The W.F.M. was going conservative. Haywood
worked with the I.W.W. building a new society in the
shell of the old y campaigned for Debs for President in
1908 on the Red Special. He was in on all the big
strikes in the East where revolutionary spirit was grow-
ing, Lawrence, Paterson, the strike of the Minnesota
ironworkers.
They went over with the A.E.F. to save the Mor-
gan loans, to save Wilsonian Democracy, they stood at
Napoleon's tomb and dreamed empire, they had cham-
pagne cocktails at the Ritz bar and slept with Russian
countesses in Montmartre and dreamed empire, all
over the country at American legion posts and business
men's luncheons it was worth money to make the eagle
scream ;
they lynched the pacifists and the proGermans
and the wobblies and the reds and the bolsheviks.
95
Bill Haywood stood trial with the hundred and
one at Chicago where Judge Landis the baseball czar
with the lack of formality of a traffic court
handed out his twenty year sentences and thirty-
thousand dollar fines.
After two years in Leavenworth they let them
bail out Big Bill (he was fifty years old a heavy broken
man), the war was over but they'd learned empire in
the Hall of the Mirrors at Versailles j
the courts refused a new triaL
It was up to Haywood to jump his bail or to go
back to prison for twenty years.
He was sick with diabetes, he had had a rough
life, prison had broken down his health. Russia was
d workers' republic; he went to Russia and was in
Moscow a couple of years but he wasn't happy there,
that world was too strange for him. He died there
and they burned his big broken hulk of a body and
buried the ashes under the Kremlin wall.
THE CAMERA EYE (10)
the old major who used to take me to the Capitol
when the Senate and the House of Representatives were
in session had been in the commissary of the Confederate
Army and had very beautiful manners so the attendants
bowed to the old major except for the pages who were
Jittle boys not much older than your brother was a page
in the Senate once and occasionally a Representative or a
Senator would look at him with slit eyes may be some-
body and bow or shake hearty or raise a hand
the old major dressed very well in a morningcoat
and had muttonchop whiskers and we would walk very
slowly through the flat sunlight in the Botanical Gardens
and look at the little labels on the trees and shrubs and
see the fat robins and the starlings hop across the grass
and walk up the steps and through the flat air of the
rotunda with the dead statues of different sizes and the
Senate Chamber flat red and the committee room and the
House flat green and the committee rooms and the Su-
preme Court Pve forgotten what color the Supreme Court
was and the committee rooms
and whispering behind the door of the visitors' gal-
lery and the dead air and a voice rattling under the glass
skylights and desks slammed and the long corridors full
of the dead air and our legs would get very tired and I
thought of the starlings on the grass and the long streets
full of dead air and my legs were tired and I had a pain
between the eyes and the old men bowing with quick slit
eyes
may be somebody and big slit unkind mouths and
the dusty black felt and the smell of coatclosets and dead
air and I wonder what the old major thought about and
what I thought about maybe about that big picture at the
Corcoran Art Gallery full of columns and steps and con-
spirators and Caesar in purple fallen flat called Caesaff
dead
97
MAC
Mac had hardly gotten off the train at Goldfield when
a lanky man in khaki shirt and breeches, wearing canvas
army leggins, went up to him. "If you don't mind, what's
your business in this town, brother?" "I'm travelin' in
books." "What kinda books?" "Schoolbooks and the like,
for Truthseeker, Inc. of Chicago." Mac rattled it off very
fast, and the man seemed impressed. "I guess you're all
right," he said. "Going up to the Eagle?" Mac nodded.
"Plug'll take ye up, the feller with the team . , . You
see we're looking out for these goddam agitators, the I
Won't Work outfit."
Outside the Golden Eagle Hotel there were two sol-
diers on guard, toughlooking sawedoff men with their hats
over their eyes. When Mac went in everybody at the bar
turned and looked at him. He said "Good evening,
gents," as snappily as possible and went up to the pro-
prietor to ask for a room. All the while he was wondering
who the hell he dared ask where the office of the Nevada
Workman was. "I guess I can fix you up with a bed.
Travelin' man?" "Yes," said Mac. "In books." Down at
the end a big man with walrus whiskers was standing at
the bar talking fast in a drunken whining voice, "If they'd
only give me my head I'd run the bastards outa town soon
enough. Too goddam many lawyers mixed up in this. Run
the sonsobitches out. If they resists shoot 'em, that's what
I says to the Governor, but they're all these sonsobitches
a lawyers fussin' everythin' up all the time with warrants
and habeas corpus and longwinded rigmarole. My ass to
habeas corpus." "All right, Joe, you tell 'em," said the
proprietor soothingly. Mac bought a cigar and sauntered
but. As the door closed behind him the big man was yell-
ing out again, "I said, My ass to habeas corpus."
It was nearly dark. An icy wind blew through the ram-
shackle clapboard streets. His feet stumbling in the
of the deep ruts, Mac walked round several blocks look-
ing up at dark windows. He walked all over the town
but no sign of a newspaper office. When he found himself
passing the same Chink hash joint for the third time, he
slackened his steps and stood irresolutely on the curb. At
the end of the street the great jagged shank of a hill hung
over the town. Across the street a young man, his head
and ears huddled into the collar of a mackinaw, was loaf-
ing against the dark window of a hardware store. Mac
decided he was a squarelooking stiff and went over to
speak to him.
"Say, bo, where's the office of the Nevada Workman?"
"What the hell d'you wanter know for?" Mac and the
other man looked at each other. "I want to see Fred
Hoff ... I came on from San Fran to help in the
printinV "Got a red card?" Mac pulled out his I.W.W,
membership card. "I've got my union card, too, if you
want to see that."
"Hell, no ... I guess you're all right, but, as the
feller said, suppose I'd been a dick, you'd be in the bull-
pen now, bo."
"I told 'em I was a friggin' bookagent to get into the
damn town. Spent my last quarter on a cigar to keep up
the burjwa look."
The other man laughed. "All right, fellowworker. I'll
take you round."
"What they got here, martial law?" asked Mac as he
followed the man down an alley between two overgrown
shanties.
"Every sonofabitchin' yellerleg in the State of Nevada
right here in town . . . Lucky if you don't get run outa
town with a bayonet in yer crotch, as the feller said."
At the end of the alley was a small house like a shoebox
with brightly lit windows. Young fellows in miners'
clothes or overalls filled up the end of the alley and safi
99
three deep on the rickety steps. "What's this, a pool-
room?" asked Mac. "This is the Nevada Workman . . .
Say, my name's Ben Evans ^ I'll introjuce you to the
gang . . . Say, yous guys, this is fellowworker Mc-
Creary , . . he's come on from Frisco to set up type."
"Put it there, Mac," said* a sixfooter who looked like a
Swede lumberman, and gave Mac's hand a wrench that
made the bones crack.
Fred Hoff had on a green eyeshade and sat behind a
desk piled with galleys. He got up and shook hands. "Oh,
boy, you're just in time. There's hell to pay. They got the
printer in the bullpen and we've got to get this sheet out."
Mac took off his coat and went back to look over the
press. He was leaning over the typesetter's "stone" when
Fred Hoff came back and beckoned him into a corner.
"Say, Mac, I want to explain the layout here . . . It's
kind of g, funny situation . . . The W.F.M.'s goin' yel-
low on us ... It's a hell of a scrap. The Saint was here
the other day and that bastard Mullany shot him through
both arms and he's in hospital now . . . They're sore as
a bcil because we're instillin' ideas of revolutionary soli-
darity, see? We got the restaurant workers out and we got
some of the minin' stiffs. Now the A.F. of L.'s gettin' wise
and they've got a bonehead scab organizer in hobnobbin*
with the mineowners at the Montezuma Club."
"Hey, Fred, let me take this on gradually," said Mac.
"Then there was a little shootin' the other day out in
front of a restaurant down the line an' the stiff that owned
the joint got plugged an' now they've got a couple of the
boys in jail for that." "The hell you say." "And Big Bill
Haywood's comin' to speak next week . . . That's about
the way the situation is, Mac. I've got to tear off an
article . . . You'ie boss printer an' we'll pay you seven-
teen fifty like we all get. Ever written any?"
"No."
100
"It's a time like this a feller regrets he didn't work
harder in school. Gosh, I wish I could write decent."
"Pll take a swing at an article if I get a chance."
"Big BilPll write us some stuff. He writes swell."
They set up a cot for Mac back of the press. It wab a
week before he could get time to go round to the Eagle
to get his suitcase. Over the office and the presses was a
long attic, with a stove in it, where most of the boys slept.
Those that had blankets rolled up in their blankets, those
that hadn't put their jackets over their heads, those that
didn't have jackets slept as best they could. At the end of
the room was a long sheet of paper where someone had
printed out the Preamble in shaded block letters. On the
plaster wall of the office someone had drawn a cartoon of
a workingstiff labelled "I.W.W." giving a fat man in a
stovepipe hat labelled "mineowner" a kick in the seat of
the pants. Above it they had started to letter "solidarity'*
but had only gotten as far as "S O L I D A."
One November night Big Bill Haywood spoke at th$
miners' union. Mac and Fred Hoff went to report th<
speech for the paper. The town looked lonely as an old
trashdump in the huge valley full of shrill wind and driv-
ing snow. The hall was hot and steamy with the steam of
big bodies and plug tobacco and thick mountaineer clothes
that gave off the shanty smell of oil lamps and charred
firewood and greasy fryingpans and raw whisky. At the
beginning of the meeting men moved round uneasily,
shuffling their feet and clearing the phlegm out of their
throats. Mac was uncomfortable himself. In his pocket
was a letter from Maisie. He knew it by heart:
DEAREST FAINY:
Everything has happened just as I was afraid of. You
know what I mean, dearest little husband. It's two months
already and I'm so frightened and there's nobody I can
tell. Darling, you must come right back. I'll die if you
101
don't. Honestly Pll die and Pm so lonely for you any-
ways and so afraid sofnebody'11 notice. As it is we'll have
to go away somewheres when we're married and not come
back until plenty of time has elapsed. If I thought I could
get work there Pd come to you to Goldfield. I think it
would be nice if we went to San Diego. I have friends
there and they say it's lovely and there we could tell peo-
ple we'd been married a long time. Please come sweetest
little husband. Pm so lonely for you and it's so terrible to
stand this all alone. The crosses are kisses. Your loving
wife, TV *
' MAISIE
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Big Bill talked about solidarity and sticking together in
the face of the masterclass and Mac kept wondering what
Big Bill would do if he'd got a girl in trouble like that.
Big Bill was saying the day had come to start building a
new society in the shell of the old and for the workers to
get ready to assume control of the industries they'd created
out of their sweat and blood. When he said, "We stand
for the one big union," there was a burst of cheering and
clapping from all the wobblies in the hall. Fred Hoff
nudged Mac as he clapped. "Let's raise the roof, Mac."
The exploiting classes would be helpless against the soli-
darity of the whole working class. The militia and the
yellowlegs were workingstiffs too. Once they realized the
historic mission of solidarity the masterclass couldn't use
them to shoot down their brothers anymore. The workers
must realize that every small fight, for higher wages, for
freespeech, for decent living conditions, was only signifi-
cant as part of the big fight for the revolution and the
cooperative commonwealth. Mac forgot about Maisie. By
the time Big Bill had finished speaking his mind had run
ahead of the speech so that he'd forgotten just what he
said, but Mac was in a glow all over and was cheering to
beat hell. He and Fred Hoff were cheering and the stocky
102
Bohemian miner that smelt so bad next them was clapping
and the oneeyed Pole on the other side was clapping and
the bunch of Wops were clapping and the little Jap who
was waiter at the Montezuma Club was clapping and the
sixfoot ranchman who'd come in in hopes of seeing a fight
was clapping. "Ain't the sonofabitch some orator," he was
saying again and again. "I tellyer, Utah's the state for
mansized men. I'm from Ogden myself."
After the meeting Big Bill was round at the office and
he joked everybody and sat down and wrote an article
right there for the paper. He pulled out a flask and every-
body had a drink, except Fred Hoff who didn't like Big
Bill's drinking, or any drinking, and they all went to bed
with the next issue on the press, feeling tired and flushed
and fine.
Next morning when Mac woke up he suddenly thought
of Maisie and reread her letter, and tears came to his eyes
sitting on the edge of the cot before anybody was up yet.
He stuck his head in a pail of icy water from the pump s
that was frozen so hard he had to pour a kettleful of hot
water off the stove into it to thaw it, but he couldn't get
the worried stiff feeling out of his forehead. When he
went over with Fred Hoff to the Chink joint for break^
fast he tried to tell him he was going back to San Fran-
cisco to get married.
"Mac, you can't do it; we need you here." "But I'll
come back, honest I will, Fred." "A man's first duty's to
the workin' class," said Fred Hoff.
"As soon as the kid's born an' she can go back to work
I'll come back. But you know how it is, Fred. I can't pay
the hospital expenses on seventeenfifty a week."
"You bughta been more careful."
"But hell, Fred, I'm made of flesh and blood like
everybody else. For crissake, what do you want us to be,
tin saints?"
103
"A wobbly oughtn't to have any wife or children, not
till after the revolution."
"I'm not giving up the fight, Fred . . . I'm not sellin'
out} I swear to God Pm not."
Fred Hoff had gotten very pale. Sucking his lips in be-
tween his teeth he got up from the table and left the res-
taurant. Mac sat there a long time feeling gloomy as hell.
Then he went back to the office of the Workman. Fred
Hoff was at the desk writing hard. "Say, Fred," said Mac,
"Pll stay another month. I'll write Maisie right now."
"I knew you'd stay, Mac; you're no quitter." "But Jesus
God, man, you expect too much of a feller." "Too much
is too damn little," said Fred Hoff. Mac started running
the paper through the press.
For the next few weeks, when Maisie's letters came he
put them in his pocket without reading them. He wrote
her as reassuringly as he could, that he'd come as soon as
the boys could get someone to take his place.
Then Christmas night he read all Maisie's letters. They
were all the same; they made him cry. He didn't want to
get married, but it was hell living up here in Nevada all
winter without a girl, and he was sick of whoring around.
He didn't want the boys to see him looking so glum, so
he went down to have a drink at the saloon the restaurant
workers went to. A great roaring steam of drunken sing-
ing came out of the saloon. Going in the door he met Ben
Evans. "Hello, Ben, where are you goin'?" "I'm goin' to
have a drink as the feller said." "Well, so am I." "What's
the matter?" "I'm blue as hell." Ben Evans laughed.
"Jesus, so am I ... and it's Christmas, ain't it?"
They had three drinks each but the bar was crowded
and they didn't feel like celebrating; so they took a pint
flask, which was all they could afford, up to Ben Evans'
room. Ben Evans was a dark thickset young man with
very black eyes and hair. He hailed from Louisville, Ken-
tucky. He'd had considerable schooling and was an auto-
104
mobile mechanic. The room was icy cold. They sat on tht
bed, each of them wrapped in one of his blankets.
"Well, ain't this a way to spend Christmas?" said Mac.
"Holy Jesus, it's a good thing Fred Hoff didn't ketch us,"
Mac snickered. "Fred's a hell of a good guy, honest as the
day an' all that, but he won't let a feller live." "I guess
if the rest of us were more like Fred we'd get somewheres
sooner." "We would at that . . . Say, Mac, I'm blue as
hell about all this business, this shootin' an' these fellers
from the W.F.M. goin' up to the Montezuma Club and
playin' round with that damn scab delegate from Wash-
ington." "Well, none of the wobbly crowd's done any-
thing like that." "No, but there's not enough of us . . ."
"What you need's a drink, Ben." "It's just like this god-
dam pint, as the feller said, if we had enough of 'em we'd
get fried, but we haven't. If we had enough boys like
Fred Hoff we'd have a revolution, but we haven't."
They each had a drink from the pint and then Maf,
said: "Say, Ben, did you ever get a girl in trouble, a girl
you liked a hellova lot?"
"Sure, hundreds of 'em."
"Didn't it worry you?"
"For crissake, Mac, if a girl wasn't a goddam whore
she wouldn't let you, would she?"
"Jeez, I don't see it like that, Ben ... But hell, I
don't know what to do about it ... She's a good kid,
anyways, gee . . ."
"I don't trust none of 'em ... I know a guy onct
married a girl like that, carried on and bawled an' made
out he'd knocked her up. He married her all right an' she
turned out to be a goddam whore and he got the siph
off'n her . . . You take it from me, boy. . . . Love 'em
and leave 'em, that's the only way for stiffs like us."
They finished up the pint. Mac went back to the Work-
man office and went to sleep with the whisky burning in
his stomach. He dreamed he was walking across a field
105
with a girl oh a warm day. The whisky was hotsweet in
his mouth, buzzed like bees in his ears. He wasn't sure if
the girl was Maisie or just a goddam whore, but he felt
very warm and tender, and she was saying in a little hot-
sweet voice, "Love me up, kid," and he could see her body
through her thingauze dress as he leaned over her and
she kept crooning, "Love me up, kid," in a hotsweet buz-
2 ing.
"Hey, Mac, ain't you ever goin' to get waked up?"
Fred Hoff, scrubbing his face and neck with a towel, was
standing over him. "I want to get this place cleaned up
before the gang gets here." Mac sat up on the cot. "Yare,
what's the matter?" He didn't have a hangover but he
ielt depressed, he could tell that at once.
"Say, you certainly were stinkin' last night."
"The hell I was, Fred ... I had a coupla drinks but,
Jesus . . ."
"I heard you staggerin' round here goin' to bed like
&ny goddam scissorbill."
"Look here, Fred, you're not anybody's nursemaid. I
can take care of myself."
"You guys need nursemaids . . . You can't even wait
till we won the strike before you start your boozin' and
v/horin' around." Mac was sitting on the edge of the bed
lacing his boots. "What in God's name do you think we're
all hangin' round here for . . . our health?" "I don't
know what the hell most of you are hangin' round for,"
B*aid Fred Hoff and went out slamming the door.
A couple of days later it turned out that there was
another fellow around who could run a linotype and Mac
left town. He sold his suitcase and his good clothes for
five dollars and hopped a train of flatcars loaded with ore
that took him down to Ludlow. In Ludlow he washed
the alkali dust out of his mouth, got a meal and got
cleaned up a little. He was in a terrible hurry to get to
Frisco, all the time he kept thinking that Maisie might
loll herself. He was crazy to see her, to sit beside her, to
106
have her pat his hand gently while they were sitting side
by side talking the way she used to do. After those bleak
dusty months up in Goldfield he needed a woman. The
fare to Frisco was $11.15 an d he only had four dollars anc!
some pennies left. He tried risking a dollar in a crapgam<
in the back of a saloon, but he lost it right away and got
cold feet and left.
NEWSREEL VIII
Prof Ferrer, former director of the Modern School in
Barcelona who has been on trial there on the charge of having
been the principal instigator of the recent revolutionary move-
ment has been sentenced to death and will be shot Wednesday
unless
Cook still pins faith on esquimaux says interior of the
Island of Luzon most beautiful place on earth
QUIZZES WARM UP POLE TALK
Oh bury me not on the lone prairie
Where the wild kiyotes will howl over me
Where the rattlesnakes hiss and the wind blows free
GYPSY'S MARCHERS STORM SIN'S FORT
Nation's Big Men Await River Trip Englewood Club>
women Move To Uplift Drama Evangelist's Host Thousands
Strong Pierces Heart of Crowded Hushed Levee Has $3,018
and Is Arrested
GIVES MILLION IN HOOKWORM WAR
Gypsy Smith's Spectral Parade Through South Side Red
Light Region
with a bravery that brought tears to the eyes of the squad
of twelve men who were detailed to shoot him Francisco
Ferrer marched this morning to the trench that had been
prepared to receive his body after the fatal volley
PLUNGE BY AUTO; DEATH IN RIVER
J07
THE CAMERA EYE (n)
the Pennypackers went to the Presbyterian church
<xnd the Pennypacker girls sang chilly shrill soprano in
the choir and everybody was greeted when they went into
church and outside the summer leaves on the trees wig-
wagged greenblueyellow through the windows and we all
filed into the pew and I'd asked Mr. Pennypacker he was
a deacon in the church who were the Molly Maguires?
a squirrel was scolding in the whiteoak but the Penny-
packer girls all the young ladies in their best hats singing
the anthem who were the Molly Maguires? thoughts,
bulletholes in an old barn abandoned mine pits black
skeleton tipples weedgrown dumps who were the Molly
Maguires? but it was too late you couldn't talk in church
and all the young ladies best hats and pretty pink green
blue yellow dresses and the squirrel scolding who were
the Molly Maguires?
and before I knew it it was communion and I wanted
to say I hadn't been baptized but all eyes looked shut up
when I started to whisper to Con
communion was grape juice in little glasses and
little squares of stale bread and you had to gulp the bread
and put your handkerchief over your mouth and look
holy and the little glasses made a funny sucking noise and
fell the quiet church in the middle of the sunny brightblue
108
Sunday in the middle of whiteoaks wigwagging and the
smell of fries from the white house and the blue quiet
Sunday smoke of chimneys from stoves where fried
chicken sizzled and fritters and brown gravy set back to
keep hot
in the middle of squirrels and minetipples in the
middle of the blue Pennsylvania summer sunday the
little glasses sucking to get the last drop of communion
and I felt itchy in the back of my neck would I be
struck by lightning eating the bread drinking the com-
munion me not believing or baptized or Presbyterian and
who were the Molly Maguires? masked men riding at
night shooting bullets into barns at night what were they
after in the oldtime night?
church was over and everybody was filing out and
being greeted as they went out and everybody had a good
appetite after communion but I couldn't eat much itchy
in the back of the neck scary with masked men riding
Molly Maguires
NEWSREEL IX
FORFEIT STARS BY DRINKING
< Oh bury me not
on the lone prairie"
They heeded not his dying grayer
They buried him there on the lone prairie
109
COLLEGE HEAD DENIES KISSES
then our courage returned for we knew that rescue was
near at hand, we shouted and yelled again but did not know
whether we were heard. Then came the unsealing and I lost
consciousness. All the days and nights fell back and I dropped
into a sleep
VOTE AT MIDNIGHT ON ALTMAN'S FATE
This is the fourth day we have been down here. That is
what I think but our watches stopped. I have been waiting
in the dark because we have been eating the wax from our
safety lamps. I have also eaten a plug of tobacco, some bark
and some of my shoe. I could only chew it. I hope you
can read this. I am not afraid to die. O holy Virgin have
mercy on me. I think my time has come. You know what
my property is. We worked for it together and it is all yours.
This is my will and you must keep it. You have been a good
wife. May the holy virgin guard you. I hope this reaches
you sometime- ^and you can read it. It has been very quiet
down here and I wonder what has become of our comrades.
Goodby until heaven shall bring us together.
Girls Annoyer Lashed in Public
COVETS OSTRICHES
In a little box just six by three
And his bones now rot on the lone prairie
MAC
Mac went down to the watertank beyond the yards to
wait for a chance to hop a freight. The old man's hat and
his ruptured shoes were ashen gray with dust; he was sit-
ting all hunched up with his head between his knees and
didn't make a move until Mac was right up to him. Mac
1 10
sat down beside him. A rank smell of feverish sweat came
from the old man. "What's the trouble, daddy ?"
"Pm through, that's all ... 'I been a lunger all my
life an 5 I guess it's got me now." His mouth twisted in
a spasm of pain. He let his head droop between his knees.
After a minute he raised his head again, making little
feeble gasps with his mouth like a dying fish. When he
got his breath he said, "It's a razor a' slicin' off my lungs
every time. Stand by, will you, kid?" "Sure I will," said
Mac.
"Listen, kid, I wanna go West to where there's trees
an' stuff . . . You got to help me into one o' them cars.
I'm too weak for the rods . . . Don't let me lay down
. . . I'll start bleedin' if I lay down, see." He choked
again.
"I got a coupla bucks. I'll square it with the brakeman
maybe."
"You don't talk like no vag."
"I'm a printer. I wanta make San Francisco soon as I
can."
"A workin' man; I'll be a son of a bitch. Listen here,
kid ... I ain't worked in seventeen years."
The train came in and the engine stood hissing by the
watertank.
Mac helped the old man to his feet and got him
propped in the corner of a flatcar that was loaded with
machine parts covered with a tarpaulin. He saw the fire-
man and the engineer looking at them out of the cab, but
they didn't say anything.
When the train started the wind was cold. Mac tool'
off his coat and put it behind the old man's head to keep
it from jiggling with the rattling of the car. The old man
sat with his eyes closed and his head thrown back. Mac
didn't know whether he was dead or not. It got to be
night. Mac was terribly cold and huddled shivering in a
fold of tarpaulin in the other end of the car.
in
In the gray of dawn Mac woke up from a doze with
his teeth chattering. The train had stopped on a siding.
His legs were so numb it was some time before he could
stand on them. He went to look at the old man, but he
couldn't tell whether he was dead or not. It got a little
lighter and the east began to glow like the edge of a piece
of iron in a forge. Mac jumped to the ground and walked
back along the train to the caboose.
The brakeman was drowsing beside his lantern. Mac
told him that an old tramp was dying in one of the flat-
cars. The brakeman had a small flask of whisky in his
good coat that hung on a nail in the caboose. They walked
together up the track again. When they got to the flatcar
it was almost day. The old man had flopped over on his
side. His face looked white and grave like the face of a
statue of a Civil War general. Mac opened his coat and
the filthy torn shirts and underclothes and put his hand on
the old man's chest. It was cold and lifeless as a board.
When he took his hand away there was sticky blood on it
"Hemorrhage," said the brakeman, making a perfunc-
tory clucking noise in his mouth.
The brakeman said they'd have to get the body off the
train. They laid him down flat in the ditch beside the bal-
last with his hat over his face. Mac asked the brakeman
if he had a spade so that they could bury him, so that the
buzzards wouldn't get him, but he said no, the gandy-
walkers would find him and bury him. He took Mac back
to the caboose and gave him a drink and asked him all
about how the old man had died.
Mac beat his way to San Francisco.
Maisie was cold and bitter at first, but after they'd
talked a little while she said he looked thin and ragged as
a bum and burst into tears and kissed him. They went to
get her savings out of the bank and bought Mac a suit and
went down to City Hall and got married without saying
anything to her folks. They were both very happy going
112
down on the train to San Diego, and they got a furnished
room there with kitchen privileges and told the landlady
they'd been married a year. They wired Maisie's folks
that they were down there on their honeymoon and would
be back soon.
Mac got work there at a job printer's and they started
payments on a bungalow at Pacific Beach. The work wasn't
bad and he was pretty happy in his quiet life with Maisie*
After all, he'd had enough bumming for a while. When
Maisie went to the hospital to have the baby, Mac had to
beg a two months' advance of pay from Ed Balderstoi\
his boss. Even at that they had to take out a second mork
gage on the bungalow to pay the doctor's bill. The baby
was a girl and had blue eyes and they named her Rose.
Life in San Diego was sunny and quiet. Mac went to
work mornings on the steamcar and came back evenings
on the steamcar and Sundays he puttered round the house
or sometimes sat on one of the beaches with Maisie and
the kid. It was understood between them now that he had
to do everything that Maise wanted because he'd given
her such a tough time before they were married. The next
year they had another kid and Maisie was sick and in hos-
pital a long time after, so that now all that he could do
with his pay each week was cover the interest on his debts,
and he was always having to kid the grocerystore along
and the milkman and the bakery to keep their charge-
accounts going from week to week. Maisie read a lot of
magazines and always wanted new things for the house, a
pianola, or a new icebox, or a fireless cooker. Her brothers
were making good money in the real estate business in Los
Angeles and her folks were coming up in the world.
Whenever she got a letter from them she'd worry Mac
about striking his boss for more pay or moving to a better
job.
When there was anybody of the wobbly crowd in town
down on his uppers or when they were raising money for
itrike funds or anything like that he'd help them out with
a couple of dollars, but he never could do much for fear
Maisie would find out about it. Whenever she found The
Appeal to Reason or any other radical paper round the
house she'd burn it up, and then they'd quarrel and be
sulky and make each other's lives miserable for a few
days, until Mac decided what was the use, and never spoke
to her about it. But it kept them apart almost as if she
thought he was going out with some other woman.
One Saturday afternoon Mac and Maisie had managed
to get a neighbor to take care of the kids and were going
into a vaudeville theater when they noticed a crowd at
the corner in front of Marshall's drugstore. Mac elbowed
his way through. A thin young man in blue denim was
standing close to the corner lamppost where the firealarm
was, reading the Declaration of Independence: When in
ihe course of human events ... A cop came up and told
him to move on ... inalienable right . . . life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.
Now there were two cops. One of them had the young
man by the shoulders and was trying to pull him loose
from the lamppost.
"Come on, Fainy, we'll be late for the show," Maisie
kept saying.
"Hey, get a file j the bastard's locked himself to the
post," he heard one cop say to the other. By that time
Maisie had managed to hustle him to the theater box-
office. Arter all, he'd promised to take her to the show
and she hadn't been out all winter. The last thing he saw
the cop had hauled off and hit the young guy in the
corner of the jaw.
Mac sat there in the dark stuffy theater all afternoon.
He didn't see the acts or the pictures between the acts.
He didn't speak to Maisie. He sat there feeling sick in
the pit of his stomach. The boys must be staging a free-
speech fight right here in town. Now and then he glanced
114
at Maisie's face in the dim glow from the stage. It had
puffed out a little in wellsatisfied curves like a cat sitting
by a warm stove, but she was still a good looker. She'd
already forgotten everything and was completely happy
looking at the show, her lips parted, her eyes bright, like
a little girl at a party. "I guess Pve sold out to the
sonsobitches allright, allright," he kept saying to him-
self.
The last number on the programme was Eva Tanguay.
The nasal voice singing Pm Eva Tanguay, I don't care
brought Mac out of his sullen trance. Everything sud-
denly looked bright and clear to him, the proscenium with
its heavy gold fluting, the people's faces in the boxes, the
heads in front of him, the tawdry powdery mingling of
amber and blue lights on the stage, the scrawny woman
flinging herself around inside the rainbow hoop of the
spotlight.
The papers say that Pm insane
But .../... don't . . . care.
Mac got up. "Maisie, I'll meet you at the house. You
see the rest of the show. I feel kind of bum." Before she
could answer, he'd slipped out past the other people in
the row, down the aisle and out. On the street there waf
nothing but the ordinary Saturday afternoon crowd. Mac
walked round and round the downtown district. He didn't
even know where I.W.W. headquarters was. He had to
talk to somebody. As he passed the Hotel Brewster he
caught a whiff of beer. What he needed was a drink. Thir
way he was going nuts.
At the next corner he went into a saloon and drank f oui
rye whiskies straight. The bar was lined with men drink-
ing, treating each other, talking loud about baseball, prize-
fights, Eva Tanguay and her Salome dance.
Beside Mac was a big redfaced man with a wide-
brimmed felt hat on the back of his head. When Mac
reached for his fifth drink this man put his hand on hie
arm and said, "Pard, have that on me if you don't mind
. . . I'm celebratin' today." "Thanks; here's lookin' at
you," said Mac. "Pard, if you don't mind my sayin' so,
you're drinkin' like you wanted to drink the whole barrel
up at once.and not leave any for the rest of us ... Have
a chaser." "All right, bo," said Mac. "Make it a beer
chaser."
"My name's McCreary," said the big man. "I just sold
my fruit crop. I'm from up San Jacinto way."
"So's my name McCreary, too," said Mac.
They shook hands heartily.
"By the living jumbo, that's a coincidence . . . We
must be kin or pretty near it ... Where you from,
pard?"
"I'm from Chicago, but my folks was Irish."
"Mine was from the East, Delaware . . . but it's the
good old Scotch-Irish stock."
They had more drinks on that. Then they went to
another saloon where they sat in a corner at a table and
talked. The big man talked about his ranch and his apricot
crop' and how his wife was bedridden since his last child
had come. "I'm awful fond of the old gal, but what can
a feller do? Can't get gelded just to be true to your
wife." "I like my wife swell," said Mac, "and I've got
swell kids. Rose is four and she's beginning to read already
and Ed's about learnin' to walk. . . . But hell, before I
was married I used to think I might amount to somethin'
in the world ... I don't mean I thought I was anythin'
in particular . . . You know how it is." "Sure, pard, I
used to feel that way when I was a young feller."
"Maisie's a fine girl, too, and I like her better all the
time," said Mac, feeling a warm tearing wave of affection
go over him, like sometimes a Saturday evening when
he'd helped her bathe the kids and put them to bed and
ihe room was still steamy from their baths and his eyes
116
suddenly met Maisie's eyes and there was nowhere they
had to go and they were just both of them there together.
The man from up San Jacinto way began to sing:
my wife has gone to the country.
Hooray y hooray.
1 love my wife, but oh you kid,
My wife's gone away.
"But God damn it to hell," said Mac, "a man's got to
work for more than himself and his kids to feel right."
"I agree with you absholootely, pardj every man for
himself, and the devil take the hindmost." "Oh, hell,"
said Mac, "I wish I was on the bum again or up at Gold-
field with the bunch."
They drank and drank and ate free lunch and drank
some more, all the time rye with beer chasers, and the
man from up San Jacinto way had a telephone number
and called up some girls and they bought a bottle of
whisky and went out to their apartment, and the rancher
from up San Jacinto way sat with a girl on each knee sing-
ing My wife has gone to the country. Mac just sat belch-
ing in a corner with his head dangling over his chest; then
suddenly he felt bitterly angry and got to his feet upset-
ting a table with a glass vase on it.
"McCreary," he said, "this is no place for a class-
conscious rebel . . . Pm a wobbly, damn you . . . I'm
goin' out and get in this free-speech fight."
The other McCreary went on singing and paid no atten-
tion. Mac went out and slammed the door. One of the
girls followed him out jabbering about the broken vase,
but he pushed her in the face and went out into the quiet
treet. It was moonlight. He'd lost the last steamcar and
would have to walk home.
When he got to the house he found Maisie sitting on
the porch in her kimono. She was crying. "And I had such
a nice supper for you," she kept saying, and her eyes*
117
looked into him cold and bitter the way they'd been when
he'd gotten back from Goldfield before they were mar-
ried.
The next day he had a hammering headache and his
stomach was upset. He figured up he'd spent fifteen dol-
lars that he couldn't afford to waste. Maisie wouldn't
speak to him. He stayed on in bed, rolling round, feeling
miserable, wishing he could go to sleep and stay asleep
forever. That Sunday evening Maisie's brother Bill came
to supper. As soon as he got into the house Maisie started
talking to Mac as if nothing had happened. It made him
sore to feel that this was just in order to keep Bill from
knowing they had quarrelled.
Bill was a powerfullybuilt towhaired man with a red
neck, just beginning to go to fat. He sat at the table, eat-
ing the potroast and cornbread Maisie had made, talking
big about the real estate boom up in Los Angeles. He'd
been a locomotive engineer and had been hurt in a wreck
and had had the lucky breaks with a couple of options on
lots he'd bought with his compensation money. He tried
to argue Mac into giving up his job in San Diego and
coming in with him. "I'll get you in on the ground floor,
just for Maisie's sake," he said over and over again. "And
in ten years you'll be a rich man, like I'm goin' to be in
less time than that . . . Now's the time, Maisie, for you
folks to make a break, while you're young, or it'll be too
late and Mac'll just be a workingman all his life."
Maisie's eyes shone. She brought out a chocolate layer
cake and a bottle of sweet wine. Her cheeks flushed and
she kept laughing showing all her little pearly teeth. She
hadn't looked so pretty since she'd had her first baby.
Bill's talk about money made her drunk.
"Suppose a feller didn't want to get rich . . . you
:tnow what Gene Debs said, *I want to rise with the
tanks, not from the ranks,' " said Mac.
Maisie and Bill kughed. "When a guy talks like that
118
he's ripe for the nuthouse, take it from me," said Bih.
Mac flushed and said nothing.
Bill pushed back his chair and cleared his throat in a
serious tone: "Look here, Mac . . . Pm goin' to be
around this town for a few days lookin' over the situa-
tion, but looks to me like things was pretty dead. Now
what I propose is this . . . You know what I think of
Maisie ... I think she's about the sweetest little girl in
the world. I wish my wife had half what Maisie's got . . .
Well, anyway, here's my proposition: Out on Ocean View
Avenue I've got several magnificent missionstyle bunga-
lows I haven't disposed of yet, twentyfivefoot frontage oa
a refined residential street by a hundredfoot depth. Why k
I've gotten as high as five grand in cold cash for 'em. Iri
a year of two none of us fcllers'll be able to stick our
noses in there. It'll be millionaires' row . . . Now if
you're willing to have the house in Maisie's name I'll tell
you what I'll do ... I'll swop properties with you, pay-
ing all the expenses of searching title and transfer and
balance up the mortgages, that I'll hold so's to keep 'em
in the family, so that you won't have to make substantially
bigger payments than you do here, and will be launched
on the road to success."
"Oh, Bill, you darling!" cried Maisie. She ran over and
kissed him on the top of the head and sat swinging her
legs on the arm of his chair. "Gee, I'll have to sleep on
that," said Mac; "it's mighty white of you to make the
offer." "Fainic, I'd think you'd be more grateful to Bill,"
snapped Maisie. "Of course we'll do it."
"No, you're quite right," said Bill. "A man's got to
think a proposition like that over. But don't forget the
advantages offered, better schools for the kids, more re-
fined surroundings, an upandcoming boom town instead
of a dead one, chance to get ahead in the world instead
of being a goddam wageslave."
So a month later the McCrearys moved up to Los An-
119
geles. The expenses of moving and getting the furniture
installed put Mac five hundred dollars in debt. On top of
that little Rose caught the measles and the doctor's bill
started mounting. Mac couldn't get a job on any of the
papers. Up at the union local that he transferred to they
had ten men out of work as it was.
He spent a lot of time walking about town worrying.
He didn't like to be at home any more. He and Maisie
never got on now. Maisie was always thinking about what
Went on at brother Bill's house, what kind of clothes
Mary Virginia, his wife, wore, how they brought up their
children, the fine new victrola they'd bought. Mac sat on
benches in parks round town, reading The Appeal to
Reason and The Industrial Worker and the local papers.
One day he noticed The Industrial Worker sticking out
of the pocket of the man beside him. They had both sat
on the bench a long time when something made him turn
to look at the man; "Say, aren't you Ben Evans?" "Well,
Mac, I'll be goddamned . . . What's the matter, boy,
you're lookin' thin?" "Aw, nothin', I'm lookin' for a
master, that's all."
They talked for a long time. Then they went to have
a cup of coffee in a Mexican restaurant where some of the
boys hung out. A young blonde fellow with blue eyes
joined them there who talked English with an accent.
Mac was surprised to find out that he was a Mexican.
Everybody talked Mexico. Madero had started his revo-
lution. The fall of Diaz was expected any day. All over
the peons were taking to the hills, driving the rich cien-
tificos off their ranches. Anarchist propaganda was spread-
ing among the town workers. The restaurant had a warm
smell of chiles and overroasted coffee. On each table there
were niggerpink and vermilion paper flowers, an occa-
3ional flash of white teeth in bronze and brown faces talk-
ing low. Some of the Mexicans there belonged to the
I.W.W., but most of them were anarchists. The talk of
1 20
revolution and foreign places made him feel happy and
adventurous again, as if he had a purpose in life, like
when he'd been on the bum with Ike Hall.
"Say, Mac, let's go to Mexico and see if there's any-
thing in this revoloossione talk," Ben kept saying.
"If it wasn't for the kids . . . Hell, Fred Hoff was
right when he bawled me out and said a revolutionist
oughtn't to marry."
Eventually Mac got a job as linotype operator on The
Times, and things at the house were a little better, but he
never had any spare money, as everything had to go into
paying debts and interest on mortgages. It was night work
again, and he hardly ever saw Maisie and the kids any
more. Sundays Maisie would take little Ed to brother
Bill's and he and Rose would go for walks or take trolley-
trips. That was the best part of the week. Saturday nights
he'd sometimes get to a lecture or go down to chat with
the boys at the I.W.W. local, but he was scared to be seen
round in radical company too much for fear of losing his
job. The boys thought he was pretty yellow but put up
with him because they thought of him as an old timer.
He got occasional letters from Milly telling him about
Uncle Tim's health. She had married a man named Cohen
who was a registered accountant and worked in one of the
offices at the stockyards. Uncle Tim lived with them. Mac
would have liked to bring him down to live with him in
Los Angeles, but he knew that it would only mean squab
bling with Maisie. Milly's letters were pretty depressing,
She felt funny, she said, to be married to a Jew. Uncle
Tim was always poorly. The doctor said it was the drink,
but whenever they gave him any money he drank it right
up. She wished she could have children. Fainie was lucky,
she thought, to have such nice children. She was afraid
that poor Uncle Tim wasn't long for this world.
The same day that the papers carried the murder of
Madero in Mexico City, Mac got a wire from Milly that
121
Uncle Tim was dead and please to wire money for the
funeral. Mac went to the savingsbank and drew out $53.75
he had in an account for the children's schooling and took
it down to the Western Union and wired fifty to her.
Maisie didn't find out until the baby's birthday came
round, when she went down to deposit five dollars birth-
day money from brother Bill.
That night when Mac let himself in by the latchkey he
was surprised to find the light on in the hall. Maisie was
sitting half asleep on the hall settee with a blanket
wrapped round her waiting for him. He was pleased to
see her and went up to kiss her. "What's the matter,
baby?" he said. She pushed him away from her and
jumped to her feet.
"You thief," she said. "I couldn't sleep till I told you
what I thought of you. I suppose you've been spending
it on drink or on some other woman. That's why I never
see you any more."
"Maisie, calm down, old girl . . . What's the matter;
let's talk about it quietly."
"I'll get a divorce, that's what I'll do. Stealing money
from your own children to make yourself a bum with . . .
your own poor little . . ."
Mac drew himself up and clenched his fists. He spoke
very quietly, although his lips were trembling.
"Maisie, I had an absolute right to take out that money.
I'll deposit some more in a week or two, and it's aone
of your damn business."
"A fat chance you saving up fifty dollars; you aren't
man enough to make a decent living for your wife and
children so you have to take it out of your poor little inno-
cent children's bank account," Maisie broke out into dry
sobbing.
"Maisie, that's enough of that . . . I'm about through."
"I'm the one that's through with you and your ungodly
socialistic talk. That never got nobody anywheres, and the
122
lowdown bums you go around with ... I wish to Got
I'd never married you. I never would have, you can be
damn well sure of that if I hadn't got caught the way I
did."
"Maisie, don't talk like that."
Maisie walked straight up to him, her eyes wide and
feverish.
"This house is in my name 5 don't forget that."
"All right, I'm through."
Before he knew it he had slammed the door behind him
and was walking down the block. It began to rain. Each
raindrop made a splatter the size of a silver dollar in th^
dust of the street. It looked like stage rain round the
arclight. Mac couldn't think where to go. Drenched, he
walked and walked. At one corner there was a clump of
palms in a yard that gave a certain amount of shelter. He
stood there a long time shivering. He was almost crying
thinking of the warm gentleness of Maisie when he med
to pull the cover a little way back and slip into bed beside
her asleep when he got home from work in the clanking
sour printing plant, her breasts, the feel of the nipples
through the thin nightgown ; the kids in their cot? out on
the sleepingporch, him leaning over to kiss each of the
little warm foreheads. "Well, I'm through," tie said
aloud as if he were speaking to somebody else. T/r^n. only
did the thought come to him, "I'm free to see t./re country
now, to work for the movement, to go on the bum again."
Finally he went to Ben Evans' boarding house. It was
a long time before he could get anybody to come to the
door. When he finally got in Ben sat up in bed and looked
at him stupid with sleep. "What the hell?" "Say, Ben,
I've just broken up housekeepin' . . . I'm goin' to Mex-
ico." "Are the cops after you? For crissake, this wasn't any
place to come." "No, it's just my wife." Ben laughed.
"Oh, for the love of Mike!" "Say, Ben, do you want to
come to Mexico and see the revolution?" "What the hell
123
could you do in Mexico? . . . Anyway, the boys elected
me secretary of local 257 ... I got to stay here an' earn
my seventeenfifty. Say, you're soaked j take your clothes
off and put on my workclothes hangin' on the back of the
door . . . You better get some sleep. I'll move over."
Mac stayed in town two weeks until they could get a
man to take his place at the linotype. He wrote Maisie
that he was going away and that he'd send her money to
help support the kids as soon as he was in a position to.
Then one morning he got on the train with twentyfive
dollars in his pocket and a ticket to Yuma, Arizona. Yuma
turned out to be hotter'n the hinges of hell. A guy at the
railroad men's boarding house told him he'd sure die of
thirst if he tried going into Mexico there, and nobody
knew anything about the revolution, anyway. So he beat
his way along the Southern Pacific to El Paso. Hell had
broken loose across the border, everybody said. The ban-
dits were likely to take Juarez at any moment. They shot
Americans on sight. The bars of El Paso were full of
ranchers and mining men bemoaning the good old days
when Porfirio Diaz was in power and a white man could
make money in Mexico. So it was with beating heart that
Mac walked across the international bridge into the dusty-
bustling adobe streets of Juarez.
Mac walked around looking at the small trolleycars and
the mules and the walls daubed with seablue and the peon
women squatting behind piles of fruit in the marketplace
and the crumbling scrollface churches and the deep bars
open to the street. Everything was strange and the air was
peppery to his nostrils and he was wondering what he was
going to do next. It was late afternoon of an April day.
Mac was sweating in his blue flannel shirt. His body felt
gritty and itchy and he wanted a bath. "Gettin' too old
for this kinda stuff," he told himself. At last he found the
house of a man named Ricardo Perez whom one of the
Mexican anarchists in Los Angeles had told him to look
124
up. He had trouble finding him in the big house with an
untidy courtyard, on the edge of town. None of the
women hanging out clothes seemed to understand Mac's
lingo. At last Mac heard a voice from above in carefully
modulated English. "Come up if you are looking for
Ricardo Perez . . . please ... I am Ricardo Perez."
Mac looked up and saw a tall bronzecolored grayhaired
man in an old tan duster leaning from the top gallery of
the courtyard. He went up the iron steps. The tall man
shook hands with him.
"Fellowworker McCreary . . . My comrades wrote
me you were coming." "That's me, allright . . . I'm
glad you talk English." "I lived in Santa Fe many years
and in Brockton, Massachusetts. Sit down . . . please
... I am very happy to welcome an American revolu-
tionary worker . . . Though our ideas probably do not
entirely agree we have much in common. We are com-
rades in the big battle." He patted Mac on the shoulder
and pressed him into a chair. "Please." There were sev-
eral little yellow children in torn shirts running round
barefoot. Ricardo Perez sat down and took the smallest
on his knee, a little girl with kinky pigtails and a smudged
face. The place smelt of chile and scorched olive oil and
children and washing. "What are you going to do in
Mexico, fellowworker?"
Mac blushed. "Oh, I want to kinda get into things, into
the revolution."
"The situation is very confusing here . . . Our town-
workers are organizing and are classconscious but the
peons, the peasants, are easily misled by unscrupulous
leaders."
"I want to see some action, Perez ... I was living in
Los Angeles an' gettin' to be a goddam booster like the
rest of 'em. I can earn my keep in the printin' line, I
guess."
125
He spoke a little pidginenglish and sat with one hand
round Mac's neck and the other on the buckle of his
holster. "Gringo bad . . . Kill him quick . . . Fellow-
worker good . . . internacional . . . hurray," he kept
saying. They sang the International several times and
then the Marseillaise and the Carmagnole. Mac was car-
ried along in a peppery haze. He sang and drank and ate
and everything began to lose outline.
"Fellowworker marry nice girl," said Pablo. They were
standing at a bar somewhere. He made a gesture of sleep-
ing with his two hands against his face. "Come."
They went to a dancehall. At the entrance everybody
had to leave his gun on a table guarded by a soldier in a
visored cap. Mac noticed that the men and girls drew
away from him a little. Pablo laughed. "They think you
gringo ... I tell them revolucionario internacional.
There she, nice girl . . . Not goddam whore . . . not
pay, she nice working girl . . . comrade."
Mac found himself being introduced to a brown broad-
faced girl named Encarnacion. She was neatly dressed
and her hair was very shinyblack. She gave him a bright
flash of a smile. He patted her on the cheek. They drank
some beer at the bar and left. Pablo had a girl with him
too. The others stayed on at the dancehall. Pablo and his
girl walked round to Encarnacion's house with them. It
was a room in a little courtyard. Beyond it was a great
expanse of lightcolored desert land stretching as far as you
could see under a waning moon. In the distance were some
tiny specks of fires. Pablo pointed at them with his full
hand and whispered, "Revolucion."
Then they said good night at the door of Encarnacion's
little room that had a bed, a picture of the Virgin and a
new photograph of Madero stuck up by a pin. Encarna-
cion closed the door, bolted it and sat down on the bed
looking up at Mac with a smile.
128
THE CAMERA EYE (12)
when everybody went away for a trip Jeanne toob
us out to play every day in Farragut Square and told you
about how in the Jura in winter the wolves come down
and howl through the streets of the villages
and sometimes we'd see President Roosevelt ride by
all alone on a bay horse and once we were very proud
because when we took off our hats we were very proud
because he smiled and showed his teeth like in the news-
paper and touched his hat and we were very proud and
he had an aide de camp
but we had a cloth duck that we used to play with
on the steps until it began to get dark and the wolves
howled ran with little children's blood dripping from
their snout through the streets of the villages only it was
summer and between dog and wolf we'd be put to bed
and Jeanne was a young French girl from the Jura where
the wolves howled ran through the streets and when
everybody had gone to bed she would take you into her
bed
and it was a very long scary story and the worst oi
the wolves howled through the streets gloaming to freeze
little children's blood was the Loup Garou howling in
the Jura and we were scared and she had breasts under
her nightgown and the Loup Garou -was terrible scary
129
and black hair and rub against her and outside the wolves
howled in the streets and it was wet there and she said it
was nothing she had just washed herself
but the Loup Garou was really a man hold me close
cheri a man howled through streets with a bloody snout
that tore up the bellies of girls and little children Loup
Garou
and afterwards you knew what girls were made like
and she was very silly and made you promise not to tell
but you wouldn't have anyway
NEWSREEL X
MOON'S PATENT IS FIZZLE
insurgents win at Kansas polls Oak Park soulmates part
8000 to take autoride says girl begged for her husband
PIT SENTIMENT FAVORS UPTURN
Oh you be-eautijul doll
You great big beautijul doll
the world cannot understand all that is involved in this,
\ihe said. It appears like an ordinary worldly affair with the
trappings of what is low and vulgar but there is nothing of
the sort. He is honest and sincere. I know him. I have
fought side by side with him. My heart is with him now.
Let me throw my arms around you
Honey ain't I glad I found you
Almost Motionless In Midsummer Languor On Business
Seas One Million See Drunkards Bounced
130
JURORS AT GATES OF BEEF BARONS
compare love with Vesuvius emblazoned streets await
tramp of paladins
Honey ain y t I glad I jound you
Oh you beautiful doll
You great big beautiful doll
TRADES WHITE HORSE FOR RED
Madero's troops defeat rebels in Battle at Parral Roose-
velt carries Illinois oratory closes eyelids Chicago pleads for
more water
CONFESSED ANARCHISTS ON BENDED KNEES KISS U. S. FLAG
The Sunbeam Movement is Spreading
BOMB NO. 4 IN LEVEE WAR SPLINTERS
WEST SIDE SALOON
a report printed Wednesday that a patient in a private
pavilion in St. Luke's Hospital undergoing an operation for
the extirpation of a cancerous growth at the base of the tongue
was General Grant was denied by both the hospital authorities
and Lieut. Howze who characterized the story as a deliberate
fabrication
THE CAMERA EYE (13)
he was a towboat captain and he knew the river
blindfold from Indian Head to the Virginia Capes and
the bay and the Eastan Shoa up to Baltima' for that
matter and he lived in a redbrick house in Alexandria
the pilothouse smelt of a hundred burntout pipes
that's the Mayflower the president's yacht and that
there's the Dolphin and that's the ole monitor Tippe*
canoe and that there's the revenoo cutter and we're just
passin' the po-lice boat
when Cap'n Keen reaches up to pull the whistle on
the ceiling of the pilothouse you can see the red and
green bracelet tattooed under the black hairs on his wrist
Ma soul an' body ole Cap'n Gifford used ter be a
frien' o' mahne mafty's the time we been oysterin' together
on the Eastan Shoa an' oysterpirates used to shanghai
young fellers in those days an' make 'em work all winter
you couldn' git away less you swam ashoa and the water
was too damnation cole an' the ole man used to take the
fellers' clothes away so's they couldn't git ashoa when
they was anchored up in a crik or near a house or some-
thin' boy tfrey was mean customers the oysterpirates ma
soul and body onct there was a young feller they worked
till he dropped and then they'd just sling him overboard
tongin' for oysters or dredgin' like them oysterpirates
did's the meanest kinda work in winter with the spray
freezin' on the lines an' cuttin' your hands to shreds an'
the dredge foulin' every minute an' us havin' to haul it
up an' fix it with our hands in the icy water hauled up a
stiff onct What's a stiff? Ma soul an' body a stiff's a
dead man ma boy a young feller it was too without a stitch
on him an' the body looked like it had been beat with a
belayin' pin somethin' terrible or an' oar mebbe reckon he
wouldn't work or was sick or somethin' an' the ole man
132
jus' beat him till he died sure couldn't a been nothin' but
an oysterpirate
JANEY
When Janey was little she lived in an old flatface brick
house a couple of doors up the hill from M Street in
Georgetown. The front part of the house was always
dark because Mommer kept the heavy lace curtains drawn
to and the yellow Jinen shades with lace inset bands down,
Sunday afternoons Janey and Joe and Ellen and Francie
had to sit in the front room and look at pictures or read
books. Janey and Joe read the funnypaper together be-
cause they were the oldest and the other two were just
babies and not old enough to know what was funny any^
way. They couldn't laugh outloud because Popper sat
with the rest of The Sunday Star on his lap and usually
went to sleep after dinner with the editorial section crum-
pled in one big blueveined hand. Tiny curds of sunlight
flickering through the lace insets in the window shade
would lie on his bald head and on one big red flange ol
his nose and on the droop of one mustache and on his
speckled sundayvest and on the white starched shirt-
sleeves with shiny cuffs, held up above the elbow by a
rubber band. Janey and Joe would sit on the same chair
feeling each other's ribs jiggle when they laughed about
the Katzen jammer kids setting off a cannoncracker under
the captain's stool. The little ones would see them laugh-
ing and start laughing too, "Shut up, can't you," Joe
would hiss at them out of the corner of his mouth. "You
don't know what we're laughing at." Once in a while,
if there was no sound from Mommer who was taking her
Sunday afternoon nap upstairs stretched out in the back
133
bedroom in a faded lilac sack with frills on it, after they'd
listened for a long time to the drawnout snort that ended
in a little hiss of Popper's snores, Joe would slip off his
chair and Janey would follow him without breathing into
the front hall and out the front door. Once they'd closed
it very carefully so that the knocker wouldn't bang, Joe
would give her a slap, yell "You're it" and run off down
the hill towards M Street, and she'd have to run after
him, her heart pounding, her hands cold for fear he'd
run away and leave her.
Winters the brick sidewalks were icy and there were
colored women out spreading cinders outside their doors
when the children went to school mornings. Joe never
would walk with the rest of them because they were girls,
he lagged behind or ran ahead. Janey wished she could
walk with him but she couldn't leave her little sisters
who held tight onto her hands. One winter they got in
the habit of walking up the hill with a little yaller girl
who lived directly across the street and whose name was
Pearl. Afternoons Janey and Pearl walked home together.
Pearl usually had a couple of pennies to buy bullseyes
or candy bananas with at a little store on Wisconsin
Avenue, and she always gave Janey half so Janey was
very fond of her. One afternoon she asked Pearl to come
in and they played dolls together under the big rose of
sharon bush in the back yard. When Pearl had gone
Mommer's voice called from the kitchen. Mommer had
!ier sleeves rolled up on her faded pale arms and a checked
apron on and was rolling piecrust for supper so that her
hands were covered with flour.
"Janey, come here," she said. Janey knew from the
cold quaver in her voice that something was wrong.
"Yes, Mommer." Janey stood in front of her mother
shaking her head about so that the two stiff sandy pig-
tails lashed from side to side. "Stand still, child, for
gncious sake . . . Jane, I want to talk to you about some-
134
thing. That little colored girl you brought in this after*
noon . . ." Janey's heart was dropping. She had a sick
feeling and felt herself blushing, she hardly knew why,
"Now, don't misunderstand me; I like and respect the,
colored people 5 some of them are fine self respecting peo-
ple in their place . . . But you mustn't bring that little
colored girl in the house again. Treating colored people
kindly and with respect is one of the signs of good breed-
ing . . . You mustn't forget that your mother's people
were wellborn every inch of them . . . Georgetown was
very different in those days. We lived in a big house with
most lovely lawns . . . but you must never associate with
colored people on an equal basis. Living in this neighbor-
hood it's all the more important to be careful about those
things . . . Neither the whites nor the blacks respect
those who do ... That's all, Janey, you understand;
now run out and play, it'll soon be time for your supper."
Janey tried to speak but she couldn't. She stood stiff in
the middle of the yard on the grating that covered the
drainpipe, staring at the back fence. "Niggerlover," yelled
Joe in her ear. "Niggerlover ump-mya-mya . . . Nig-
gerlover niggerlover ump-mya-mya." Janey began to cry,
Joe was an untalkative sandyhaired boy who could pitch
a mean outcurve when he was still little. He learned to
swim and dive in Rock Creek and used to say he wanted
to be motorman on a streetcar when he grew up. For
several years his best friend was Alec McPherson whose
father was a locomotive engineer on the B. and O. After
that Joe wanted to be a locomotive engineer. Janey used
to tag around after the two boys whenever they'd let her,
to the carbarns at the head of Pennsylvania Avenue where
they made friends with some of the conductors and motor-
men who used to let them ride on the platform a couple
of blocks sometimes if there wasn't any inspector around,
down along the canal or up Rock Creek where they caught
135
tadpoles and fell in the water and splashed each other
with mud.
Summer evenings when the twilight was long after
supper they played lions and tigers with other kids from
the neighborhood in the long grass of some empty lots
near Oak Hill Cemetery. There were long periods when
there was measles or scarlet fever around and Mommer
wouldn't let them out. Then Alec would come down and
they'd play three-o-cat in the back yard. Those were the
times Janey liked best. Then the boys treated her as one
of them. Summer dusk would come down on them sultry
and full of lightningbugs. If Popper was feeling in a good
mood he'd send them up the hill to the drugstore on N
Street to buy icecream, there'd be young men in their
shirtsleeves and straw hats strolling with girls who wore
a stick of punk in their hair to keep off the mosquitoes,
a rankness and a smell of cheap perfume from the colored
families crowded on their doorsteps, laughing, talking
softly witfr'an occasional flash of teeth, rolling of a white
eyeball. The dense sweaty night was scary, hummed,
rumbled with distant thunder, with junebugs, with the
clatter of traffic from M Street, the air of the street dense
and breathless under the thick trees j but when she was
with Alec and Joe she wasn't scared, not even of drunks
or big shamblefooted coloredmen. When they got back
Popper would smoke a cigar and they'd sit out in the back
yard and the mosquitoes 'ud eat them up and Mommer
and Aunt Francine and the kids 'ud eat the icecream and
Popper would just smoke a cigar and tell them stories of
when he'd been a towboat captain down on the Chesapeake
in his younger days and he'd saved the barkentine Nancy
Q in distress on the Kettlebottoms in a sou'west gale.
Then it'd get time to go to bed and Alec 'ud be sent home
and Janey'd have to go to bed in the stuffy little back
room on the top floor with her two little sisters in their
cribs against the opposite wall. Maybe a thunderstorm
136
would come up and she'd lie awake staring up at the ceil-
ing cold with fright, listening to her little sisters whimper
as they slept until she heard the reassuring sound of
Mommer scurrying about the house closing windows, the
slam of a door, the whine of wind and rattle of rain and
the thunder rolling terribly loud and near overhead like
a thousand beertrucks roaring over the bridge. Times like
that she thought of going down to Joe's room and crawl-
ing into bed with him, but for some reason she was afraid
to, though sometimes she got as far as the landing. He'd
laugh at her and call her a softie.
About once a week Joe would get spanked. Popper
would come home from the Patent Office where he
worked, angry and out of sorts, and the girls would be
scared of him and go about the house quiet as mice; but
Joe seemed to like to provoke him, he'd run whistling
through the back hall or clatter up and down stairs making
a tremendous racket with his stubtoed ironplated shoes.
Then Popper would start scolding him and Joe would
stand in front of him without saying a word glaring at
the floor with bitter blue eyes. Janey's insides knotted up
and froze when Popper would start up the stairs to the
bathroom pushing Joe in front of him. She knew what
would happen. He'd take down the razorstrop from be-
hind the door and put the boy's head and shoulders under
his arm and beat him. Joe would clench his teeth and flush
and not say a word and when Popper was tired of beating
him they'd look at each other and Joe would be sent up
to his room and Popper would come down stairs trembling
all over and pretend nothing had happened, and Janey
would slip out into the yard with her fists clenched whis-
pering to herself, "I hate him ... I hate him ... I
hate him."
Once a drizzly Saturday night she stood against thft
fence in the dark looking up at the lighted window. Sha
could hear Popper's voice and Joe's in an argument. Shf
137
thought maybe she'd fall down dead at the first thwack
of the razorstrop. She couldn't hear what they were say-
ing. Then suddenly it came, the leather sound of blows
and Joe stifling a gasp. She was eleven years old. Some-
thing broke loose. She rushed into the kitchen with her
hair all wet from the rain, "Mommer, he's killing Joe.
Stop it." Her mother turned up a withered helpless
drooping face from a pan she was scouring. "Oh, you can't
do anything." Janey ran upstairs and started beating on
the bathroom door. "Stop it, stop it," her voice kept yell-
ing. She was scared but something stronger than she was
had hold of her. The door opened ; there was Joe looking
sheepish and Popper with his face all flushed and the
razorstrop in his hand.
"Beat me ... it's me that's bad ... I won't have
you beating Joe like that." She was scared. She didiv't
know what to do, tears stung in her eyes.
Popper's, voice was unexpectedly kind.
"You go straight up to bed without any supper and
remember that you have enough to do to fight your own
battles, Janey." She ran up to her room and lay on the
bed shaking. When she'd gone to sleep Joe's voice woke
her up with a start.
He was standing in his nightgown in the door. "Say,
Janey," he whispered. "Don't you do that again, see. I
can take care of myself, see. A girl can't butt in between
men like that. When I get a job and make enough dough
I'll get me a gun and if Popper tries to beat me up I'll
stioot him dead." Janey began to sniffle. "What you
wanna cry forj this ain't no Johnstown flood."
She could hear him tiptoe down the stairs again in his
bare feet.
At highschool she took the commercial course and
learned stenography and typewriting. She was a plain
thinfaced sandyhaired girl, quiet and popular with the
teachers. Her fingers were quick and she picked up typing
138
and shorthand easily. She liked to read and used to get
books like The Inside of the Cu$ y The Battle of the
Strongy The Winning of Barbara Worth out of the li-
brary. Her mother kept telling her that she'd spoil her
eyes if she read so much. When she read she used to
imagine she was the heroine, that the weak brother who
Went to the bad but was a gentleman at core and capable
of every sacrifice, like Sidney Carton in A Tale of Two
Cities was Joe and that the hero was Alec.
She thought Alec was the bestlooking boy in George-
town and the strongest. He had black closecropped hail
and a very white skin with a few freckles and a strong
squareshouidered way of walking. After him Joe was the
bestlooking and strongest and the best baseball player
anyway. Everybody said he ought to go on through high-
school on account of being such a good baseball player,
but at the end of his first year Popper said he had three
girls to support and that Joe would have to get to work 5
so he got a job as a Western Union messenger. Janey was
pretty proud of him in his uniform until the girls at high-
school kidded her about it. Alec's folks had promised to
put him through college if he made good in highschool,
so Alec worked hard. He wasn't tough and dirtytalking
like most of the boys Joe knew. He was always nice to
Janey though he never seemed to want to be left alone
with her. She pretty well admitted to herself that she
had a terrible crush on Alec.
The best day of her life was the sweltering summa
Sunday they all went canoeing up to Great Falls. She had
put up the lunch the night before. In the morning she
added a steak she found in the icebox. There was blue
haze at the end of every street of brick houses and dark
summergreen trees when before anybody else was awakn
she and Joe crept out of the house round seven that morn
ing.
They met Alec at the corner in front of the depot He
139
stood waiting for them with his feet wide apart and a
ridllet in his hand.
They all ran and caught the car that was just leaving
for Cabin John's Bridge. They had the car all to them-
selves like it was a private car. The car hummed over the
rails past whitewashed shanties and nigger cabins along
the canal, skirting hillsides where the sixfoot tall waving
corn marched in ranks like soldiers. The sunlight glanced
in bluewhite glare on the wavingdrooping leaves of the
tassling corn; glare, and a whirring and tinkling of grass-
hoppers and dryflies rose in hot smoke into the pale sky
round the clattering shaking electric car. They ate sweet
summerapples Joe had bought off a colored woman in
the station and chased each other round the car and flopped
down on top of each other in the cornerseats; and they
laughed and giggled till they were weak. Then the car
was running through woods, they could see the trestle-
work of the rollercoasters of Glen Echo through the trees
and they piled off the car at Cabin John's having more
fun than a barrel of monkeys.
They ran down to the bridge to look up and down the
river brown and dark in the white glary morning between
foliagesodden banks ; then they found the canoe that be-
longed to a friend of Alec's in a house by the canal, bought
.some cream soda and rootbeer and some packages of
neccos and started out. Alec and Joe paddled and Janey
sat in the bottom with her sweater rolled round a thwart
for a pillow. Alec was paddling in the bow. It was swelter-
ing hot. The sweat made the shirt cling to the hollow of
his chunky back that curved with every stroke of the
paddle. After a while the boys stripped to their bathing-
suits that they wore under their clothes. It made Janey's
throat tremble to watch Alec's back and the bulging
muscles of his arm as he paddled, made her feel happy
and scared. She sat there in her white dimity dress, trail-
ing her hand in the weedy browngreen water. They
140
stopped to pick waterlilies and the white flowers of arrow-*
head that glistened like ice and everything smelt wet rank
of the muddy roots of waterlilies. The cream soda got
warm and they drank it that way and kidded each other
back and forth and Alec caught a crab and covered Janey's
dress with greenslimy splashes and Janey didn't care a
bit and they called Joe skipper and he loosened up and
said he was going to join the navy and Alec said he'd be a
civil engineer and build a motorboat and take them all
cruising and Janey was happy because they included her
when they talked just like she was a boy too. At a place
below the Falls where there were locks in the canal they
had a long portage down to the river. Janey carried the
grub and the paddles and the frying pan and the boys
sweated and cussed under the canoe. Then they paddled
across to the Virginia side and made a fire in a little hollow
among gray rusty bowlders. Joe cooked the steak and
Janey unpacked the sandwiches and cookies she'd made
and nursed some murphies baking in the ashes. They
roasted ears of corn too that they had swiped out of a
field beside the canal. Everything turned out fine except
that they hadn't brought enough butter. Afterwards they
sat eating cookies and drinking rootbeer quietly talking
round the embers. Alec and Joe brought out pipes and
she felt pretty good sitting there at the Great Falls of the
Potomac with two men smoking pipes.
"Geewhiz, Janey, Joe cooked that steak fine."
"When we was kids we used to ketch frogs and broil
'em up in Rock Creek . . . Remember, Alec?"
"Damned if I don't, and Janey she was along oncej
geewhiz, the fuss you kicked up then, Janey."
"I don't like seeing you skin them."
"We thought we was regular wildwest hunters then
We had packs of fun then."
"I like this better, Alec," said Janey hesitatingly.
."So do I . . ." said Alec. "Dod gast it, I wisht we
had a watermelon."
"Maybe we'll see some along the riverbank somewhere
goin' home."
"Jiminy crickets, what I couldn't do to a watermelon,
Joe."
"Mommer had a watermelon on ice," said Janey $
"maybe there'll be. some yet when we get home."
"I don't never want to go home," said Joe, suddenly
bitter serious.
"Joe, you oughtn't to talk like that." She felt girlish
and frightened.
"I'll talk how I goddam please . . . Kerist, I hate the
scrimpy dump."
"Joe, you oughtn't to talk like that." Janey felt she
was going to cry.
"Dod gast it," said Alec. "It's time we shoved . . .
What you say, bo . . . ? We'll take one more dip and
then make tracks for home."
When the boys were through swimming they all went
up to look at the Falls and then they started off. They
went along fast in the swift stream under the steep tree-
hung bank. The afternoon was very sultry, they went
through layers of hot steamy air. Big cloudheads were
piling up in the north. It wasn't fun any more for Janey.
She was afraid it was going to rain. Inside she felt sick
and drained out. She was afraid her period was coming
on. She'd only had the curse a few times yet and the
thought of it scared her and took all the strength out of
her, made her want to crawl away out of sight like an
old sick mangy cat. She didn't want Joe and Alec to
notice how she felt. She thought how would it be if she
turned the canoe over. The boys could swim ashore all
right, and she'd drown and they'd drag the river for
her body and everybody'd cry and feel so sorry about it.
Purplegray murk rose steadily and drowned the white
142
summits of the cloudheads. Everything got to be
white and purple. The boys paddled as hard as they
could. They could hear the advancing rumble of thunder.
The bridge was well in sight when the wind hit them, a
hot stormwind full of dust and dead leaves and bits of
chaff and straw, churning the riverwater.
They made the shore just in time. "Dod gast it, this
is goin' to be some storm," said Alecj "Janey, get under
the boat." They turned the canoe over on the pebbly
shore in the lee of a big bowlder and huddled up undo
it. Janey sat in the middle with the waterlilies they had
picked that morning all shriveled and clammy from the
heat in her hand. The boys lay in their damp bathing-
suits on either side of her. Alec's towsled black hair was
against her cheek. The other side of her Joe lay with his
head in the end of the canoe and his lean brown feet and
legs in their rolledup pants tucked under her dress. The
smell of sweat and riverwater and the warm boysmell of
Alec's hair and shoulders made her dizzy. When the rain
came drumming on the bottom of the canoe curtaining
them in with lashing white spray, she slipped her arm
round Alec's neck and let her hand rest timidly on his
bare shoulder. He didn't move.
The rain passed after a while. "Gee, that wasn't as bad
as I thought it would be," said Alec. They were pretty
wet and chilly but they felt good in the fresh rainwashed
air. They put the canoe back in the water and went on
down as far as the bridge. Then they carried it back to
the house they'd gotten it from, and went to the little
shelter to wait for the electric car. They were tired and
r>unburned and sticky. The car was packed with a damp
Sunday afternoon crowd, picnickers caught by the shower
at Great Falls and Glen Echo. Janey thought she'd never
stand it till she got home. Her belly was all knotted up
with a cramp. When they got to Georgetown the boys stiil
had fifty cents between them and wanted to go to a movie,
143
but Janey ran off and left them. Her only thought was to
get to bed so that she could put her face into the pillow
and cry.
After that Janey never cried much; things upset her
but she got a cold hard feeling all over instead. High-
school went by fast, with hot thunderstormy Washing-
ton summers in between terms, punctuated by an occa-
sional picnic at Marshall Hall or a party at some house in
the neighborhood. Joe got a job at the Adams Express.
She didn't see him much as he didn't eat home any more.
Alec had bought a motorcycle and although he was still
in highschool Janey heard little about him. Sometimes
she sat up to get a word with Joe when he came home at
night. He smelt of tobacco and liquor though he never
seemed to be drunk. He went to his job at seven and
when he got out in the evenings he went out with the
bunch hanging round poolrooms on 4^/2 Street or playing
craps or bowling. Sundays he played baseball in Mary-
land. Janey would sit up for him, but when he came she'd
ask him how things were going where he worked and
he'd say "Fine" and he'd ask her how things were going
at school and she'd say "Fine" and then they'd both go
off to bed. Once in a while she'd ask if he'd seen Alec
and he'd say "Yes" with a scrap of a smile and she'd ask
how Alec was and he'd say "Fine."
She had one friend, Alice Dick, a dark stubby girl with
glasses who took all the same classes with her at high-
school. Saturday afternoons they'd dress up in their best
and go window-shopping down F Street way. They'd buy
a few little things, stop in for a soda and come home on
the streetcar feeling they'd had a busy afternoon. Once
in a very long while they went to a matinee at Poll's and
Janey would take Alice Dick home to supper. Alice Dick
liked the Williamses and they liked her. She said it made
her feel freer to spend a few hours with broadminded
people. Her own folks were Southern Methodists and
144
very narrow. Her father was a clerk in the Government
Printing Office and was in daily dread that his job would
come under the civil service regulations. He was a stout
shortwinded man, fond of playing practical jokes on his
wife and daughter, and suffered from chronic dyspepsia,
Alice Dick and Janey planned that as soon as they
got through highschool they'd get jobs and leave home.
They even picked out the house where they'd board, a
greenstone house near Thomas Circle, run by a Mrs.
Jenks, widow of a naval officer, who was very refined and
had southern cooking and charged moderately for table-
board.
One Sunday night during the spring of her last term
in highschool Janey was in her room getting undressed.
Francie and Ellen were still playing in the backyard.
Their voices came in through the open window with a
spicy waft of lilacs from the lilacbushes in the next yard.
She had just let down her hair and was looking in the
mirror imagining how she'd look if she was a peach and
had auburn hair, when there was a knock at the door and
Joe's voice outside. There was something funny about
his voice.
"Come in," she called. "I'm just fixin' my hair."
She first saw his face in the mirror. It was very white
and the skin was drawn back tight over the cheekbones
and round the mouth.
"Why, what's the matter, Joe?" She jumped up and
faced him.
"It's like this, Janey," said Joe, drawling his words out
painfully. "Alec was killed. He smashed up on his motor-
bike. I just come from the hospital. He's dead, all right."
Janey seemed to be writing the words on a white pad
in her mind. She couldn't say anything.
"He smashed up comin' home from Chevy Chase . . .
He'd gone out to the ballgame to see me pitch. You
oughter seen him all smashed to hell."
H5
Janey kept trying to say something.
"He was your best . , ."
"He was the best guy I'll ever know," Joe went on
gently. "Well, that's that, Janey . . . But I wanted to
tell you I don't want to hang round this lousy dump now
that Alec's gone. I'm goin' to enlist in the navy. You tell
the folks, see ... I don't wanna talk to 'em. That's it$
I'll join the navy and see the world."
"But, Joe . . ."
"I'll write you, Janey $ honest, I will . . . I'll write
you a hell of a lot. You an' me . . . Well, goodby,
Janey." He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her
awkwardly on the nose and cheek. Ail she could do was
whisper. "Do be careful, Joe," and stand there in front
of the bureau in the gust of lilacs and the yelling of the
kids that came through the open window. She heard Joe's
steps light quick down the stairs and heard the frontdoor
shut.
She turned out the light, took off her clothes in the
dark, and got into bed. She lay there without crying.
Graduation came and commencement and she and Alice
went out to parties and even once with a big crowd on one
of the moonlight trips down the river to Indian Head on
the steamboat Charles McAlister. The crowd was rougher
than Janey and Alice liked. Some of the boys were drink-
ing a good deal and there were couples kissing and hug-
ging in every shadow j still the moonlight was beautiful
rippling on the river and she and Janey put two chairs
together and talked. There was a band and dancing, but
they didn't dance on account of the rough men who stood
round the dancefloor making remarks. They talked and
on the way home up the river, Janey, talking very low
and standing by the rail very close to Alice, told her
about Alec. Alice had read about it in the paper but hadn't
dreamed that Janey had known him so well or felt that
Way about him. She began to cry and Janey felt very
strong comforting her and they felt that they'd be very
close friends after that. Janey whispered that she'd nevei
be able to love anybody else and Alice said she didn't
think she could ever love a man anyway, they all drank
and smoked and talked dirty among themselves and had
only one idea.
In July Alice and Janey got jobs in the office of Mrs;
Robinson, public stenographer in the Riggs Building, to
replace girls away on their vacations. Mrs. Robinson was
a small gray haired pigeonbreasted woman with a Ken-
tucky shriek in her voice, that made Janey think of a
parrot's. She was very precise and all the proprieties were
observed in her office. "Miss Williams," she would chirp,
leaning back from her desk, "that em ess of Judge Rob-
erts's has absolutely got to be finished today . . . My
dear, we've given our word and we'll deliver if we have
to stay till midnight. Noblesse oblige, my dear," and the
typewriters would trill and jingle and all the girls' fingers
would go like mad typing briefs, manuscripts of unde-
livered speeches by lobbyists, occasional overflow from
a newspaperman or a scientist, or prospectuses from real-
estate offices or patent promoters, dunning letters foi
dentists and doctors.
THE CAMERA EYE (14)
Sunday nights when we had fishballs and baked beans
and Mr. Garfield read to us in a very beautiful reading
voice and everybody was so quiet you could have heard
a pin drop because he was reading The Man Without a
Country and it was a very terrible story and Aaron Burr
had been a very dangerous man and this poor young man
had said "Damn the United States ; I never hope to hear
her name again" and it was a very terrible thing to say
and the gray haired judge was so kind and good
and the judge sentenced me and they took me far
away to foreign lands on a frigate and the officers were
kind and good and spoke in kind grave very sorry read-
ing voices like Mr. Garfield and everything was very
kind and grave and very sorry and frigates and the blue
Mediterranean and islands and when I was dead I began
to cry and I was afraid the other boys would see I had
tears in my eyes
American shouldn't cry he should look kind and
grave and very sorry when they wrapped me in the stars
and stripes and brought me home on a frigate to be buried
I was so sorry I never remembered whether they brought
me home or buried me at sea but anyway I was wrapped
in Old Glory
NEWSREEL XI
the government of the United States must insist and
demand that American citizens who may be taken prisoner
whether by one party or the other as participants in the present
insurrectionary disturbances shall be dealt with in accordance
with the broad principles of international law
SOLDIERS GUARD CONVENTION
148
the Titanic left Southampton on April loth on its maide*
operation is to be performed against the wishes of the New
York Life according to "Kimmel" Why they know I'm
Kimmel in Niles I'm George to everyone even mother and
sister when we meet on the streets
Pm going to Maxim's
Where fun and frolic beams
With all the girls Vll chatter
Pll laugh and kiss and flatter
Loloy Dodoy Joujou.
Cloclo, Mar got y Froufrou
TITANIC LARGEST SHIP IN THE WORLD
SINKING
personally I am not sure that the twelvehour day is bad
for employees especially when they insist on working that long
in order to make more money
Still all my song shall be
Nearer My God to thee
Nearer to thee
it was now about one AM, a beautiful starlight night
with no moon. The sea was as calm as a pond, just a gentle
heave as the boat dipped up and down in the swell, an idea*
night except for the bitter cold. In the distance the Titanic
looked an enormous length, its great hulk outlined in blaclv
against the starry sky, every porthole and saloon blazing with
light
ASK METHODISM TO OUST TRINITY
the bride y s gown is of charmeuse satin with a chiffon
veiled lace waist. The veil is of crefe lisse edged with point
de venise a departure from the conventional bridal veil ana
the bouquet is to be lilies of the valley and gardenias
Dodoy Joujoiiy
Margoty Froufrou
Pm going to Maxim's
And you can go to . . .
149
the Titanic slowly tilted straight on end with the stern
vertically upward and as it did so the lights in the cabins and
saloons which had not flickered for a moment since we left,
died out, came on again for a single flash and finally went out
altogether. Meanwhile the machinery rattled through the
vessel with a rattle and a groaning that could be heard for
miles. Then with a quiet slanting dive
JANEY
"But it's so interesting, mommer," Janey would say
when her mother bewailed the fact that she had to work.
"In my day it wasn't considered ladylike, it was thought
to be demeaning." "But it isn't now," Janey would say
getting into a temper. Then it would be a great relief to
get out *of the stuffy house and the stuffy treeshaded
streets of Georgetown and to stop by for Alice Dick and
go down town to the moving pictures and to see the pic-
tures of foreign countries, and the crowds on F Street
and to stop in at a drugstore for a soda afterwards, before
getting on the Georgetown car, and to sit up at the foun-
tain talking about the picture they'd seen and Olive
Thomas and Charley Chaplin and John Bunny. She began
to read the paper every day and to take an interest in
politics. She began to feel that there was a great throb-
bing arclighted world somewhere outside and that only
living in Georgetown where everything was so poky and
oldfashioned, and Mommer and Popper were so poky and
oldfashioned, kept her from breaking into it.
Postcards from Joe made her feel like that too. He
was a sailor on the battleship Connecticut. There'd be a
picture of the waterfront at Havana or the harbor of
Marseille or Villefranche or a photograph of a girl in
peasant costume inside a tinsel horseshoe and a few lines
150
hoping she was well and liked her job, never a word about
himself. She wrote him long letters full of questions about
himself and foreign countries but he never answered them.
Still it gave her a sort of feeling of adventure to get the
postcards. Whenever she saw a navy man on the street or
marines from Quantico she thought of Joe and wondered
how he was getting on. The sight of a gob lurching along
in blue with his cap on one side took a funny twist at her
heart.
Sundays Alice almost always came out to Georgetown.
The house was different now, Joe gone, her mother and
father older and quieter, Francie and Ellen blooming out
into pretty giggly highschool girls, popular with the boys
in the neighborhood, going out to parties, all the time
complaining because they didn't have any money to spend.
Sitting at the table with them, helping Mommer with
the gravy, bringing in the potatoes or the Brussels sprouts
for Sunday dinner, Janey felt grownup, almost an old
maid. She was on the side of her father and mother now
against the sisters. Popper began to look old and shrunk-
up. He talked often about retiring, and was looking for-
ward to his pension.
When she'd been eight months with Mrs. Robinson
she got an offer from Dreyfus and Carroll, the patent
lawyers up on the top floor of the Riggs Building to work
for them for seventeen a week, which was five dollars
more than she was getting from Mrs. Robinson. It made
her feel fine. She realized now that she was good at her
work and that she could support herself whatever hap-
pened. On the strength of it she went down to Wood-
ward and Lothrop's with Alice Dick to buy a dress. She
wanted a silk grownup dress with embroidery on it. She
was twentyone and was going to make seventeen dollars
a week and thought she had a right to one nice dress.
Alice said it ought to be a bronzy gold color to match her
hair. They went in all the stores down F Street, but they
couldn't find anything that suited that wasn't too expen-
sive, so all they could do was buy some materials and
some fashion magazines and take it home to Janey's
mother to make up. It galled Janey still being dependent
on her mother this way, but there was nothing for it; so
Mrs. Williams had to make up Janey's new dress the
way she had made all her children's dresses since they
were born. Janey had never had the patience to learn to
sew the way Mommer could. They bought enough ma-
terial so that Alice could have one too, so Mrs. Williams
had to make up two dresses.
Working at Dreyfus and Carroll's was quite different
from working at Mrs. Robinson's. There were mostly
men in the office. Mr. Dreyfus was a small thinfaced man
with a small black moustache and small black twinkly
eyes and a touch of accent that gave him a distinguished
foreign diplomat manner. He carried yellow wash gloves
and a yellow cane and had a great variety of very much
tailored overcoats. He was the brains of the firm, Jerry
Burnham said. Mr. Carroll was a stout redfaced man
who smoked many cigars and cleared his throat a great
deal and had a very oldtimey Southern Godblessmysoul
way of talking. Jerry Burnham said he was the firm's
bay window. Jerry Burnham was a wrinklefaced young
man with dissipated eyes who was the firm's adviser in
technical and engineering matters. He laughed a great
deal, always got into the office late, and for some reason
took a fancy to Janey and used to joke about things to her
while he was dictating. She liked him, though the dis-
sipated look under his eyes scared her off a little. She'd
have liked to have talked to him like a sister, and gotten
him to stop burning the candle at both ends. Then there
was an elderly accountant, Mr. Sills, a shriveled man who
lived in Anacostia and never said a word to anybody.
\t noon he didn't go out for lunch, but sat at his desk
eating a sandwich and an apple wrapped in waxed paper
152
which he carefully folded afterwards and put back in
his pocket. Then there were two fresh errandboys and \
little plainfaced typist named Miss Simonds who only
got twelve a week. All sorts of people in every sort of
seedyrespectable or Peacock Alley clothes came in during
the day and stood round in the outer office listening to
Mr. Carroll's rich boom from behind the groundglasa
door. Mr. Dreyfus slipped in and out without a word,
smiling faintly at his acquaintances, always in a great
mysterious hurry. At lunch in the little cafeteria or at a,
sodafountain Janey 'ud tell Alice all about it and Alice
would look up at her admiringly. Alice always waited foi
her in the vestibule at one. They'd arranged to go out then
because there was less of a crowd. Neither of them ever
spent more than twenty cents, so lunch didn't take them
very long and they'd have time to take a turn round
Lafayette Square or sometimes round the White House
grounds before going back to the office.
There was one Saturday night when she had to work
late to finish up typing the description of an outboard
motor that had to be in at the Patent Office first thing
Monday morning. Everybody else had left the office. She
was making out the complicated technical wording as best
she could, but her mind was on a postcard showing the
Christ of the Andes she'd gotten from Joe that day. All
it said was:
"To hell with Uncle Sam's tin ships. Coming home
soon."
It wasn't signed but she knew the writing. It worried
her. Jerry Burnham sat at the telephone switchboard going
over the pages as she finished them. Now and then he
went out to the washroom ; when he came back each
time a hot breath of whisky wafted across the office. Janey
was nervous. She typed till the little black letters squirmed
before her eyes. She was worried about Joe. How could
he be coming home before his enlistment was up? Some-
153
thing must be the matter. And Jerry Burnham moving
restlessly round on the telephone girl's seat made her
uncomfortable. She and Alice had talked about the danger
of staying in an office alone with a man like this. Late like
this and drinking, a man had just one idea.
When she handed him the next to the last sheet his eye,
bright and moist, caught hers. "I bet you're tired, Miss
Williams," he said. "It's a darned shame to keep you in
like this and Saturday night too." "It's quite all right, Mr.
Burnham," she said icily and her fingers chirruped. "It's
the damned old baywindow's fault. He chewed the rag
so much about politics all day, nobody could get any work
done." "Well, it doesn't matter now," said Janey. "Noth-
ing matters any more. . . . It's almost eight o'clock. I
had to pass up a date with my best girl ... or there-
abouts. I bet you passed up a date too, Miss Williams."
"I was going to meet another girl, that's all." "Now I'll
tell one . . ." He laughed so easily that she found her-
self laughing too.
When the last page was done and in the envelope,
Janey got up to get her hat. "Look, Miss Williams, we'll
drop this in the mail and then you'd better come and have
u bite with me."
Going down in the elevator Janey intended to excuse
herself and go home but somehow she didn't and found
herself, everything aflutter inside of her, sitting coolly
down with him in a French restaurant on H Street.
"Well, what do you think of the New Freedom, Miss
Williams?" asked Jerry Burnham with a laugh after he'd
sat down. He handed her the menu. "Here's the score-
card . . . Let your conscience be your guide."
"Why, I hardly know, Mr. Burnham."
"Well, I'm for it, frankly. I think Wilson's a big man
. . . Nothing like change anyway, the best thing in the
world, don't you think so? Bryan's a big bellowing
blatherskite but even he represents something and even
154
Josephus Daniels filling the navy with grapejuice. I think
there's a chance we may get back to being a democracy
. . . Maybe there won't have to be a revolution; what
do you think?"
He never waited for her to answer a question, he just
talked and laughed all by himself.
When Janey tried to tell Alice about it afterwards the
things Jerry Burnham said didn't seem so funny, nor the
food so good nor everything so jolly. Alice was pretty
bitter about it. "Oh, Janey, how could you go out late at
night with a drunken man and to a place like that and
here I was crazy anxious . . . You know a man like that
has only one idea ... I declare I think it was heartless
and light ... I wouldn't have thought you capable of
such a thing." "But, Alice, it wasn't like that at all,"
Janey kept saying, but Alice cried and went round looking
hurt for a whole week; so that after that Janey kept off
the subject of Jerry Burnham. It was the first disagree-
ment she'd ever had with Alice and it made her feel bad
Still she got to be friends with Jerry Burnham. He
seemed to like taking her out and having her listen to him
talk. Even after he'd thrown up his job at Dreyfus and
Carroll, he sometimes called for her Saturday afternoons
to take her to Keith's. Janey arranged a meeting with
Alice out in Rock Creek Park but it wasn't much of a
success. Jerry set the girls up to tea at the old stone mill.
He was working for an engineering paper and writing a
weekly letter for The New York Sun. He upset Alice by
calling Washington a cesspool and a sink of boredom and
saying he was rotting there and that most of the inhabit-
ants were dead from the neck up anyway. When he put
them on the car to go back to Georgetown Alice said em-
phatically that young Burnham was not the sort of boy
a respectable girl ought to know. Janey sat back happily
in the seat of the open car, looking out at trees, girls iiv
summer dresses, men in straw hats, mailboxes, storefronts
155
sliding by and said, "But, Alice, he's smart as a whip. . . .
Gosh, I like brainy people, don't you?" Alice looked at
her and shook her head sadly and said nothing.
That same afternoon they went to the Georgetown
hospital to see Popper. It was pretty horrible. Mommer
and Janey and the doctor and the wardnurse knew that
he had cancer of the bladder and couldn't live very long
but they didn't admit it even to themselves. They had
just moved him into a private room where he would be
more comfortable. It was costing lots of money and they'd
had to put a second mortgage on the house. They'd al-
ready spent all Janey's savings that she had in a bank-
account of her own against a rainy day. That afternoon
they had to wait quite a while. When the nurse came out
with a glass urinal under a towel Janey went in alone,
"Hello, Popper," she said with a forced smile. The smell
of disinfectant in the room sickened her. Through the
open window came warm air of sunwilted trees, drowsy
Sundayafternoon noises, the caw of a crow, a distant sound
of traffic. Popper's face was drawn in and twisted to one
side. His big moustaches looked pathetically silky and
white. Janey knew that she loved him better than any-
body else in the world . . . His voice was feeble but
fairly firm. "Janey, I'm in drydock, girl, and I guess I'll
never . . . you know better'n I do, the sonsobitches won't
tell me ... Say, tell me about Joe, You hear from him,
don't you? I wish he hadn't joined the navy; no future
for a boy there without pull higher up; but I'm glad he
went to sea, takes after me ... I'd been three times
round the Horn in the old days before I was twenty.
That was before I settled down in the towboat business,
you understand . . . But I been thinkin' here lyin' in
bed that Joe done just what I'd 'a' done, a chip of the
old block, and I'm glad of it. I don't worry about him,
but I wish you girls was married an' off my hands. I'd
feel easier. I don't trust girls nowadays with these here
156
anklelength skirts an' all that." Popper's eyes traveled all
over her with a chilly feeble gleam that made her throat
stiffen when she tried to speak. "I guess I can take care of
myself," she said. "You got to take care of me now. I
done my best by you kids. You don't know what life is,
none of you, been sheltered and now you ship me off to
die in the hospital." "But, Popper, you said yourself you
thought it would be best to go where you'd get better
care." "I don't like that night nurse, Janey, she handles
me too rough . . . You tell 'em down at the office."
It was a relief when it was time to go. She and Alice
walked along the street without saying anything. Finally
Janey said, "For goodness' sake, Alice, don't get sulky.
If you only knew how I hated it all too ... oh, good-
ness, I wish . . ." "What do you wish, Janey?" "Oh,
I dunno."
July was hot that summer, in the office they worked
in a continual whir of electric fans, the men's collars
wilted and the girls kept themselves overplastered with
powder; only Mr. Dreyfus still looked cool and crisply
tailored as if he'd just stepped out of a bandbox. The last
day of the month Janey was sitting a minute at her desk
getting up energy to go home along the simmering streets
when Jerry Burnham came in. He had his shirtsleeves
rolled above the elbow and white duck pants on and
carried his coat. He asked her how her father was and
said he was all excited about the European news and would
have to take her out to supper to talk to somebody sooth-
ing. "I've got a car belongs to Bugs Dolan and I haven't
any driver's license, but I guess we can sneak round the
Speedway and get cooled off all the same." She tried to
refuse because she ought to go home to supper and Alice
was always so sulky when she went out with Jerry, but
he could see that she really wanted to come and insisted.
They both sat in the front seat of the Ford and dropped
their coats in the back. They went once round the Speed-
157
way but the asphalt was like a griddle. The trees and the
brown stagnant river stewed in late afternoon murk like
meat and vegetables in a pot. The heat from the engine
suffocated them. Jerry, his face red, talked incessantly
about war brewing in Europe and how it would be the end
of civilization and the signal for a general workingclass
revolution and how he didn't care and anything that got
him out of Washington, where he was drinking himself
silly with his brains addled by the heat and the Congres-
sional Record, would be gravy to him, and how tired he
was of women who didn't want anything but to get money
out of him or parties or marriage or some goddam thing
or other and how cool and soothing it was to talk to Janey
who wasn't like that.
It was too hot so they put off driving till later and
went to the Willard to get something to eat. He insisted
on going to the Willard because he said he had his pockets
full of money and would just spend it anyhow and Janey
was very much awed because she'd never been in a big
hotel before and felt she wasn't dressed for it and said she
was afraid she'd disgrace him and he laughed and said it
couldn't be done. They sat in the big long gilt dining
room and Jerry said it looked like a millionaire morgue
and the waiter was very polite and Janey couldn't find
what she wanted to eat on the big bill-of-fare and took
a salad. Jerry made her take a gin fizz because he said it
was cooling; it made her feel lightheaded and tall and
gawky. She followed his talk breathless the way she used
to tag along after Joe and Alec down to the carbarns when
she was little.
After supper they drove round some more and Jerry
got quiet and she felt constrained and couldn't think of
what to say. They went way out Rhode Island Avenue
and circled round back by the Old Soldiers' Home. There
was no air anywhere and the staring identical streetlights
ivent by on either side, lighting segments of monotonous
158
unrustling trees. Even out on the hills there was not a
breath stirring.
Out in the dark roads beyond the streetlamps it was
better. Janey lost all sense of direction and lay back
breathing in an occasional patch of freshness from a corn-
field or a copse of woods. In a spot where a faint marshy
dampness almost cool drifted across the road Jerry sud-
denly stopped the car and leaned over and kissed her.
Her heart began to beat very fast. She wanted to tell him
not to, but she couldn't.
"I didn't mean to, but I can't help it," he whispered.
"It's living in Washington undermine? the will ... Or
maybe I'm in love with you, Janey. I don't know . . *
Let's sit in the back seat where it's cooler." Weakness
started in the pit of her stomach and welled up through
her. As she stepped out he caught her in his arms. She
let her head droop on his shoulder, her lips against his
neck. His arms were burning hot round her shoulders,
she could feel his ribs through his shirt pressing against
her. Her head started going round in a reek of tobacco
and liquor and male sweat. His legs began pressing up to
hers. She yanked herself away and got into the back seat,
She was trembling. He was right after her. "No, no," she
said. He sat down beside her with his arm round her
waist. "Lez have a cigarette," he said in a shaky voice.
Smoking gave her something to do, made her feel even
with him. The two granulated red ends of the cigarettes
glowed side by side.
"Do you mean you like me, Jerry?" "I'm crazy about
you, kid." "Do you mean you . . . ?" "Want to marry
you . . . Why the hell not? I dunno . . . Suppose we
were engaged?" "You mean you want me to marry you?"
"If you like . . . But don't you understand the way a
feller feels ... a night like this . . . the smell of the
swamp . . . God, I'd give anything to have you."
They'd smoked out their cigarettes. They sat a long
159
time without saying a word. She could feel the hairs on
his bare arm against her bare arm.
"I'm worried about my brother Joe . . . He's in the
navy, Jerry, and Pm afraid he's going to desert or some-
thing ... I think you'd like him. He's a wonderful
baseball player."
"What made you think of him? Do you feel that way
towards me? Love's a swell thing ; goddam it, don't you
realize it's not the way you feel towards your brother?"
He put his hand on her knee. She could feel him look-
ing at her in the dark. He leaned over and kissed her
very gently. She liked his lips gentle against hers that
way. She was kissing them. She was falling through cen-
turies of swampy night. His hot chest was against her
breasts bearing her down. She would cling to him bear-
ing her down through centuries of swampy night. Then
all at once in a cold spasm she felt sick, choking for breath
like drowning. She began to fight him. She got her leg
up and pushed him hard in the groin with her knee.
He let go of her and got out of the car. She could hear
him walking up and down the road in the dark behind
her. She was trembling and scared and sick. After a while
he got in, switched on the light and drove on without
looking at her. He was smoking a cigarette and little
sparks came from it as he drove.
When he got to the corner of M Street below the
Williams house in Georgetown he stopped and got out
and opened the door for her. She got out not knowing
what to say, afraid to look at him.
"I suppose you think I ought to apologize to you for
being a swine," he said.
"Jerry, I'm sorry," she said.
"I'll be damned if I will ... I thought we were
friends. I might have known there wouldn't be a woman
in this muck hole with a human spark in her ... I sup-
pose you think you ought to hold out for the wedding
1 60
bells. Go ahead $ that's your business. I can get what V
want with any nigger prostitute down the street here . . .
Good night." Janey didn't say anything. He drove oft,
She went home and went to bed.
All that August her father was dying, full of morphine^
in the Georgetown hospital. The papers came out every
day with big headlines about war in Europe, Liege, Lou-
vain, Mons. Dreyfus and Carroll's was in a fever. Big
lawsuits over munitions patents were on. It began to be
whispered about that the immaculate Mr. Dreyfus was
an agent of the German government. Jerry came to see
Janey one noon to apologize for having been so rude that
night and to tell her that he had a job as a war corre-
spondent and was leaving in a week for the front. They
had a good lunch together. He talked about spies and
British intrigue and pan-Slavism and the assassination of
Jaurcs and the socialist revolution and laughed all the
time and said everything was well on its way to ballyhack.
She thought he was wonderful and wanted to say some-
thing about their being engaged and felt very tender to-
wards him and scared he'd be killed, but suddenly it was
time for her to go back to the office and neither of them
had brought the matter up. He walked back to the Riggs
Building with her and said good-bye and gave her a big
kiss right there in front of everybody and ran off prom-
ising he'd write from New York. At that moment Alice
came up on her way to Mrs. Robinson's and Janey found
herself telling her that she was engaged to be married te
Jerry Burn ham and that he was going to Europe to the
war as a war correspondent.
When her father died in early September it was a great
relief to all concerned. Only, coming back from Oak Hill
Cemetery aii the things she'd wanted as a girl came back
to ,*?. and the thought of Alec, and everything seemed so
unhappy that she couldn't stand it. Her mother was very
quiet and her eyes were very .ted and she kept saying that
161
she was so glad that there'd be room on the lot for her to
be buried in Oak Hill too. She'd have hated for him to
be buried in any other cemetery than Oak Hill. It was so
beautiful and all the nicest people in Georgetown were
buried there.
With the insurance money Mrs. Williams did over
the house and fixed up the two top floors to rent out as
apartments. That was the chance Janey had been waiting
for for so long to get a place of her own and she and Alice
got a room in a house on Massachusetts Avenue near the
Carnegie Library, with cooking privileges. So one Satur-
day afternoon she phoned from the drugstore for a taxicab
and set out with her suitcase and trunk and a pile of
framed pictures from her room on the seat beside her.
The pictures were two color prints of Indians by Reming-
ton, a Gibson girl, a photograph of the battleship Con-
necticut in the harbor of Villefranche that Joe had sent
her and an enlarged photograph of her father in uniform
standing at the wheel of an imaginary ship against a
stormy sky furnished by a photographer in Norfolk, Va.
Then there were two unframed colorprints by Maxfield
Parrish that she'd bought recently and a framed snap-
shot of Joe in baseball clothes. The little picture of Alec
she'd wrapped among her things in her suitcase. The cab
smelt musty and rumbled along the streets. It was a crisp
autumn day, the gutters were full of dry leaves. Janey
felt scared and excited as if she were starting out all alone
on a journey.
That fall she read a great many newspapers and maga-
zines and The Beloved Vagabond, by W. J. Locke. She
began to hate the Germans that were destroying art and
culture, civilization, Louvain. She waited for a letter from
Jerry but a letter never came.
One afternoon she was coming out of the office a little
late, who should be standing in the hall by the elevator
but Joe. "Hello, Janey," he said. "Gee, you look like a
162
million dollars." She was so glad to see him she could
hardly speak, could only squeeze his arm tight. "I just
got paid off ... I thought I better come up here and
see the folks before I spent all my jack . . . I'll take
you out and set you up to a big feed an' a show if you
want . . ." He was sunburned and his shoulders were
broader than when he left. His big hands and knotty
wrists stuck out of a newlooking blue suit that was too
tight for him at the waist. The sleeves were too short too.
"Did you go to Georgetown?" she asked him.
"Yare."
"Did you go up to the cemetery?"
"Mommer wanted me to go. but what's the use?"
"Poor mother, she's so sentimental about it . . ."
They walked along. Joe didn't say anything. It was a
hot day. Dust blew down the street.
Janey said: "Joe, dear, you must tell me all about your
adventures . . . You must have been to some wonderful
places. It's thrilling having a brother in the navy."
"Janey, pipe down about the navy, will yer? ... I
don't want to hear about it. I deserted in B A, see, and
shipped out east on a limey, on an English boat . . ,
That's a dog's life too, but anything's better than the
U.S.N."
"But, Joe . . ."
"Ain't nothin' to worry about . . ."
"But, Joe, what happened?"
"You won't say a word to a livin' soul, will you, Janey?
You see I got in a scrap with a petty officer tried to ride
me too damn hard. I socked him in the jaw an' kinda
mauled him, see, an' things looked pretty bad for me, so I
made tracks for the tall timber. . . . That's all."
"Oh, Joe, and I was hoping you'd get to be an officer. 51
"A gob get to be an officer . . . ? A fat chance."
She took him to the Mabillion, where Jerry had taken
her. At the door Joe peered in critically. "Is this the
163
wellest joint you know. Janey? I got a hundred iron men
in my pocket." "Oh, this is dreadfully expensive . . .
It's a French restaurant. Arid you oughtn't to spend all
pour money on me." "Who the hell else do you want me
to spend it on?" Joe sat down at a table and Janey went
back to 'phone Alice that she wouldn't be home till late.
When she got back to the table, Joe was pulling some
little packages wrapped in red and greenstriped tissue-
paper out of his pockets. "Oh, what's that?" "You open
'em, Janey . . . It's yours." She opened the packages.
They were some lace collars and an embroidered table-
cloth. "The lace is Irish and that other's from Madeira
... I had a Chinee vase for you too but some son of a
bit ... son of a gun snitched it on me." "That was
awful sweet of you to think of me ... I appreciate it."
Joe fidgeted with his knife and fork. "We gotta git a
move on, Janey, or wf/11 be late for the show ... I got
tickets for 'The Garden of Allah.' "
When they came out of the Belasco onto Lafayette
Square that was coo! und quiet with a rustle of wind in the
trees Joe said, "Aiv/t so much; I seen a real sandstorm
onct," and Janey felt bad about her brother being so
rough and uneducated. The play made her feel like when
she was little, full of uneasy yearn for foreign countries
and a smell of Incense and dark eyes and dukes in tail-
coats tossing money away on the gaming tables of Monte
Carlo, monks and the mysterious east. If Joe was only a
little better educated he'd be able to really appreciate all
the interesting ports he visited. He left her on the stoop
of the house on Massachusetts Avenue. "Where are you
going to stay, Joe?" she asked. "I guess I'll shove along
back to New York an' pick up a berth. . . . Sailoring's a
pretty good graft with this war on." "You mean to-
night?" He nodded. "I wish I had a bed for you but
I couldn't very well on account of Alice." "Naw, I doan
to hang round this dump ... I jus' came up to say
i6\
hello." "Well, goodnight, Joe, be sure and write." "Good*
night, Janey, I sure will." She watched him walk off
down the street until he went out of sight in the shadows
of the trees. It made her unhappy to see him go all alone
down the shadowed street. It wasn't quite the shambling
walk of a sailor, but he looked like a working man all
right. She sighed and went into the house. Alice was wait-
ing up for her. She showed Alice the lace and they tried
on the collars and agreed that it was very pretty and
quite valuable.
Janey and Alice had a good time that winter. They
took to smoking cigarettes and serving tea to their friends
Sunday afternoons. They read novels by Arnold Bennett
and thought of themselves as bachelor girls. They learned
to play bridge and shortened their skirts. At Christmas
Janey got a hundred dollar bonus and a raise to twenty
a week from Dreyfus and Carroll. She began telling Alice
that she was an old stickinthemud to stay on at Mrs. Rob-
inson's. For herself she began to have ambitions of a busi-
ness career. She wasn't afraid of men any more and kidded
back and forth with young clerks in the elevator about
things that would have made her blush the year before.
When Johnny Edwards or Morris Byer took her out to
the movies in the evening she didn't mind having them
put their arms around her, or having them kiss her once
or twice while she was fumbling in her bag for her latch-
key. She knew just how to catch a boy's hand by the wrist
and push it away without making any scene when he tried
to get too intimate. When Alice used to talk warningly
about men having just one idea, she'd laugh and say, "Oh,
they're not so smart." She discovered that just a little
peroxide in the water when she washed her hair made it
blonder and took away that mousey look. Sometimes when
she was getting ready to go out in the evening she'd put
a speck of rouge on her little finger and rub it very care-
fully on her lips.
165
THE CAMERA EYE (15)
in the mouth of the Schuylkill Mr. Pierce came on
board ninetysix years old and sound as a dollar He'd
been officeboy in Mr. Pierce's office about the time He'd
enlisted and missed the battle of Antietam on account of
having dysentery so bad and Mr. Pierce's daughter Mrs.
Black called Him Jack and smoked little brown cigarettes
and we played Fra Diavolo on the phonograph and
everybody was very jolly when Mr. Pierce tugged at his
dundrearies and took a toddy and Mrs. Black lit cigarettes
one after another and they talked about old days and
about how His father had wanted Him to be a priest
and His poor mother had had such trouble getting to-
gether enough to eat for that family of greedy boys and
His father was a silent man and spoke mostly Portugee
and when he didn't like the way a dish was cooked that
came on the table he'd pick it up and sling it out of the
window and He wanted to go to sea and studied law at
the University and in Mr. Pierce's office and He sang
Oh who can tell the joy he feels as o'er the foam his
vessel reels
and He mixed up a toddy and Mr. Pierce pulled at
his dundrearies and everybody was very jolly and they
talked about the schooner Mary Wentworth and how
Colonel Hodgeson and Father Murphy looked so hard
1 66
on the cheery glass and He mixed up a toddy and Mr.
Pierce pulled at his dundrearies and Mrs. Black smoked
the little brown cigarettes one after another and every-
body was very jolly with Fra Diawolo playing on the
phonograph and the harbor smell and the ferryboats and
the Delaware all silverripply used to be all marshes over
there where we used to go duckshooting and He sang
Vittoria with the phonograph
and Father Murphy got a terrible attack of gout and
had to be carried off on a shutter and Mr. Pierce ninety
six years old and sound as a dollar took a sip of toddy
and tugged at his dundrearies silveryripply and the har--
borsmell came on the fresh wind and smoke from th<-
shipyards in Camden and lemon rye sugary smell of tod-
dyglasses and everybody was very jolly
NEWSREEL XII
GREEKS IN BATTLE FLEE BEFORE COPS
Passengers In Sleeping Car Aroused At point of Gun
Flow, river y flow
Down to the sea
Bright stream bring my loved one
Home to me
FIGHTING AT TORREON
at the end of the last campaign, writes Champ Clark^
Missouri's brilliant Congressman, I had about collapsed from
167
overwork, nervous tension, loss of sleep and appetite and con-
stant speaking, but three bottles of Electric Bitters made me
allright
Roosevelt Is Made Leader Of New Party
BRYAN'S THROAT CUT BY CLARK; AIDS
PARKER
True y dear one y true
Pm trying hard to be
But hear me say
It's a very very long long way
From the banks of the Seme
the crime for which Richardson was sentenced to die
in the electric chair was the confessed murder of his former
sweetheart 19 year old Avis Linnell of Hyannis a pupil in the
New England Conservatory of Music at Boston.
The girl stood in the way of the minister's marriage to
a society *girl and heiress of Brookline both through an en-
gagement that still existed between the two and because of a
condition in which Miss Linnell found herself.
The girl was deceived into taking a poison given her by
Richardson which she believed would remedy that condition
and died in her room at the Young Women's Christian Asso-
ciation.
ROOSEVELT TELLS FIRST TIME HOW US
GOT PANAMA
IOO,OOO PEOPLE UNABLE TO ENTER BIG HALL
ECHO CHEERING
at dinnertime the Governor said he hadn't heard di-
rectly from Mr. Bryan during the day. "At the present rate
of gain," Mr. Wilson said, "After reading the results of the
fifteenth ballot, I figure it'll take about 175 more ballots to
land me"
Redhaired Youth Says Stories of Easy Money Led Him
to Crime
interest in the case was intensified on Dec. 20 when it
1 68
became known that the ex-clergyman had mutilated himself
in his cell at the Charles Street Jail.
FIVE MEN DIE AFTER GETTING TO SOUTH
POLE
DIAZ TRAINS HEAVY GUNS ON BUSINESS SECTION
It's a very very long long way
From the banks of the Seine
For a girl to go and stay
On the banks of the Saskatchewan
THE BOY ORATOR
OF THE PLATTE
It was in the Chicago Convention in '96 that the
prizewinning boy orator the minister's son whose lips*
had never touched liquor let out his silver voice so
that it filled the gigantic hall, filled the ears of the
plain people:
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the convention:
I would be presumptuous indeed
to present myself against
the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have
listened, if this were a mere measuring of abilities;
but this is not a contest between persons,
The humblest citizen in all the land,
when clad in the armor of a righteous cause,
is stronger than all the hosts of error.
I come to speak to you in defence of a cause as holy a*
the cause of Liberty . . .
169
a youngish bigmouthed man in a white tie
barnstormer, exhorter, evangelist,
his voice charmed the mortgageridden farmers of
the great plains, rang through weatherboarded school-
houses in the Missouri Valley, was sweet in the ears
of small storekeepers hungry for easy credit, melted
men's innards like the song of a thrush or a mockin' in
the gray quiet before sunup, or a sudden soar in winter
wheat or a bugler playing taps and the flag flying j
silver tongue of the plain people:
. . . the man who is employed for wages is as
much a business man as his employer;
the attorney in a country town is as much a busi-
ness man as the corporation counsel in a great me-
tropolis^
the merchant in a crossroads store is as much a
business man as the merchant of New York;
the farmer who goes forth in the morning and
toils all day, who begins in the spring and toils all
summer, and who by the application of brain and
muscle to the natural resources of the country creates
wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes
u$on the board of trade and bets uyon the 'price of
grain;
the miners who go down a thousand feet in the
earth
or climb two thousand feet U'pon the cliffs
and bring forth from their hiding-places
the precious metals
to be poured in the channels of trade>
are as much business men
170
as the few financial magnates
who
in a back room
corner the money of the world,
The hired man and the country attorney sat up
and listened,
this was big talk for the farmer who'd mortgaged
his crop to buy fertilizer, big talk for the smalltown
hardware man, groceryman, feed and corn merchant,
undertaker, truckgardener . . .
Having behind us
the producing masses
of this nation and the world,
sup-ported by the commercial interests, the labor-
ing interests, and the toilers everywhere,
we will answer
their demand
for a gold standard
by saying to them:
You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this
crown of thorns,
you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
They roared their lungs out (crown of thorns and
cross of gold}
carried him round the hall on their shoulders,
hugged him, loved him, named their children after
him, nominated him for president,
boy orator of the Platte,
silver tongue of the plain people,
171
But McArthur and Forrest, two Scotchmen in the
Rand, had invented the cyanide process for extracting
gold from ore, South Africa flooded the gold market j
there was no need for a prophet of silver.
The silver tongue chanted on out of the big
mouth, chanting Pacifism, Prohibition, Fundamental-
ism,
nibbling radishes on the lecture platform,
drinking grape juice and water,
gorging big cornbelt meals j
Bryan grew gray in the hot air of Chau-
tauqua tents, in the applause, the handshakes, the back-
pattings, the cigarsmoky air of committeerooms at
Democratic conventions, a silver tongue in a big
mouth.
In Dayton he dreamed of turning the trick
again, of setting back the clocks for the plain people,
branding, flaying, making a big joke
of Darwinism and the unbelieving outlook of
city folks, scientists, foreigners with beards and monkey
morals.
In Florida he'd spoken every day at noon on
a float under an awning selling lots for Coral Gables
... he had to speak, to feel the drawling voices hush,
feel the tense approving ears, the gust of handclaps.
Why not campaign again through the length
and
172
breadth to set up again the tottering word for the
plain
people who wanted the plain word of God?
(crown of thorns and cross of gold]
the plain prosperous comfortable word of God
for plain prosperous comfortable midameriaui
folks?
He was a big eater. It was hot. A stroke killed
him.
Three days later down in Florida the company
delivered
the electric horse he'd ordered to exercise on
when he'd seen the electric horse the president
exercised on in the White House.
THE CAMERA EYE (16)
it was hot as a bakeoven going through the cana
from Delaware City and turtles sunning themselves
tumbled off into the thick ocher ripple we made in pass-
ing and He was very gay and She was feeling well for
once and He made us punch of tea and mint and a little
Saint Croix rum but it was hot as the hinges of Delaware
and we saw scarlet tanagers and redwing blackbirds and
kingfishers cackled wrathfully as the yellow wave from
the white bow rustled the reeds and the cattails and the
173
aweetflag and He talked about lawreform and what poli-
ticians were like, and where were the Good Men in this
country and said Why thinking the way I think I couldn't
get elected to be notary public in any county in the state
not with all the money in the world no not even dog-
catcher
J. WARD MOOREHOUSE
He was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on the Fourth
cf July. Poor Mrs. Moorehouse could hear the firecrackers
popping and crackling outside the hospital all through
her laborpains. And when she came to a little and they
brought-the baby to her she asked the nurse in a trembling
husky whisper if she thought it could have a bad effect
on the baby all that noise, prenatal influence you know.
The nurse said the little boy ought to grow up to be very
patriotic and probably president being born on the
Glorious Fourth and went on to tell a long story about a
woman who'd been frightened by having a beggar stick
his hand out suddenly right under her nose just before
the child was born and the child had been born with six
fingers, but Mrs. Moorehouse was too weak to listen and
went off to sleep. Later Mr. Moorehouse came by on his
way home from the depot where he worked as stationagent
and they decided to call the kid John Ward after Mrs.
Moorehouse's father who was a farmer in Iowa and pretty
well off. Then Mr. Moorehouse went round to Healy's
to get tanked up because he was a father and because it
toras the Glorious Fourth and Mrs. Moorehouse went off
to sleep again.
Johnny grew up in Wilmington. He had two brothers,
174
Ben and Ed, and three sisters, Myrtle, Edith and Hazel^
but everybody said he was the bright boy of the family
as well as the eldest. Ben and Ed were stronger and
bigger than he was, but he was the marbles champion o{
the public school, getting considerable fame one term by
a corner in agates he maneuvered with the help of a little
Jewish boy named Ike Goldberg j they managed to rent
out agates to other boys for a cent a week for ten.
When the Spanish War came on everybody in Wil-
mington was filled with martial enthusiasm, all the boys
bothered their parents to buy them Rough Rider suits
and played filibusters and Pawnee Indian wars and
Colonel Roosevelt and Remember the Maine and the
White Fleet and the Oregon steaming through the Straits
of Magellan. Johnny was down on the wharf one summer
evening when Admiral Cervera's squadron was sighted
in battle formation passing through the Delaware Capes
by a detachment of the state militia who immediately
opened fire on an old colored man crabbing out in the
river. Johnny ran home like Paul Revere and Mrs.
Moorehouse gathered up her six children and pushing
two of them in a babycarriage and dragging the other
four after her, made for the railway station to find her
husband. By the time they'd decided to hop on the next
train to Philadelphia news went round that the Spanish
squadron was just some boats fishing for menhaden and
that the militiamen were being confined in barracks for
drunkenness. When the old colored man had hauled in
his last crabline he sculled back to shore and exhibited to
his cronies several splintery bulletholes in the side of
his skiff.
When Johnny graduated from highschool as head of thr,
debating team, class orator and winner of the prize essay
contest with an essay entitled "Roosevelt, the Man of the
Hour," everybody felt he ought to go to college. But
the financial situation of the family was none too good,
175
fiis father said/ shaking his head. Poor Mrs. Moorehouse
who had been sickly since the birth of her last child had
taken to the hospital to have an operation and would stay
there for some time to come. The younger children had
had measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever and mumps
all year. The amortization on the house was due and Mr.
Moorehouse had not gotten the expected raise that New
Year's. So instead of getting a job as assistant freight agent
or picking peaches down near Dover the way he had other
summers Johnny went round Delaware, Maryland and
Pennsylvania as agent for a bookdistributing firm. In Sep-
tember he received a congratulatory note from them say-
ing that he was the first agent they had ever had who
sold a hundred consecutive sets of Bryant's History of the
United States. On the strength of it he went out to West
Philadelphia and applied for a scholarship at the U of
P. He got the scholarship, passed the exams and enrolled
himself as a freshman, indicating BS as the degree he was
working for. The first term he commuted from Wilming-
ton to save the expense of a room. Saturdays and Sundays
he picked up a little money taking subscriptions for Stod-
dard's Lectures. Everything would have gone right if
his father hadn't slipped on the ice on the station steps
one January morning in Johnny's sophomore year and
broken his hip. He was taken to the hospital and one com-
plication after another ensued. A little shyster lawyer,
Ike Goldberg's father, in fact, went to see Moorehouse,
who lay with his leg in the air in a Balkan frame and
induced him to sue the railroad for a hundred thousand
dollars under the employers' liability law. The railroad
lawyers got up witnesses to prove that Moorehouse had
been drinking heavily and the doctor who had examined
him testified that he showed traces of having used liquor
the morning of the fall, so by midsummer he hobbled out
of hospital on crutches, without a job and without any
compensation. That was the end of Johnny's college edu-
cation. The incident left in his mind a lasting bitterness
against drink and against his father.
Mrs. Moorehouse had to write for help from her father
to save the house, but his answer took so long that the
bank foreclosed before it came and it wouldn't have done
much good anyway because it was only a hundred dollars
in ten dollar bills in a registered envelope and just about
paid the cost of moving to a floor in a fourfamily frame
house down by the Pennsylvania freightyards. Ben left
highschool and got a job as assistant freightagent and
Johnny went into the office of Hillyard and Miller, Real
Estate. Myrtle and her mother baked pies evenings and
made angelcake to send to the Woman's Exchange and
Mr. Moorehouse sat in an invalid chair in the front parlor
cursing shyster lawyers and the lawcourts and the Penn-
sylvania Railroad.
This was a bad year for Johnny Moorehouse. He was
twenty and didn't drink or smoke and was keeping him-
self clean for the lovely girl he was going to marry, a
girl in pink organdy with golden curls and a sunshade.
He'd sit in the musty little office of Hillyard and Miller,
listing tenements for rent, furnished rooms, apartments,
desirable lots for sale, and think of the Boer war and the
Strenuous Life and prospecting for gold. From his desk
he could see a section of a street of frame houses and a
couple of elmtrees through a grimy windowpane. In front
of the window was in summer a conical wiremesh flytrap
where caught flies buzzed and sizzled, and in winter a
little openface gas-stove that had a peculiar feeble whistle
all its own. Behind him, back of a groundglass screen thai
went part way to the ceiling Mr. Hillyard and Mr
Miller sat facing each other at a big double desk, smok-
ing cigars and fiddling with papers. Mr. Hillyard was a
sallowfaced man with black hair a little too long who
had been on the way to making a reputation for himself
as a criminal lawyer when, through some scandal that no-
177
body ever mentioned as it was generally agreed in Wil-
mington that he had lived it down, he had been disbarred,
Mr. Miller was a little roundfaced man who lived with
his elderly mother. He had been forced into the realestate
business by the fact that his father had died leaving him
building lots scattered over Wilmington and the outskirts
of Philadelphia and nothing else to make a living from.
Johnny's job was to sit in the outer office and be polite
to prospective buyers, to list the properties, attend to ad-
vertising, type the firm's letters, empty the wastebaskets
and the dead flies out of the flytrap, take customers to
visit apartments, houses and buildinglots and generally
make himself useful and agreeable. It was on this job that
he found out that he had a pair of bright blue eyes and
that he could put or. an engaging boyish look that people
liked. Old ladies looking for houses used to ask specially
to have tfrat nice young man show them round, and busi-
ness men who dropped in for a chat with Mr. Hillyard
or Mr. Miller would nod their heads and look wise and
say, "Bright boy, that." He made eight dollars a week.
Outside of the Strenuous Life and a lovely girl to fall
in love with him there was one thing Johnny Moore-
house's mind dwelt on as he sat at his desk listing desir-
able five and sevenroom dwelling-houses, drawingroom,
diningroom, kitchen and butler's pantry, three master's
bedrooms and bath, maid's room, water, electricity, gas,
healthy location on gravelly soil in restricted residential
area: He wanted to be a songwriter. He had a fair tenor
Voice and could carry Larboard Watch Ahoy or / Dreamed
I Dwelt in Marble Halls or Through Pleasures and Pal-
ices Sadly I Roam very adequately. Sunday afternoons he
took music lessons with Miss O'Higgins, a shriveled little
Irishwoman, unmarried, of about thirtyfive, who taught
him the elements of the piano and listened with rapture
to his original compositions that she took down for him
on musicpaper that she had all ready ruled when he cama
One song that began
Oh y show me the state where the peaches bloom
Where maids are fair . . . It's Delaware
she thought good enough to send to a music publisher in
Philadelphia, but it came back, as did his next composi-
tion that Miss O'Higgins he called her Marie by this
time and she declared she couldn't take any money from
him for her lessons, at least not until he was rich and had
made a name for himself that Marie cried over and said
was as beautiful as MacDowell. It began
The silver bay of Delaware
Rolls through feachblossoms to the sea
And wh?n my heart is bowed with care
Its memory sweet comes back to me.
Miss O'Higgins had a little parlor with gilt chairs in
it where she gave her music lessons. It was very heavily
hung with lace curtains and with salmoncolored brocaded
portieres she had bought at an auction. In the center was
a black walnut table piled high with worn black leather
albums. Sunday afternoons after the lesson was over she'd
bring out tea and cookies and cinnamon toast and Johnny
would sit there sprawled in the horsehair armchair that
had to have a flowered cover over it winter and summer
on account of its being so worn and his eyes would be so
blue and he'd talk about things he wanted to do and poke
fun at Mr. Hillyard and Mr. Miller and she'd tell him
stories of great composers, and her cheeks would flush
and she'd feel almost pretty and feel that after all there
wasn't such a terrible disparity in their ages. She supported
by her music lessons an invalid mother and a father who
had been a wellknown baritone and patriot in Dublin in
his younger days but who had taken to drink and she was
madly in love with Johnny Moorehouse.
179
Johnny Moorehouse worked on at Hillyard and Mil-
ler's sitting in the stuffy office, chafing when he had noth-
ing to do until he thought he'd go mad and run amok
and kill somebody, sending songs to the music publishers
that they always sent back, reading the Success Magazine ,
full of sick longing for the future: to be away from Wil-
mington and his father's grumbling and pipesmoking and
the racket his little brothers and sisters made and the
smell of corned beef and cabbage and his mother's wrin-
kled crushed figure and her overworked hands.
But one day he was sent down to Ocean City, Mary-
land, to report on some lots the firm had listed there. Mr.
Hillyard would have gone himself only he had a car-
buncle on his neck. He gave Johnny the return ticket and
ten dollars for the trip.
It was a hot July afternoon. Johnny ran home to get
a bag and to change his clothes and got down to the sta-
tion just in time to make the train. The ride was hot and
sticky down through peachorchards and pinebarrens under
a blazing slaty sky that flashed back off sandy patches in
scraggly cornfields and whitewashed shacks and strips of
marshwater. Johnny had taken off the jacket of his gray
flannel suit and folded it on the seat beside him to keep
it from getting mussed and laid his collar and tie on top
of it so that they'd be fresh when he got in, when he
noticed a darkeyed girl in a ruffled pink dress and a wide
white leghorn hat sitting across the aisle. She was consid-
erably older than he was and looked like the sort of fash-
ionably dressed woman who'd be in a parlorcar rather than
in a daycoach. But Johnny reflected that there wasn't any
parlorcar on this train. Whenever he wasn't looking at
her, he felt that she was looking at him.
The afternoon grew overcast and it came on to rain,
big drops spattered against the car windows. The girl
in pink ruffles was struggling to put her window down.
He jumped over and put it down for her. "Allow me,' 1
1 80
he said. "Thanks." She looked up and smiled intu his
eyes. "Oh, it's so filthy on this horrid train." She showed
him her white gloves all smudged from the window-
fastenings. He sat down again on the inside edge of his
seat. She turned her full face to him. It was an irregular
brown face with ugly lines from the nose to the ends of
the mouth, but her eyes set him tingling. "You won't
think it's too unconventional of me if we talk, will you?' 1
she said, "I'm bored to death on this horrid train, and
there isn't any parlorcar though the man in New York
swore that there was."
"I bet you been traveling all day," said Johnny, look-
ing shy and boyish.
"Worse than that. I came down from Newport on the
boat last night."
The casual way she said Newport quite startled him.
"I'm going to Ocean City," he said.
"So am I. Isn't it a horrid place? I wouldn't go there
for a minute if it weren't for Dad. He pretends to like it."
"They say that Ocean City has a great future ... I
mean in a kind of a realestate way," said Johnny.
There was a pause.
"I got on in Wilmington," said Johnny with a smile.
"A horrid place, Wilmington ... I can't stand it-"
"I was born and raised there ... I suppose that's why
I like it," said Johnny.
"Oh, I didn't mean there weren't awfully nice people
in Wilmington . . . lovely old families . . . Do you
know the Rawlinses?"
"Oh, that's all right ... I don't want to spend all
my life in Wilmington, anyway . . . Gosh, look at it
ram."
It rained so hard that a culvert was washed out and
the train was four hours late into Ocean City. By the time
they got in they were good friends j it had thundered and
lightened and she'd been so nervous and he'd acted very
181
strong and protecting and the car had filled up with mos-
quitoes and they had both been eaten up and they'd gotten
very hungry together. The station was pitchblack and
there was no porter and it took him two trips to get her
bags out and even then they almost forgot her alligator-
skin handbag and he had to go back into the car a third
time to get it and his own suitcase. By that time an old
darkey with a surrey had appeared who said he was from
the Ocean House. "I hope you're going there too," she
said. He said he was and they got in though they had no
place to put their feet because she had so many bags.
There were no lights in Ocean City on account of the
storm. The surreywheels ground through a deep sandbedj
now and then that sound and the clucking of the driver
at his horse were drowned by the roar of the surf from the
beach. The only light was from the moon continually
hidden by driving clouds. The rain had stopped but the
tense air felt as if another downpour would come any
minute. "I certainly would have perished in the storm if
it hadn't been for you," she said; then suddenly she of-
fered him her hand like a man: "My name's Strang . . ,
Annabelle Marie Strang. . . . Isn't that a funny name?"
He took her hand. "John Moorehouse is mine . . . Glad
to meet you. Miss Strang." The palm of her hand was
hot and dry. It seemed to press into his. When he let go
he felt that she had expected him to hold her hand longer.
She laughed a husky low laugh. "Now we're introduced,
Mr. Moorehouse, and everything's quite all right ... I
certainly shall give Dad a piece of my mind. The idea of
his not meeting his only daughter at the station."
In the dark hotel lobby lit by a couple of smoked oil-
lamps he saw her, out of the corner of his eye, throw her
arms round a tall whitehaired man, but by the time he
had scrawled John W. Moorehouse in his most forceful
handwriting in the register and gotten his roomkey from
the clerk, they had gone. Up in the little pine bedroom
182
it was very hot. When he pulled up the window, the r oar
of the surf came in through the rusty screen mingling
with the rattle of rain on the roof. He changed his collar
and washed in tepid water he poured from the cracked
pitcher on the washstand and went down to the dining-
room to try to get something to eat. A goat-toothed wait-
ress was just bringing him soup when Miss Strang came
in followed by the tall man. As the only lamp was on the
table he was sitting at, they came towards it and he got
up and smiled. "Here he is, Dad," she said. "And you
owe him for the driver that brought us from the sta-
tion . . . Mr. Morris, you must meet my father, Dr.
Strang . . . The name was Morris, wasn't it?" Johnny
blushed. "Moorehouse, but it's quite all right. . . . I'm
glad to meet you, sir."
Next morning Johnny got up early and went round to
the office of the Ocean City Improvement and Realty
Company that was in a new greenstained shingled bun-
galow on the freshly laidout street back of the beach.
There was no one there yet so he walked round the town.
It was a muggy gray day and the cottages and the frame
stores and the unpainted shacks along the railroad track
looked pretty desolate. Now and then he slapped a mos-
quito on his neck. He had on his last clean collar and he
was worried for fear it would get wilted. Whenever he
stepped off the board sidewalks he got sand in his shoes,
and sharp beachburrs stuck to his ankles. At last he found
a stout man in a white linen suit sitting on the steps of the
realestate office. "Good morning, sir," he said. "Are you
Colonel Wedgewood?" The stout man was too out of
breath to Answer and only nodded. He had one big silk
handkerchief stuck into his collar behind and with another
was mopping his face. Johnny gave him the letter he had
from his firm and stood waiting for him to say something..
The fat man read the letter with puckered brows and led
the way into the office. "It's this asthma," he gasped be-
183
tween great wheezing breaths. "Cuts ma wind when Ah
trah to hurry. Glad to meet you, son."
Johnny hung round old Colonel Wedgewood the rest
of the morning, looking blue-eyed and boyish, listening
politely to stories of the Civil War and General Lee and
his white horse Traveller and junketings befoa de woa on
the Easten Shoa, ran down to the store to get a cake of ice
for the cooler, made a little speech about the future of
Ocean City as a summer resort "Why, what have they
got at Atlantic City or Cape May that we haven't got
here?" roared the Colonel went home with him to his
bungalow for lunch, thereby missing the train he ought to
have taken back to Wilmington, refused a mint julep he
neither drank nor smoked but stood admiringly by while
the Colonel concocted and drank two good stiff ones, for
his asthma, used his smile and his blue eyes and his boyish
shamble on the Colonel's colored cook Mamie and by four
o'clock he was laughing about the Governor of North
Carolina and the Governor of South Carolina and had ac-
cepted a job with the Ocean City Improvement and Realty
Company at fifteen dollars a week, with a small furnished
cottage thrown in. He went back to the hotel and wrote
Mr. Hillyard, inclosing the deeds for the lots and his
expense account, apologized for leaving the firm at such
short notice but explained that he owed it to his family
who were in great need to better himself as much as he
could y then he wrote to his mother that he was staying
on in Ocean City and please to send him his clothes by
express; he wondered whether to write Miss O'Higgins,
but decided not to. After all, bygones were bygones.
When he had eaten supper he went to the desk to ask
for his bill, feeling pretty nervous for fear he wouldn't
have enough money to pay it, and was just coming out
with two quarters in his pocket and his bag in his hand
when he met Miss Strang. She was with a short dark man
in white flannels whom she introduced as Monsieur de la
184
Rochevillaine. He was a Frenchman but spoke good Eng-
lish. "I hope you're not leaving us," she said. "No, ma'am,
I'm just moving down the beach to one of Colonel Wedge-
wood's cottages." The Frenchman made Johnny uneasy j
he stood smiling suave as a barber beside Miss Strang.
"Oh, you know our fat friend, do you? He's a great crony
of Dad's. I think he's just too boring with his white horse
Traveller." Miss Strang and the Frenchman smiled both
at once as if they had some secret in common. The French-
man stood beside her swinging easily on the balls of his
feet as if he were standing beside some piece of furniture
he owned and was showing off to a friend. Johnny had a
notion to paste him one right where the white flannel
bulged into a pot belly. "Well, I must go," he said.
"Won't you come back later? There's going to be dancing.
We'd love to have you." "Yes, come back by all means,"
said the Frenchman. "I will if I can," said Johnny and
walked off with his suitcase in his hand, feeling sticky
under the collar and sore. "Drat that Frenchman," he
said aloud. Still, there was something about the way Miss
Strang looked at him. He guessed he must be falling in
love.
It was a hot August, the mornings still, the afternoons
piling up sultry into thundershowers. Except when there
were clients to show about the scorched sandlots and pine-
barrens laid out into streets, Johnny sat in the office alone
under the twoflanged electric fan. He was dressed in white
flannels and a pink tennis shirt rolled up to the elbows,
drafting the lyrical description of Ocean City (Maryland)
that was to preface the advertising booklet that was the
Colonel's pet idea: "The lifegiving surges of the broad
Atlantic beat on the crystalline beaches of Ocean City
(Maryland) . . . the tonic breath of the pines brings re-
lief to the asthmatic and the consumptive . . . nearby the
sportsman's paradise of Indian River spreads out its broad
estuary teeming with . . ." In the afternoon the Colonel
i8c
would come in sweating and wheezing and Johnny would
read him what he had written and he'd say, "Bully, ma
boy, bully," and suggest that it be all done over. And
Johnny would look up a new batch of words in a dogeared
"Century Dictionary" and start off again.
It would have been a fine life except that he was in
love. Evenings he couldn't keep away from the Ocean
House. Each time he walked up the creaking porch steps
past the old ladies rocking and fanning with palmleaf
fans, and went through the screen doors into the lobby
he felt sure that this time he'd find Annabelle Marie
alone, but each time the Frenchman was with her as smil-
ing and cool and potbellied as ever. They both made a
fuss over Johnny and petted him like a little dog or a
precocious child , she taught him to dance the "Boston,"
and the Frenchman, who it turned out was a duke or a
baron or something, kept offering him drinks and cigars
and scented cigarettes. Johnny was shocked to death when
he found out that she smoked, but somehow it went with
dukes and Newport and foreign travel and that sort of
thing. She used some kind of musky perfume and the
smell of it and the slight rankness of cigarettesmoke in
her hair made him dizzy and feverish when he danced
with her. Some nights he tried to tire out the Frenchman
playing pool, but then she'd disappear to bed and he'd
have to go off home cursing under his breath. While he
undressed he could still feel a little tingle of musk in his
nostrils. He was trying to make up a song:
By the moonlight sea
I fine for thee
Annabelle Marie . . .
Then it 'ud suddenly sound too damn silly and he'd stride
up and down his little porch in his pajamas, with the mos-
quitoes shrilling about his head and the pound of the sea
and the jeer of the dry flies and katydids in his ears, curs-
186
ing being young and poor and uneducated and planning
how he'd make a big enough pile to buy out every damn
Frenchman j then he'd be the one she'd love and look up
to and he wouldn't care if she did have a few damn
Frenchmen for mascots if she wanted them. He'd clench
his fists and stride around the porch muttering, "By gum,
I can do it."
Then one evening he found Annabelle Marie alone.
The Frenchman had gone on the noon train. She seemed
glad to see Johnny, but there was obviously something on
her mind. She had too much powder on her face and her
eyes looked red; perhaps she'd been crying. It was moon-
light. She put her hand on his arm, "Moorehouse, walk
down the beach with me," she said. "I hate the sight of
all these old hens in rockingchairs." On the walk that led
across a scraggly lawn down to the beach they met Dr.
Strang.
"What's the matter with Rochevillaine, Annie?" he
said. He was a tall man with a high forehead. His lips
were compressed and he looked worried.
"He got a letter from his mother . . . She won't let
him."
"He's of age, isn't he?"
"Dad, you don't understand the French nobility . . .
The family council won't let him . . . They could tie up
his income."
"You'll have enough for two ... I told him that."
"Oh, shut up about it, can't you? . . ." She suddenly
started to blubber like a child. She ran past Johnny and
back to the hotel, leaving Johnny and Dr. Strang facing
each other on the narrow boardwalk. Dr. Strang saw
Johnny for the first time. "H'm . . . excuse us," he said
as he brushed past and walked with long strides up the
walk, leaving Johnny to go down to the beach and look
at the moon all by himself.
But the nights that followed Annabelle Marie did walk
187
out along the beach with him and he began to feel that
perhaps she hadn't loved the Frenchman so much after
all. They would go far beyond the straggling cottages and
build a fire and sit side by side looking into the flame.
Their hands sometimes brushed against each other as they
walked ; when she'd want to get to her feet he'd take hold
of her two hands and pull her up towards him and he
always planned to pull her to him and kiss her but he
hadn't the nerve. One night was very warm and she sud-
denly suggested they go in bathing. "But we haven't our
suits." "Haven't you ever been in without? It's much
better . . . Why, you funny boy, I can see you blushing
even in the moonlight." "Do you dare me?" "I double-
dare you."
He ran up the beach a way and pulled off his clothes
and went very fast into the water. He didn't dare look and
only got, a glimpse out of the corner of an eye of white
legs and breasts and a wave spuming white at her feet.
While he was putting his clothes on again he was won-
dering if he wanted to get married to a girl who'd go in
swimming with a fellow all naked like that, anyway. He
wondered if she'd done it with that damn Frenchman.
"You were like a marble faun," she said when he got back
beside the fire where she was coiling her black hair round
her head. She had hairpins in her mouth and spoke
through them. "Like a very nervous marble faun ... I
got my hair wet." He hadn't intended to but he suddenly
pulled her to him and kissed her. She didn't seem at all
put out but made herself little in his arms and put her
face up to be kissed again. "Would you marry a feller like
me without any money?" "I hadn't thought of it, darling,
but I might."
"You're pretty wealthy, I guess, and I haven't a cent,
and I have to send home money to my folks . . . but I
have prospects."
"What kind of prospects?" She pulled his face down
188
and ruffled his hair and kissed him. "I'll make good in thia
realestate game. I swear I will." "Will it make good, poor
baby?" "You're not so much older'n me . . . How old
are you, Annabelle?" "Well, I admit to twenty four, but
you mustn't tell anybody, or about tonight or anything."
"Who would I be telling about it, Annabelle Marie ?"
Walking home, something seemed to be on her mind be-
cause she paid no attention to anything he said. She kept
humming under her breath.
Another evening they were sitting on the porch of his
cottage smoking cigarettes he would occasionally smoke
a cigarette now to keep her company he asked her what
it was worrying her. She put her hands on his shoulders
and shook him: "Oh, Moorehouse, you're such a fool . . .
but I like it." "But there must be something worrying you,
Annabelle . . . You didn't look worried the day we came
down on the train together." "If I told you . . . Gra-
cious, I can imagine your face." She laughed her hard
gruff laugh that always made him feel uncomfortable
"Well, I wish I had the right to make you tell me . . ,
You ought to forget that damn Frenchman." "Oh, you're
such a little innocent," she said. Then she got up and
walked up and down the porch.
"Won't you sit down, Annabelle? Don't you like me
even a little bit?"
She rubbed her hand through his hair and down across
his face. "Of course I do, you little blue-eyed ninny . . r
But can't you see it's everything driving me wild, all those
old cats round the hotel talk about me as if I was a scarlet
woman because I occasionally smoke a cigarette in my own
room . . . Why, in England some of the most aristo-
cratic women smoke right in public without anybody say-
ing 'boo' to them . , . And then I'm worried about Dad;
he's sinking too much money in realestate. I think he'c
losing his mind."
189
"But there's every indication of a big boom coming
down here. It'll be another Atlantic City in time."
"Now look here, 'fess up, how many lots have been sold
this month ?"
"Well, not so many . . . But there are some important
sales pending . . . There's that corporation that's going
to build the new hotel."
"Dad'll be lucky if he gets fifty cents out on the dol-
lar ... and he keeps telling me how rattlebrained I am.
He's a physician and not a financial wizard and he ought
to realize it. It's all right for somebody like you who has
nothing to lose and a way to make in the world to be mess-
ing around in realestate ... As for that fat Colonel I
don't know whether he's a fool or a crook."
"What kind of a doctor is your father?"
"Do you mean to say you never heard of Dr. Strang?
He's the. best known nose and throat specialist in Phila-
delphia . . . Oh, it's so cute . . ." She kissed him on the
cheek ". . . and ignorant . . ." she kissed him again . . .
"and pure." "I'm not so pure," he said quickly and looked
at her hard in the eyes. Their faces began to blush looking
at each other. She let her head sink slowly on his shoulder.
His heart was pounding. He was dizzy with the smell
of her hair and the perfume she wore. He pulled her to
her feet with his arm round her shoulders. Tottering a
little, her leg against his leg, the stiffness of her corset
against his ribs, her hair against his face, he pulled her
through the little livingroom into the bedroom and locked
the door behind them. Then he kissed her as hard as he
could on the lips. She sat down on the bed and began to
take off her dress, a little coolly he thought, but he'd gone
too far to pull back. When she took off her corset she
flung it in the corner of the room. "There," she said. "I
hate the beastly things." She got up and walked towards
him in her chemise and felt for his face in the dark,
190
"What's the matter, darling?" she whispered fiercely,
"Are you afraid of me?"
Everything was much simpler than Johnny expected
They giggled together while they were dressing. Walking
back along the beach to the Ocean House, he kept think-
ing: "Now she'll have to marry me."
In September a couple of cold northeasters right after
Labor Day emptied the Ocean House and the cottages.
The Colonel talked bigger about the coming boom and his
advertising campaign, and drank more. Johnny took his
meals with him now instead of at Mrs. Ames' boarding-
house. The booklet was finished and approved and Johnny
had made a couple of trips to Philadelphia with the text
and the photographs to get estimates from printers. Run-
ning through Wilmington on the train without getting
off there gave him a pleasant feeling of independence.
Dr. Strang looked more and more worried and talked
about protecting his investments. They had not talked of
Johnny's engagement to his daughter, but it seemed to be
understood. Annabelle's moods were unaccountable. She
kept saying she was dying of boredom. She teased and
nagged at Johnny continually. One night he woke sud-
denly to find her standing beside the bed. "Did I scare
you?" she said. "I couldn't sleep . . . Listen to the surf."
The wind was shrilling round the cottage and a tremen-
dous surf roared on the beach. It was almost daylight be-
fore he could get her to get out of bed and go back to the
hotel. "Let 'em see me ... I don't care," she said. An-
other time when they were walking along the beach she
was taken with nausea and he had to stand waiting while
she was sick behind a sanddune, then he supported her,
white and trembling, back to the Ocean House. He was
worried and restless. On one of his trips to Philadelphia
he went round to The Public Ledger to see if he could get
a job as a reporter.
One Saturday afternoon he sat reading the paper in the
191
lobby of the Ocean House. There was no one else there,
most of the guests had left. The hotel would close the
fifteenth. Suddenly he found himself listening to a con-
versation. The two bellhops had come in and were talking
in low voices on the bench against the wall.
"Well, 1 got mahn awright this summer, damned if I
didn't, Joe."
"I would of too if I hadn't gotten sick."
"Didn't I tell you not to monkey round with that
Lizzie? Man, I b'lieve every sonofabitch in town slep' with
that jane, not excludin' niggers."
"Say, did you . . . You know the blackeyed one? You
?aid you would."
Johnny froze. He held the paper rigid in front of him.
The bellhop gave out a low whistle. "Hotstuff," he
laid. "Jeez, what these society dames gits away with 's
got me beat."
"Didy*, honest?"
"Well, not exactly . . . 'Fraid I might ketch some-
thin'. But that Frenchman did . . . Jeez, he was in her
room all the time."
"I know he was. I caught him onct." They laughed.
"They'd forgot to lock the door."
"Was she all neked?"
"I guess she was . . . under her kimono . . . He's
cool as a cucumber and orders icewater."
"Whah didn't ye send up Mr. Greeley?"
"Hell, why should I? Frenchman wasn't a bad scout,
He gave me five bucks."
"I guess she can do what she goddam pleases. Her dad
about owns this dump, they tell me, him an ole Colonel
Wedgewood."
"I guess that young guy in the realestate office is gettin*
it now . * . looks like he'd marry her."
"Hell, I'd marry her maself if a girl had that much
kale."
192
Johnny was in a cold sweat. He wanted to get out ol
the lobby without their seeing him. A bell rang and one
of the boys ran off. He heard the other one settling him-
self on the bench. Maybe he was reading a magazine or
something. Johnny folded up the paper quietly and
walked out onto the porch. He walked down the streef
without seeing anything. For a while he thought he'd go
down to the station and take the first train out and throw
the whole business to ballyhack, but there was the booklet
to get out, and there was a chance that if the boom did
come he might get in on the ground floor, and this con-
nection with money and the Strangsj opportunity knocks
but once at a young man's door. He went back to his cot-
tage and locked himself in his bedroom. He stood a
minute looking at himself in the glass of the bureau. The
neatly parted light hair, the cleancut nose and chin 5 the
image blurred. He found he was crying. He threw him-
self face down on the bed and sobbed.
When he went up to Philadelphia the next time to read
proof on the booklet:
OCEAN CITY (Maryland)
VACATIONLAND SUPREME
He also took up a draft of the wedding invitations to
be engraved:
Dr. Alonso B. Strang
announces the marriage of his daughter
Annabel] e Marie
to Mr. J. Ward Moorehouse
at Saint Stephen's Protestant Episcopal Churchy Ger~
mmtown^ Pennsylvania, on November fifteenth nine-
teen hundred and nine at twelve noon
Then there was an invitation to the reception to be sent
to a special list. It was to be a big wedding because Dr.
Strang had so many social obligations. Annabelle decided
1.93
on J. Ward Moorehouse as more distinguished than John
W. and began to call him Ward. When they asked him
about inviting his family he said his mother and father
were both invalids and his brothers and sisters too little to
enjoy it. He wrote his mother that he was sure she'd
understand, but that as things were and with Dad the way
he was ... he was sure she'd understand. Then one
evening Annabelle told him she was going to have a baby.
"I thought maybe that was it."
Her eyes were suddenly scaringly cold black in his. He
hated her at that minute, then he smiled blue-eyed and
boyish. "I mean you being so nervous and everything."
He laughed and took her hand. "Well, I'm goin' to make
you an honest woman, ain't I?" He had the drop on her
now. He kissed her.
She burst out crying.
"Oh, Ward, I wish you wouldn't say 'ain't.' "
"I was just teasing, dear . . . But isn't there some
way?"
"I've tried everything . . . Dad would know, but I
don't dare tell him. He knows I'm pretty independent
... but .. ."
"We'll have to stay away for a year after we're mar-
ried . . . It's rotten for me. I was just offered a job on
The Public Ledger."
"We'll go to Europe . . . Dad'll fix us up for our
honeymoon . . . He's glad to get me off his hands and
I've got money in my own right, mother's money."
"Maybe it's all a mistake."
"How can it be?"
"How long is it since you . . . noticed . . . ?"
Her eyes were suddenly black and searching in his
again. They stared at each other and hated each other.
"Quite long enough," she said and pulled his ear as it
hs were a child, and went swishing upstairs to dress. The
194
Colonel was tickled to death about the engagement. and
had invited them all to dinner to celebrate it.
The wedding came off in fine style and J. Ward Moore-
house found himself the center of all eyes in a wellfitting
frock coat and a silk hat. People thought he was very
handsome. His mother back in Wilmington let flatiron
after flatiron cool while she pored over the account in
the papers , finally she took off her spectacles and folded
the papers carefully and laid them on the ironing board.
She was very happy.
The young couple sailed the next day from New York
on the Teutonic. The crossing was so rough that only the
last two days was it possible to go out on deck. Ward was
sick and was taken care of by a sympathetic cockney
steward who spoke of Annabelle as the "Madam" and
thought she was his mother. Annabelle was a good sailor
but the baby made her feel miserable and whenever she
looked at herself in her handmirror she was so haggard
that she wouldn't get out of her bunk. The stewardess
suggested gin with a dash of bitters in it and it helped her
over the last few days of the crossing. The night of the
captain's dinner she finally appeared in the diningroom
in an evening gown of black Valenciennes and everybody
thought her the bestlooking woman on the boat. Ward
was in a fever for fear she'd drink too much champagne
as he had seen her put away four ponies of gin and bitters
and a Martini cocktail while dressing. He had made
friends with an elderly banker, Mr. Jarvis Oppenheimer
and his wife, and he was afraid that Annabelle would seem
a little fast to them. The captain's dinner went off with-
out a hitch, however, and Annabelle and Ward found that
they made a good team. The captain, who had known Dr.
Strang, came and sat with them in the smokingroom
afterwards and had a glass of champagne with them and
with Mr. and Mrs. Oppenheimer and they heard people
asking each other who could that charming scintillating
195
brilliant young couple be, somebody interesting surely, and
when they went to bed after having seen the lighthouses
in the Irish Sea, they felt that all the seasick days had
(Seen thoroughly worth while.
Annabelle didn't like it in London where the dark
streets were dismal in a continual drizzle of sleet, so they
only stayed a week at the Cecil before crossing to Paris.
Ward was sick again on the boat from Folkestone to
Boulogne and couldn't keep track of Annabelle whom he
found in the dining saloon drinking brandy and soda with
an English army officer when the boat reached the calm
water between the long jetties of Boulogne harbor. It
\vasn't so bad as he expected being in a country where he
didn't know the language and Annabelle spoke French
yery adequately and they had a firstclass compartment and
a basket with a cold chicken and sandwiches in it and some
sweet wiae that Ward drank for the first time when in
Rome do as the Romans do and they were quite the
honeymoon couple on the train going down to Paris. They
drove in a cab from the station to the Hotel Wagram,
with only their handbaggage because the hotel porter took
care of the rest, through streets shimmering with green
gaslight on wet pavements. The horse's hoofs rang sharp
on the asphalt and the rubbertired wheels of the cab spun
smoothly and the streets were crowded in spite of the fact
that it was a rainy winter night and there were people sit-
ting out at little marbletop tables round little stoves in
front of cafes and there were smells in the air of coffee
and wine and browning butter and baking bread. Anna-
belle's eyes caught all the lights; she looked very pretty,
kept nudging him to show him things and patting his
thigh with one hand. Annabelle had written to the hotel,
#here she had stayed before with her father, and they
found a white bedroom and parlor waiting for them and
a roundfaced manager who was very elegant and very
iffable to bow them into it and a fire in the grate. They had
196
a bottle of champagne and some pate de fois gras before
going to bed and Ward felt like a king. She took off her
traveling clothes and put on a negligee and he put on a
smoking jacket that she had given him and that he hadn't
worn and all his bitter feelings of the last month melted
away.
They sat a long time looking into the fire smoking
Muratti cigarettes out of a tin box. She kept fondling his
hair and rubbing her hand round his shoulders and neck.
"Why aren't you more affectionate, Ward?" she said in
low gruff tones. "Pm the sort of woman likes to be car-
ried off her feet . . . Take care . . . You may lose me
. . . Over here the men know how to make love to ^
woman."
"Gimme a chance, won't you? . . . First thing I'm
going to get a job with some American firm or other. I
think Mr. Oppenheimer'll help me do that. I'll start in
taking French lessons right away. This'll be a great op-
portunity for me." "You funny boy." "You don't think
I'm going to run after you like a poodledog, do you, with-
out making any money of my own? . . . Nosiree, bobby."
He got up and pulled her to her feet. "Let's go to bed."
Ward went regularly to the Berlitz school for his
French lessons and went round to see Notre Dame and
Napoleon's tomb and the Louvre with old Mr. Oppen-
heimer and his wife. Annabelle, who said that museums
gave her a headache, spent her days shopping and having
fittings with dressmakers. There were not many American
firms in Paris so the only job Ward could get, even with
the help of Mr. Oppenheimer who knew everyone, was
on Gordon Bennett's newspaper, the Paris edition of The
New York Herald. The job consisted of keeping track of
arriving American business men, interviewing them on
the beauties of Paris and on international relations. This
was his meat and enabled him to make many valuable con-
tacts. Annabelle thought it was all too boring and refused
197
to be told anything about it. She made him put on a drest
suit every evening and take her to the opera and theatres.
This he was quite willing to do as it was good for his
French.
She went to a very famous specialist for women's dis-
eases who agreed that on no account should she have a
baby at this time. An immediate operation was necessary
and would be a little dangerous as the baby was so far
along. She didn't tell Ward and only sent word from the
hospital when it was over. It was Christmas day. He went
immediately to see her. He heard the details in chilly
horror. He'd gotten used to the idea of having a baby
and thought it would have a steadying effect on Anna-
belle. She lay looking very pale in the bed in the private
sanatorium and he stood beside the bed with his fists
clenched without saying anything. At length the nurse
said to him that he was tiring madame and he went away.
When Annabelle came back from the hospital after four
or five days announcing gaily that she was fit as a fiddle
ind was going to the south of France, he said nothing.
She got ready to go, taking it for granted that he was
coming, but the day she left on the train to Nice he told
her that he was going to stay on in Paris. She looked at
him sharply and then said with a laugh, "You're turning
me loose, are you?" "I have my business and you have
your pleasure," he said. "All right, young man, it's a go."
He took her to the station and put her on the train, gave
the conductor five francs to take care of her and came
away from the station on foot. He'd had enough of the
smell of musk and perfume for a while.
Paris was better than Wilmington but Ward didn't like
it. So much leisure and the sight of so many people sitting
round eating and drinking got on his nerves. He felt very
homesick the day the Ocean City booklet arrived inclosed
with an enthusiastic letter from Colonel Wedgewood.
Things were moving at last, the Colonel said} as for him-
198
self he was putting every cent he could scrape up, beg or
borrow, into options. He even suggested that Ward send
him a little money to invest for him, now that he was in
a position to risk a stake on the surety of a big turnover 5
risk wasn't the word because the whole situation was sewed
up in a bag; nothing to do but shake the tree and let the
fruit fall into their mouths. Ward went down the steps
from the office of Morgan Harjes where he got his mail and
out onto Boulevard Haussmann. The heavy coated paper
felt good to his fingers. He put the letter in his pocket and
walked down the boulevard with the honk of horns and
the ring of horse's hoofs and the shuffle of steps in his ears,
now and then reading a phrase. Why, it almost made him
want to go back to Ocean City (Maryland) himself. A
little ruddy sunlight was warming the winter gray of the
streets. A smell of roasting coffee came from somewhere;
Ward thought of the white crackling sunlight of wind-
swept days at home; days that lashed you full of energy
and hope; the Strenuous Life. He had a date to lunch
with Mr. Oppenheimer at a very select little restaurant
down in the slums somewhere called the Tour d'Argent
When he got into a redwheeled taximeter cab it made him
feel good again that the driver understood his directions.
After all it was educational, made up for those years ol
college he had missed. He had read through the booklet
for the third time when he reached the restaurant.
He got out at the restaurant and was just paying the,
taxi when he saw Mr. Oppenheimer and another mar
arriving down the quai on foot. Mr. Oppenheimer wore *
gray overcoat and a gray derby of the same pearly color
as his moustaches; the other man was a steelgray indi-
vidual with a thin nose and chin. When he saw them
Ward decided that he must be more careful about his
clothes in the future.
They ate lunch for a long time and a great many
courses, although the steelgray man, whose name was
199
McGill he was manager of one of Jones and Laughlin's
steel plants in Pittsburgh said his stomach wouldn't
stand anything but a chop and a baked potato and drank
whisky and soda instead of wine. Mr. Oppenheimer en-
joyed his food enormously and kept having long consul-
tations about it with the head waiter. "Gentlemen, you
must indulge me a little . . . this for me is a debauch,"
he said. "Then, not being under the watchful eye of my
wife, I can take certain liberties with my digestion . . .
My wife has entered the sacred precincts of a fitting at her
corsetiere's and is not to be disturbed . . . You, Ward,
are not old enough to realize the possibilities of food."
Ward looked embarrassed and boyish and said he was
enjoying the duck very much. "Food," went on Mr. Op-
penheimer, "is the last pleasure of an old man."
When they were sitting over Napoleon brandy in big
bowlshaped glasses and cigars, Ward got up his nerve to
bring out the Ocean City (Maryland) booklet that had
been burning a hole in his pocket all through lunch. He
laid it on the table modestly. "I thought maybe you might
like to glance at it, Mr. Oppenheimer, as ... as some-
thing a bit novel in the advertising line." Mr. Oppen-
heimer took out his glasses and adjusted them on his nose,
took a sip of brandy and looked through the book with a
bland smile. He closed it, let a little curling blue cigar-
smoke out through his nostrils and said, "Why, Ocean
City must be an earthly paradise indeed . . . Don't you
lay it on ... er ... a bit thick?" "But you see, sir,
weVe got to make the man on the street just crazy to go
there . . . There's got to be a word to catch your eye the
minute you pick it up."
Mr. McGill, who up to that time hadn't looked at
Ward, turned a pair of hawkgray eyes on him in a hard
stare. With a heavy red hand he reached for the booklet.
He read it intently right through while Mr. Oppenheimer
went on to talk about the bouquet of the brandy and how
aoo
you should warm the glass a little in your hand and taloa
it in tiny sips, rather inhaling it than drinking it. Sud-
denly Mr. McGill brought his fist down on the table and
laughed a dry quick laugh that didn't move a muscle of
his face. "By gorry, that'll get 'em, too," he said. "I reckon
it was Mark Twain said there was a sucker born every
minute . . ." He turned to Ward and said, "I'm sorry I
didn't ketch your name, young feller j do you mind repeat-
ing it?" "With pleasure . . . It's Moorehouse, J. Ward
Moorehouse." "Where do you work?" "I'm on The Paris
Herald for the time being," said Ward, blushing. "Where
do you live when you're in the States?" "My home's in
Wilmington, Delaware, but I don't guess I'll go back
there when we go home. I've been offered some editorial
work on The Public Ledger in Philly." Mr. McGill took
out a visiting card and wrote an address on it. "Well, if
you ever think of coming to Pittsburgh, look me up." "I'd
be delighted to see you."
"His wife," put in Mr. Oppenheimer, "is the daughter
of Dr. Strang, the Philadelphia nose and throat specialist
... By the way, Ward, how is the dear girl? I hope
Nice has cured her of her tonsilitis." "Yes, sir," said
Ward, "she writes that she's much better." "She's a lovely
creature . . . charming . . ." said Mr. Oppenheimer,
draining the last sip out of his brandyglass with upcast
eyes.
Next day Ward got a wire from Annabelle that she was
coming up to Paris. He met her at the train. She intro-
duced a tall Frenchman with a black Vandyke beard, who
was helping her off with her bags when Ward came up,
as "Monsieur Forelle, my traveling companion." They
didn't^ get a chance to talk until they got into the cab
together. The cab smelt musty as they had to keep the
windows closed on account of the driving rain. "Well, my
dear," Annabelle said, "have you got over the pet you
were in when I left? ... I hope you have because I have
201
bad news for you." "What's the trouble?" "Dad's gotten
himself in a mess financially ... I knew it'd happen.
He has no more idea of business than a cat ... Well,
that fine Ocean City boom of yours collapsed before it had
started and Dad got scared and tried to unload his sand-
lots and naturally nobody'd buy them . . . Then the Im-
provement and Realty Company went bankrupt and that
precious Colonel of yours has disappeared and Dad has
got himself somehow personally liable for a lot of the
concern's debts. . . . And there you are. I wired him we
were coming home as soon as we could get a sailing. I'll
have to see what I can do ... He's helpless as a child
about business."
"That won't make me mad. I wouldn't have come over
here anyway if it wasn't for you."
"Just all self sacrifice, aren't you?"
"Let's not squabble, Annabelle."
The last days in Paris Ward began to like it. They
heard La Boheme at the opera and were both very
much excited about it. Afterwards they went to a cafe and
had some cold partridge and wine and Ward told Anna-
belle about how he'd wanted to be a songwriter and about
Marie O'Higgins and how he'd started to compose a song
about her and they felt very fond of each other. He kissed
her again and again in the cab going home and the ele-
vator going up to their room seemed terribly slow.
They still had a thousand dollars on the letter of credit
Dr. Strang had given them as a wedding present, so that
Annabelle bought all sorts of clothes and hats and per-
fumes and Ward went to an English tailor near the
Church of the Madeleine and had four suits made. The
last day Ward bought her a brooch in the shape of a
rooster, made of Limoges enamel and set with garnets,
out of his salary from The Paris Herald. Eating lunch
after their baggage had gone to the boat train they felt
very tender about Paris and each other and the brooch.
202
They sailed from Havre on the Touraine and had a com-
pletely calm passage, a gray glassy swell all the way,
although the month was February. Ward wasn't seasick.
He walked round and round the firstclass every morning
before Annabelle got up. He wore a Scotch tweed cap and
a Scotch tweed overcoat to match, with a pair of field-
glasses slung over his shoulder, and tried to puzzle out
some plan for the future. Wilmington anyway was far
behind like a ship hull down on the horizon.
The steamer with tugboats chugging at its sides nosed
its way through the barges and tugs and carferries and
red whistling ferryboats of New York harbor against a
howling icybright northwest wind.
Annabelle was grouchy and said it looked horrid, but
Ward felt himself full of enthusiasm when a Jewish gen-
tleman in a checked cap pointed out the Battery, the Cus-
tom House, the Aquarium and Trinity Church.
They drove right from the dock to the ferry and at$
in the redcarpeted diningroom at the Pennsylvania Sta--
tion in Jersey City. Ward had fried oysters. The friendly
darkey waiter in a white coat was like home. "Home to
God's country," Ward said, and decided he'd have to go
down to Wilmington and say hello to the folks. Annabelle
laughed at him and they sat stiffly in the parlorcar of the
Philadelphia train without speaking.
Dr. Strang's affairs were in very bad shape and, as he
was busy all day with his practice, Annabelle took them
over completely. Her skill in handling finance surprised
both Ward and her father. They lived in Dr. Strang's big
old house on Spruce Street. Ward, through a friend of Dr.
Strang's, got a job on The Public Ledger and was rarely
home. When he had any spare time he listened to lectures
on economics and business at the Drexcl Institute. Eve-
nings Annabelle took to going out with a young architect
named Joachim Beale who was very rich and owned an
automobile. Beale was a thin young man with a taste for
203
majolica and Bourbon whisky and he called Annabcllo
"my Cleopatra."
Ward came in one night and found them both drunk
sitting with very few clothes on in Annabelle's den in the
top of the house. Dr. Strang had gone to a medical con-
ference in Kansas City. Ward stood in the doorway with
his arms folded and announced that he was through and
would sue for divorce and left the house slamming the
door behind him and went to the Y.M.C.A. for the night.
Next afternoon when he got to the office he found a spe-
cial delivery letter from Annabelle begging him to be
careful what he did as any publicity would be disastrous
to her father's practice, and offering to do anything he
suggested. He immediately answered it:
DEAR ANNABELLE:
I now, realize that you have intended all along to use
me only as a screen for your disgraceful and unwomanly
conduct. I now understand why you prefer the company
of foreigners, bohemians and such to that of ambitious
young Americans.
I have no desire to cause you or your father any pain
or publicity, but in the first place you must refrain from
degrading the name of Moorehouse while you still legally
bear it and also I shall feel that when the divorce is sat-
isfactorily arranged I shall be entitled to some compen-
sation for the loss of time, etc., and the injury to my career
ijhat has come through your fault. I am leaving tomorrow
for Pittsburgh where I have a position awaiting me and
work that I hope will cause me to forget you and the great
pain your faithlessness has caused me.
He wondered for a while how to end the letter, and finally
wrote sincerely JWM
and mailed it.
He lay awake all night in the upper berth in the sleepei
204
for Pittsburgh. Here he was twentythree years old and he
hadn't a college degree and he didn't know any trade and
he'd given up the hope of being a songwriter. God damn
it, he'd never be valet to any society dame again. The
sleeper was stuffy, the pillow kept getting in a knot under
his ear, snatches of the sales talk for Bancroft's or Bryant's
histories, . . . "Through peachorchards to the sea . . ."
Mr. Hiliyard's voice addressing the jury from the depths
of the realestate office in Wilmington: "Realestate, sir is
the one safe sure steady conservative investment, imper-
vious to loss by flood and firej the owner of realestate
links himself by indissoluble bonds to the growth of his
city or nation . . . improve or not at his leisure and con-
venience and sit at home in quiet and assurance letting the
riches drop in to his lap that are produced by the unavoid-
able and inalienable growth in wealth of a mighty na-
tion . . ." "For a young man with proper connections and
if I may say so pleasing manners and a sound classical
education," Mr. Oppenheimer had said, "banking should
offer a valuable field for the cultivation of the virtues of
energy, diplomacy and perhaps industry. ..." A hand
was tugging at his bedclothes.
"Pittsburgh, sah, in fortyfive minutes," came the colored
porter's voice. Ward pulled on his trousers, noticed with
dismay that they were losing their crease, dropped from
the berth, stuck his feet in his shoes that were sticky from
being hastily polished with inferior polish, and stumbled
along the aisle past dishevelled people emerging from
their bunks, to the men's washroom. His eyes were glued
together and he wanted a bath. The car was unbearably
stuffy and the washroom smelt of underwear and of other
men's shaving soap. Through the window he could see
black hills powdered with snow, an occasional coaltipple,
rows of gray shacks all alike, a riverbed scarred with
minedumps and slagheaps, purple lacing of trees along the
hill's edge cut sharp against a red sun 5 then against the
205
hill, bright and red as the sun, a blob of flame from a
smelter. Ward shaved, cleaned his teeth, washed his face
and neck as best he could, parted his hair. His jaw and
cheekbones were getting a square look that he admired.
"Cleancut young executive," he said to himself as he fas-
tened his collar and tied his necktie. It was Annabelle had
taught him the trick of wearing a necktie the same color
as his eyes. As he thought of her name a faint tactile
memory of her lips troubled him, of the musky perfume
she used. He brushed the thought aside, started to
whistle, stopped for fear the other men dressing might
think it peculiar and went and stood on the platform. The
sun was well up now, the hills were pink and black and
the hollows blue where the smoke of breakfastfires col-
lected. Everything was shacks in rows, ironworks, coal-
tipples. Now and then a hill threw a row of shacks or a
group of furnaces up against the sky. Stragglings of dark-
faced men in dark clothes stood in the slush at the cross-
ings. Coalgrimed walls shut out the sky. The train passed
through tunnels under crisscrossed bridges, through deep
cuttings. "Pittsburgh Union Station," yelled the porter.
Ward put a quarter into the colored man's hand, picked
out his bag from a lot of other bags, and walked with a
brisk firm step down the platform, breathing deep the
cold coalsmoky air of the trainshed.
THE CAMERA EYE (17)
the spring you could see Halley's Comet over the
elms from the back topfloor windows of the Upper House
Mr. Greenleaf said you would have to go to confirmation
class and be confirmed when the bishop came and next
206
time you went canoeing you told Skinny that you wouldn't
be confirmed because you believed in camping and canoe-
ing and Halley's Comet and the Universe and the sound
the rain made on the tent the night you'd both read The
Hound of the Baskervilles and you'd hung out the steak
on a tree and a hound must have smelt it because he kept
circling round you and howling something terrible and
you were so scared (but you didn't say that, you don't
know what you said)
and not in church and Skinny said if you'd never
been baptized you couldn't be confirmed and you went
and told Mr. Greenleaf and he looked very chilly and
said you'd better not go to confirmation class any more
and after that you had to go to church Sundays but you
could go to either one you liked so sometimes you went
to the Congregational and sometimes to the Episcopalian
and the Sunday the bishop came you couldn't see Halley's
Comet any more and you saw the others being confirmed
and it lasted for hours because there were a lot of little
girls being confirmed too and all you could hear was
mumble mumble this thy child mumble mumble this thy
child and you wondered if you'd be alive next time Hal
ley's Comet came round
207
NEWSREEL XIII
I was in front of the national palace when the firing
began. I ran across the Plaza with other thousands of scurry-
ing men women and children scores of whom fell in their
flight to cover
NEW HIGH MOUNTAINS FOUND
Oh Jim O'Shea was cast away u^on an Indian Isle
The natives there they liked his hair
They liked his Irish smile
BEDLAM IN ART
BANDITS AT HOME IN WILDS
Washington considers unfortunate illogical and unnatural
the selection of General Huerta as provisional president of
Mexico in succession to the overthrown president
3 FLEE CITY FEAR WEB
He'd put sand in the hotel sugar writer says he came to
America an exile and found only sordidncss.
LUNG YU FORMER EMPRESS OF CHINA DIES IN THE
FORBIDDEN CITY
La cucaracha la cucaracha
Ya no quiere caminar
Porque no tiene
forque no tiene
Marijuana que fumar.
ignoring of lower classes in organizing of republic ma)
cause another uprising
600 AMERICANS FLEE CAPITAL
You shall have rings on your fingers
And bells on your toes
Elephants to ride ufon
208
/kfy little Irish rose
$o come to your nabob and on next St. Patrick's day
Be Mrs. Mumbo Jumbo Jijibhoy Jay O'Shea
ELEANOR STODDARD
When she was small she hated everything. She hated
her father, a stout redhaired man smelling of whiskers
and stale pipetobacco. He worked in an office in the stock-
yards and came home with the stockyards stench on his
clothes and told bloody jokes about butchering sheep and
steers and hogs and men. Eleanor hated smells and the
sight of blood. Nights she used to dream she lived alone
with her mother in a big clean white house in Oak Park
in winter when there was snow on the ground and she'd
been setting a white linen tablecloth with bright white
silver and she'd set white flowers and the white meat of
chicken before her mother who was a society lady in a
dress of white samite, but there'd suddenly be a tiny red
speck on the table and it would grow and grow and her
mother would make helpless fluttering motions with her
hands and she'd try to brush it off but it would grow a
spot of blood welling into a bloody blot spreading over
the tablecloth and she'd wake up out of the nightmare
smelling the stockyards and screaming.
When she was sixteen in highschool she and a girl
named Isabelle swore together that if a boy ever touched
them they'd kill themselves. But that fall the girl got
pneumonia after scarlet fever and died.
The only other person Eleanor liked was Miss Oli-
phant, her English teacher. Miss Oliphant had been born
in England. Her parents had come to Chicago when she
was a girl in her teens. She was a great enthusiast for the
2OQ
English language, tried to get her pupils to use the broad
"a" and felt that she had a right to some authority in
matters pertaining to English literature due to being dis-
tantly related to a certain Mrs. Oliphant who'd been an
English literary lady in the middle nineteenth century
and had written so beautifully about Florence. So she'd
occasionally have her more promising pupils, those who
seemed the children of nicer parents, to tea in her little
flat where she lived all alone with a sleepy blue Persian
cat and a bullfinch, and talk to them about Goldsmith
and Dr. Johnson's pithy sayings and Keats and cor cordium
and how terrible it was he died so young and Tennyson
and how rude he'd been to women and about how they
changed the guard at Whitehall and the grapevine Henry
the Eighth planted at Hampton Court and the illfated
Mary Queen of Scots. Miss Oliphant's parents had been
Catholics and had considered the Stuarts the rightfu/ heirs
to the British throne, and used to pass their wineglasses
over the waterpitcher when they drank to the king. All
this thrilled the bbys and girls very much and particularly
Eleanor and Isabelle, and Miss Oliphant used to give
them high grades for their compositions and encourage
them to read. Eleanor was very fond of her and very at-
tentive in class. Just to hear Miss Oliphant pronounce a
phrase like "The Great Monuments of English Prose,"
or "The Little Princes in the Tower" or "St. George and
Merrie England" made small chills go up and down her
spine. When Isabelle died, Miss Oliphant was so lovely
about it, had her to tea with her all alone and read her
"Lycidas" in a clear crisp voice and told her to read
"Adonais" when she got home, but that she couldn't read
it to her because she knew she'd break down if she did.
Then she talked about her best friend when she'd been a
girl who'd been an Irish girl with red hair and a clear
warm white skin like Crown Darby, my dear, and how
she'd gone to India and died of the fever, and how Miss
210
Oliphant had never thought to survive her grief and
how Crown Darby had been invented and the inventor
had spent his last penny working on the formula for this
wonderful china and had needed some gold as the last
ingredient, and they had been starving to death and there
had been nothing left but his wife's wedding ring and how
they kept the fire in the furnace going with their chairs
and tables and at least he had produced this wonderful
china that the royal family used exclusively.
It was Miss Oliphant who induced Eleanor to take
courses at the Art Institute. She had reproductions on her
walls of pictures by Rossetti and Burne-Jones and talked
to Eleanor about the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She
made her feel that Art was something ivory white and
very pure and noble and distant and sad.
When her mother died of pernicious anaemia Eleanor
was a thin girl of eighteen, working days in a laceshop
in the Loop and studying commercial art evenings at the
Art Institute. After the funeral she went home and packed
her belongings and moved to Moody House. She hardly
ever went to see her father. He sometimes called her up
on the phone but whenever she could she avoided answer -
ing. She wanted to forget all about him.
In the laceshop they liked her because she was so re-
fined and gave the place what old Mrs. Lang who owned
the store called "an indefinable air of chic," but they only
paid her ten dollars a week and five of that went for rent
and board. She didn't eat much, but the food was so bad
in the dining hall and she hated sitting with the other
girls so that sometimes she had to get an extra bottle of
milk to drink in her room and some weeks she'd find her-
self without money to buy pencils and drawingpaper with
and would have to go by to see her father and get a couple
of dollars from him. He gave it to her gladly enough, but
somehow that made her hate him more than ever.
Evenings she used to sit in her little sordid cubbyhole
211
pf a room with its ugly bedspread and ugly iron bed, while
l sound of hymnsinging came up from the common hall,
reading Ruskin and Pater out of the public library. Some-
times she would let the book drop on her knees and sit all
evening staring at the dim reddish electriclight bulb that
was all the management allowed.
Whenever she asked for a raise Mrs. Lang said, "Why,
you'll be marrying soon and leaving me, dear; a girl with
your style, indefinable chic can't stay single long, and
then you won't need it."
Sundays she usually took the train out to Pullman
where her mother's sister had a little house. Aunt Betty
was a quiet housewifely little woman who laid all Elea-
nor's peculiarities to girlish fancies and kept a bright look-
out for a suitable young man she could corral as a beau
for her. Her husband, Uncle Joe, was foreman in a roll-
ing mill. Many years in the rolling mill had made him
completely deaf, but he claimed that actually in the mill
he could hear what was said perfectly. If it was summer
he spent Sunday hoeing his gardenpatch where he spe-
cialized in lettuce and asters. In winter or in bad weather
he'd be sitting in the front room reading The Railroad
Man's Magazine. Aunt Betty would cook an elaborate
dinner from recipes out of The Ladies' Home Journal
and they'd ask Eleanor to arrange the flowers for them
on the dinnertable. After dinner Aunt Betty would wash
the dishes and Eleanor would wipe them, and while the
old people took their nap she would sit in the front room
reading the society section of The Chicago Tribune. After
supper if it was fine the old people would walk down to
the station with her and put her on the train, and Aunt
Betty would say that it was a shocking shame for a lovely
girl like her to be living all alone in the big city. Eleanor
would smile a bright bitter smile and say that she wasn't
afraid.
The cars going home would be crowded Sunday nights
212
with young men and girls sticky and mussed up and sun-
burned from an outing in the country or on the dunes.
Eleanor hated them and the Italian families with squall-
ing brats that filled the air with a reek of wine and garlk
and the Germans redfaced from a long afternoon's beer-
drinking and the drunk Finn and Swedish workmen who
stared at her with a blue alcoholic gleam out of wooden
faces. Sometimes a man would try to start something and
she'd have to move into another car.
Once, when the car was very crowded a curlyhaired
man rubbed himself up against her suggestively. The
crowd was so thick she couldn't pull herself away from
him. She could hardly keep from screaming out for help j
it was only that she felt it was so vulgar to make a fuss.
Uncontrollable dizziness came over her when she finally
forced her way out at her station, and she had to stop at
a drugstore on the way home for a little aromatic spirits
of ammonia. She rushed through the hall of Moody
House and up to her room still trembling. She was nau-
seated and one of the other girls found her being sick in
the bathroom and looked at her so queerly. She was very
unhappy at times like that and thought of suicide. She had
painful cramps during her monthly periods and used to
have to stay in bed at least one day every month. Often
she felt miserable for a whole week.
One Fall day she had phoned Mrs. Lang that she was
sick and would have to stay in bed. She went back up to
her room and lay down on the bed and read Roniola.
She was reading through the complete works of George
Eliot that were in the Moody House library. When the
old scrubwoman opened the door to make the bed she said,
"Sick . . . I'll clean up, Mrs. Koontz." In the afternoon
she got hungry and the sheets were all rumply under her
back and although she felt rather ashamed of herself for
feeling able to go out when she'd told Mrs. Lang she was
too sick to move she suddenly felt she would suffocate if
213
she stayed in her room another minute. She dressed care-
fully and went downstairs feeling a little furtive. "So
you're not so sick after all/' said Mrs. Biggs, the matron,
when she passed her in the hall. "I just felt I needed a
breath of air." "Too bad about you," she heard Mrs. Biggs
say under her breath as she went out the door. Mrs. Biggs
was very suspicious of Eleanor because she was an art stu-
dent.
Feeling a little faint she stopped at a drugstore and had
some aromatic spirits of ammonia in water. Then she took
a car down to Grant Park. A tremendous northwest wind
was blowing grit and papers in whirls along the lakefront.
She went into the Art Institute and up into the Stickney
Room to see the Whistlers. She liked the Art Institute
better than anything else in Chicago, better than anything
else in the world, the quiet, the absence of annoying men,
the smooth smell of varnish from the paintings. Except
on Sundays when the crowd came and it was horrid.
Today there was no one in the Stickney Room but another
girl welldressed in a gray fox neckpiece and a little gray
hat with a feather in it. The other girl was looking fixedly
at the portrait of Manet. Eleanor was interested j she
rather pretended to look at the Whistlers than look at
them. Whenever she could she looked at the other girl.
She found herself standing beside the other girl also look-
ing at the portrait of Manet. Suddenly their eyes met. The
other girl had palebrown almondshaped eyes rather far
apart. "I think he's the best painter in the world," she said
combatively as if she wanted somebody to deny it. "I think
he's a lovely painter," said Eleanor, trying to keep her
voice from trembling. "I love that picture." "You know
that's not by Manet himself, that's by Fantin-Latour,"
said the other girl. "Oh, yes, of course," said Eleanor.
There was a pause. Eleanor was afraid that would be
all, but the other girl said, "What other pictures do you
like?" Eleanor looked carefully at the Whistler; then she
214
said slowly, "I like Whistler and Corot." "I do, too, but
I like Millet best. He's so round and warm . . . Have
you ever been to Barbizon?" "No, but I'd love to." There
was a pause. "But I think Millet's a little coarse, don't
you?" Eleanor ventured. "You mean that chromo of the
Angelus? Yes, I simply loathe and despise religious feel-
ing in a picture, don't you?" Eleanor didn't quite know
what to say to that, so she shook her head and said, "I love
Whistler so; when I've been looking at them I can look
out of the window and everything looks, you know,
pastelly like that."
"I have an idea," said the other girl who had been look-
ing at a little watch she had in her handbag. "I don't have
to be home till six. Why don't you come and have tea
with me? I know a little place where you can get very
good tea, a German pastry shop. I don't have to be home
till six and we can have a nice long chat. You won't think
it's unconventional of me asking you, will you? I like un-
conventionality, don't you? Don't you hate Chicago?"
Yes, Eleanor did hate Chicago and conventional people
and all that. They went to the pastryshop and drank tea
and the girl in gray, whose name was Eveline Hutchins,
took hers with lemon in it. Eleanor talked a great deal
and made the other girl laugh. Her father, Eleanor found
herself explaining, was a painter who lived in Florence
and whom she hadn't seen since she was a little girl. There
had been a divorce and her mother had married again, a
business man connected with Armour and Company, and
now her mother was dead and she had only some relatives
at Lake Forest \ she studied at the Art Institute but wav
thinking of giving it up because the teachers didn't suit
her. She thought living in Chicago was just too horrible
and wanted to go East. "Why don't you go to Florence
and live with your father?" asked Eveline Hutchins.
"Well, I might some day, when my ship comes in," said
Eleanor.
215
"Oh, well, I'll never be rich," said Eveline. "My fa-
Cher's a clergyman . . . Let's go to Florence together,
Eleanor, and call on your father. If we arrived there he
couldn't very well throw us out."
"I'd love to take a trip some day."
"It's time I was home. By the way, where do you live?
Let's meet tomorrow afternoon and look at all the pic-
tures together."
"I'm afraid I'll be busy tomorrow."
"Well, maybe you can come to supper some night. I'll
jisk mother when I can have you. It's so rare to meet a
girl you can talk to. We live on Drexel Boulevard. Here's
my card. I'll send you a postcard and you'll promise to
come, won't you?"
"I'd love to, if it's not earlier than seven . . . You sec
I have an occupation that keeps me busy every afternoon
except Sunday, and Sundays I usually go out to see my
relatives in . . ."
"In Lake Forest?"
"Yes . . . When I'm in town I live at a sort of
Y.W.C.A. place, Moody House ; it's plebeian but con-
venient . . . I'll write down the address on this card."
The card was of Mrs. Lang's, "Imported Laces and
Hand-Embroidered Fabrics." She wrote her address on
it, scratched out the other side and handed it to Eveline.
"That's lovely," she said, "I'll drop you a card this very
night and you'll promise to come, won't you?"
Eleanor saw her onto the streetcar and started to walk
slowly along the street. She had forgotten all about feel-
ing sick, but now that the other girl had gone she felt let
down and shabbily dressed and lonely picking her way
through the windy evening bustle of the streets.
Eleanor made several friends through Eveline Hutchins.
The first time she went to the Hutchinses she was too
awed to notice much, but later she felt freer with them,
particularly as she discovered that they all thought her an
216
interesting girl and very refined. There were Dr. and
Mrs. Hutchins and two daughters and a son away at col-
lege. Dr. Hutchins was a Unitarian minister and very
broadminded and Mrs. Hutchins did watercolors of flowers
that were declared to show great talent. The elder
daughter, Grace, had been at school in the East, at Vassar,
and was thought to have shown ability in a literary way,
the son was taking postgraduate Greek at Harvard and
Eveline was taking the most interesting courses right there
at Northwestern. Dr. Hutchins was a softvoiced man with
a large smooth pinkish face and large smooth white dead-
looking hands. The Hutchinses were all planning to go
abroad next year which would be Dr. Hutchins' sabbatical.
Eleanor had never heard talk like that before and it
thrilled her.
Then one evening Eveline took her to Mrs. Shuster's.
"You mustn't say anything about Mrs. Shuster at home,
will you?" said Eveline as they were coming down from
the Elevated. "Mr. Shuster is an art dealer and my father
thinks they're a little too Bohemian . . . It's just because
Annie Shuster came to our house one night and smoked
all through dinner. ... I said we'd go to the concert at
the Auditorium."
Eleanor had made herself a new dress, a very simple
white dress, with a little green on it, not exactly an eve-
ning dress, but one she could wear any time, for the occa-
sion, and when Annie Shuster, a dumpy little redhaired
woman with a bouncy manner of walking and talking
helped them off with their wraps in the hall she exclaimed
how pretty it was. "Why, yes, it's lovely," said Eveline.
"In fact, you're looking pretty as a peach tonight,
Eleanor." "I bet that dress wasn't made in this town . . .
Looks like Paris to me," said Mrs. Shuster. Eleanor
smiled deprecatingly and blushed a little and looked hand-
somer than ever.
There were a great many people packed into two small
rooms and cigarette smoke and coffeecups and smell of
some kind of punch. Mr. Shuster was a whitehaired gray-
faced man with a head too large for his body and a tired
manner. He talked like an Englishman. There were sev-
eral young men standing round him; one of them Eleanor
had known casually when she had studied at the Art Insti-
tute. His name was Eric Egstrom and she had always
liked him; he was tow-haired and blue-eyed and had a
little blond mustache. She could see that Mr. Shuster
thought a lot of him. Eveline took her around and intro-
duced her to everybody and asked everybody questions
that seemed sometimes disconcerting. Men and women
both smoked and talked about books and pictures and
about people Eleanor had never heard of. She looked
around and didn't say much and noticed the Greek sil-
houettes on the orange lampshades and the pictures on the
walls which looked very odd indeed and the two rows of
yellowbacked French books on the shelves and felt that
she might learn a great deal there.
They went away early because Eveline had to go by the
Auditorium to see what the program at the concert was
for fear she might be asked about it, and Eric and another
young man took them home. After they'd left Eveline at
her house they asked Eleanor where she lived and she
hated to say Moody House because it was in such a horrid-
looking street, so she made them walk with her to an Ele-
vated station and ran up the steps quickly and wouldn't
let them come with her, although it scared her to go home
alone as late as it was.
Many of Mrs. Lang's customers thought Eleanor was
French, on account of her dark hair, her thin oval face
and her transparent skin. In fact, one day when a Mrs.
McCormick that Mrs. Lang suspected might be one of
"the" McCormicks asked after that lovely French girl who
waited on her before, Mrs. Lang got an idea. Eleanor
would have to be French from now onj so she bought her
218
twenty tickets at the Berlitz School and said she could
have the hour off in the morning between nine and ten if
she would go and take French lessons there. So all
through December and January Eleanor studied French
three times a week with an old man in a smelly alpaca
jacket and began to slip a phrase in now and then as un-
concernedly as she could when she was talking to the
customers, and when there was anybody in the shop Mrs,
Lang always called her "Mademoiselle."
She worked hard and borrowed yellowbacked books
from the Shusters to read in the evenings with a dic-
tionary and soon she knew more French than Eveline did
who had had a French governess when she was little. One
day at the Berlitz School she found she had a new teacher.
The old man had pneumonia and she had a young French-
man instead. He was a thin young man with a sharp blue-
shaved chin and large brown eyes with long lashes.
Eleanor liked him at once, his thin aristocratic hands and
his aloof manner. After half an hour they had forgotten
all about the lesson and were talking English. He spoke
English with a funny accent but fluently. She particularly
liked the throaty way he pronounced "r."
Next time she was all tingling going up the stairs to
see if it would be the same young man. It was. He told
her that the old man had died. She felt she ought to be
sorry but she wasn't. The young man noticed how she
felt and screwed his face up into a funny half laughing,
half crying expression and said, "Vae victis." Then he told
her about his home in France and how he hated the con-
ventional bourgeois life there and how he'd come to
America because it was the land of youth and the future
and skyscrapers and the Twentieth Century Limited and
how beautiful he thought Chicago was. Eleanor had never
heard anyone talk like that and told him he must have
gone through Ireland and kissed the blarney stone. Then
he looked very aggrieved and said, "Mademoiselle, c'est
219
la pure verite," and she said she believed him absolutely
and how interesting it was to meet him and how she must
introduce him to her friend Eveline Hutchins. Then he
went on to tell her how he'd lived in New Orleans and
how he'd come as a steward on a French Line boat and
how he'd worked as dishwasher and busboy and played
the piano in cabarets and worse places than that and how
much he loved Negroes and how he was a painter and
wanted so much to get a studio and paint but that he
hadn't the money yet. Eleanor was a little chilled by the
part about dishwashing and cabarets and colored people,
but when he said he was interested in art she felt she
really would have to introduce him to Eveline and she
felt very bold and unconventional when she asked him to
meet them at the Art Institute Sunday afternoon. After
all if they decided against it they wouldn't have to go.
Eveline was thrilled to death but they got Eric
Egstrom % to come along too, on account of Frenchmen
having such a bad reputation. The Frenchman was very
late and they began to be afraid he wasn't coming or that
they'd missed him in the crowd but at last Eleanor saw
him coming up the big staircase. His name was Maurice
Millet no, no relation of the painter's and he shocked
them all very much by refusing to look at any paintings
in the Art Institute and saying that he thought it ought
to be burned down and used a lot of words like cubism
and futurism that Eleanor had never heard before. But
she could see at once that he had made a great hit with
Eveline and Eric; in fact, they hung on his every word
and all through tea neither of them paid any attention
to Eleanor. Eveline invited Maurice to the house and
they all went to supper to Drexel Boulevard where
Maurice was very polite to Dr. and Mrs. Hutchins, and
on to the Shusters afterwards. They left the Shusters to-
gether and Maurice said that the Shusters were impossible
ind had very bad paintings on their walls, "Tout ga c'est
220
affreusement pompier/' he said. Eleanor was puzzled
but Eveline and Eric said that they understood perfectly
that he meant they knew as little about art as a firemen's
convention, and they laughed a great deal.
The next time she saw Eveline, Eveline confessed that
she was madly in love with Maurice and they both cried
a good deal and decided that after all their beautiful
friendship could stand even that. It was up in Eveline's
room at Drexel Boulevard. On the mantel was a por-
trait Eveline was trying to do of him in pastels from
memory. They sat side by side on the bed, very close, with
their arms round each other and talked solemnly about
each other and Eleanor told about how she felt about
men j Eveline didn't feel quite that way but nothing could
ever break up their beautiful friendship and they'd al-
ways tell each other everything.
About that time Eric Egstrom got a job in the interiof
decorating department at Marshall Field's that paid him
fifty a week. He got a fine studio with a northlight in an
alley off North Clark Street and Maurice went to live with
him there. The girls were there a great deal and they
had many friends in and tea in glasses Russian style and
sometimes a little Virginia Dare wine, so they didn't
have to go to the Shusters any more. Eleanor was always
trying to get in a word alone with Eveline j and the fact
that Maurice didn't like Eveline the way Eveline liked
him made Eveline very unhappy, but Maurice and Eric
seemed to be thoroughly happy. They slept in the same
bed and were always together. Eleanor used to wonder
about them sometimes but it was so nice to know boys
who weren't horrid about women. They all went to the
opera together and to concerts and art exhibitions it was
Eveline or Eric who usually bought the tickets and paid
when they ate in restaurants and Eleanor had a better
time those few months than she'd ever had in her life
before. She never went out to Pullman any more and she
221
and Eveline talked about getting a studio together when
the Hutchinses came back from their trip abroad. The
thought that every day brought June nearer and that
then she would lose Eveline and have to face the horrid
gritty dusty sweaty Chicago Summer alone made Eleanor
a little miserable sometimes, but Eric was trying to get
her a job in his department at Marshall Field's, and she
and Eveline were following a course of lectures on in-
terior decorating at the University evenings, and that
gave her something to look forward to.
Maurice painted the loveliest pictures in pale buffs and
violets of longfaced boys with big luminous eyes and long
lashes, and longfaced girls that looked like boys, and
Russian wolfhounds with big luminous eyes, and always
in the back there were a few girders or a white skyscraper
and a big puff of white clouds and Eveline and Eleanor
thought it was such a shame that he had to go on teaching
at the Berlitz School.
The day before Eveline sailed for Europe they had
r. little party at Egstrom's place. Maurice's pictures were
around the walls and they were all glad and sorry and
excited and tittered a great deal. Then Egstrom came in
with the news that he had told his boss about Eleanor
and how she knew French and had studied art and was so
goodlooking and everything and Mr. Spotmann had said
to bring her around at noon tomorrow, and that the job,
if she could hold it down, would pay at least twentyfive
a week. There had been an old lady in to see Maurice's
paintings and she was thinking of buying one; they all
felt very gay and drank quite a lot of wine, so that in the
end when it was time for goodbyes it was Eveline who felt
lonesome at going away from them all, instead of Eleanor
feeling lonesome at being left behind as she had ex-
pected.
When Eleanor walked back along the platform frorp
222
seeing the Hutchinses all off for New York the next eve-
ning, and their bags all labelled for the steamship Baltic
and their eyes all bright with the excitement of going
East and going abroad and the smell of coalsmoke and
the clang of engine bells and scurry of feet, she walked
with her fists clenched and her sharppointed nails dug
into the palms of her hands, saying to herself over and
over again: "I'll be going, too, it's only a question of
timej I'll be going, too."
THE CAMERA EYE (18)
she was a very fashionable lady and adored bull-
terriers and had a gentleman friend who was famous foi
his resemblance to King Edward
she was a very fashionable lady and there were white
lilies in the hall No my dear I can't bear the scent of
them in the room and the bullterriers bit the tradespeople
and the little newsy No my dear they never bit nice peo-
ple and they're quite topping with Billy and his friends
we all went coaching in a fourinhand and the man
in the back blew a long horn and that's where Dick Whit-
tington stood with his cat and the bells there were
hampers full of luncheon and she had gray eyes and was
very kind to her friend's little boy though she loathed
simply loathed most children and her gentleman friend
who was famous for his resemblance to King Edward
223
;ouldn't bear them or the bullterriers and she kept asking
Why do you call him that?
and you thought of Dick Whittington and the big
bells of Bow, three times Lord Mayor of London and
looked into her gray eyes and said Maybe because I called
him that the first time I saw him and I didn't like her
and I didn't like the bullterriers and I didn't like the
fourinhand but I wished Dick Whittington three times
Lord Mayor of London boomed the big bells of Bow and
I wished Dick Whittington I wished I was home but I
hadn't any home and the man in the back blew a long
horn
ELEANOR STODDARD
Working at Marshall Field's was very different from
working at Mrs. Lang's. At Mrs. Lang's she had only
one boss but in the big store she seemed to have every-
body in the department over her. Still she was so refined
and cold and had such a bright definite little way of talk-
ing that although people didn't like her much, she got
along well. Even Mrs. Potter and Mr. Spotmann, the
department heads, were a little afraid of her. News got
around that she was a society girl and didn't really have
to earn a living at all. She was very sympathetic with the
customers about their problems of homemaking and had a
little humble-condescending way with Mrs. Potter and
admired her clothes, so that at the end of a month Mrs.
Potter said to Mr. Spotmann, "I think we have quite a
find in the Stoddard girl," and Mr. Spotmann without
224
opening his white trap of an old woman's mouth said,
"I've thought so all along."
When Eleanor stepped out on Randolph one sunny
afternoon with her first week's pay envelope in her hand
she felt pretty happy. She had such a sharp little smile
on her thin lips that a couple of people turned to look
at her as she walked along ducking her head into the
gusty wind to keep her hat from being blown off. She
turned down Michigan Avenue towards the Auditorium
looking at the bright shop windows and the verypale blue
sky and the piles of dovegray fluffy clouds over the lake
and the white blobs of steam from the locomotives. She
went into the deep amberlit lobby of the Auditorium An-
nex, sat down all by herself at a wicker table in the cornef
of the lounge and sat there a long while all by herself
drinking a cup of tea and eating buttered toast, ordering
the waiter about with a crisp little refined monied voice,
Then she went to Moody House, packed her things
and moved to the Eleanor Club, where she got a room
for seven-fifty with board. But the room wasn't much
better and everything still had the gray smell of a charit-
able institution, so the next week she moved again to
a small residential hotel on the North Side where she got
room and board for fifteen a week. As that only left her
a balance of three-fifty it had turned out that the job
only paid twenty, which actually only meant eighteen-
fifty when insurance was taken off she had to go to see
her father again. She so impressed him with her rise in
the world and the chances of a raise that he promised her
five a week, although he was only making twenty himself
and was planning to marry again, to a Mrs. O'Toole, a
widow with five children who kept a boardinghouse out
Elsdon way.
Eleanor refused to go to see her future stepmother,
and made her father promise to send her the money in
a moneyorder each week, as he couldn't expect her to go
225
all the way out to Elsdon to get it. When she left him
she kissed him on the forehead and made him feel quite
happy. All the time she was telling herself that this was
the very last time.
Then she went back to the Hotel Ivanhoe and went up
to her room and lay on her back on the comfortable brass
bed looking round at her little room with its white wood-
work and its pale yellow wallpaper with darker satiny
stripes and the lace curtains in the window and the heavy
hangings. There was a crack in the plaster of the ceiling
and the carpet was worn, but the hotel was very refined,
she could see that, full of old couples living on small
incomes and the help were very elderly and polite and
she felt at home for the first time in her life.
When Eveline Hutchins came back from Europe the
next Spring wearing a broad hat with a plume on it, full
of talk of the Salon des Tuileries and the Rue de la Paix
and museums and art exhibitions and the opera, she found
Eleanor a changed girl. She looked older than she was,
dressed quietly and fashionably, had a new bitter sharp
Way of talking. She was thoroughly established in the in-
terior decorating department at Marshall Field's and
expected a raise any day, but she wouldn't talk about it.
She had given up going to classes or haunting the Art
Institute and spent a great deal of time with an old maiden
lady who also lived at the Ivanhoe who was reputed to
be very rich and very stingy, a Miss Eliza Perkins.
The first Sunday she was back Eleanor had Eveline to
tea at the hotel and they sat in the stuffy lounge talking
in refined whispers with the old lady. Eveline asked about
Eric and Maurice, and Eleanor supposed that they were
all right, but hadn't seen them much since Eric had lost
his job at Marshall Field's. He wasn't turning out so
<*-ell as she had hoped, she said. He and Maurice had
taken to drinking a great deal and going round with ques-
tionable companions, and Eleanor rarely got a chance to
126
see them. She had dinner every evening with Miss Perkina
and Miss Perkins thought a great deal of her and bought
her clothes and took her with her driving in the park and
sometimes to the theater when there was something really
worth while on, Minnie Maddern Fiske or Guy Bates
Post in an interesting play. Miss Perkins was the daughter
of a wealthy saloon keeper and had been played false in
her youth by a young lawyer whom she had trusted to
invest some money for her and whom she had fallen in
love with. He had run away with another girl and a num-
ber of cash certificates. Just how much she had left Eleanor
hadn't been able to find out, but as she always took the
best seats at the theater and liked going to dinner at ex-
pensive hotels and restaurants and hired a carriage by the
half day whenever she wanted one, she gathered that she
must still be well off.
After they had left Miss Perkins to go to the Hutchinses
for supper, Eveline said: "Well, I declare I don't see
what you see in that . . . that little old maid . . . And
here I was just bursting to tell you a million things and
to ask you a million questions ... I think it was mean
of you."
"I'm very devoted to her, Eveline. I thought you'd
be interested in meeting any dear friend of mine."
"Oh, of course I am, dear, but, gracious, I can't make
you out."
"Well, you won't have to see her again, though I could
tell by her manner that she thought you were lovely."
Walking from the Elevated station to the Hutchinses
it was more like old times again. Eleanor told about the
hard feelings that were growing between Mr. Spotmann
and Mrs. Potter and how they both wanted her to be on
their side, and made Eveline laugh, and Eveline confessed
that on the Kroonland coming back she had fallen very
much in love with a man from Salt Lake City, such a re-
lief after all those foreigners, and Eleanor teased her
227
about it and said he was probably a Mormon and Eveline
laughed and said, No, he was a judge, and admitted that
he was married already. "You see," said Eleanor, "of
course he's a Mormon." But Eveline said that she knew
he wasn't and that if he'd divorce his wife she'd marry
him in a minute. Then Eleanor said she didn't believe in
divorce and if they hadn't gotten to the door they would
have started quarrelling.
That winter she didn't see much of Eveline. Eveline
had many beaux and went out a great deal to parties and
Eleanor used to read about her on the society page Sun-
day mornings. She was very busy and often too tired at
night even to go to the theater with Miss Perkins. The
row between Mrs. Potter and Mr. Spotmann had come to
a head and the management had moved Mrs. Potter to
another department and she had let herself plunk into an
old Spanish chair and had broken down and cried right
in front* of the customers and Eleanor had had to take
her to the dressing room and borrow smelling salts for
her and help her do up her peroxide hair into the big
pompadour again and consoled her by saying that she
would probably like it much better over in the other build-
ing anyway. After that Mr. Spotmann was very good-
natured for several months. He occasionally took Eleanor
out to lunch with him and they had a little joke that they
laughed about together about Mrs. Potter's pompadour
wobbling when she'd cried in front of the customers. He
sent Eleanor out on many little errands to wealthy homes,
and the customers liked her because she was so refined
and sympathetic and the other employees in the depart-
ment hated her and nicknamed her "teacher's pet." Mr.
Spotmann even said that he'd try to get her a percentage
on commissions and talked often about giving her that
raise to twentyfive a week.
Then one day Eleanor got home late to supper and the
old clerk at the hotel told her that Miss Perkins had
228
been stricken with heartfailure while eating steak and
kidney pie for lunch and had died right in the hotel dining
room and that the body had been removed to the Irving
Funeral Chapel and asked her if she knew any of her
relatives that should be notified. Eleanor knew nothing
except that her financial business was handled by the Corn
Exchange Bank and that she thought that she had nieces
in Mound City, but didn't know their names. Their clerk
was very worried about who would pay for the removal
of the body and the doctor and a week's unpaid hotel bill
and said that all her things would be held under seal until
some qualified person appeared to claim them. He seemed
to think Miss Perkins had died especially to spite the
hotel management.
Eleanor went up to her room and locked the door and
threw herself on the bed and cried a little, because she'd
been fond of Miss Perkins.
Then a thought crept into her mind that made her
heart beat fast. Suppose Miss Perkins had left her a for-
tune in her will. Things like that happened. Young men
who opened church pews, coachman who picked up a hand-
bag *) old ladies were always leaving their fortunes to peo-
ple like that.
She could see it in headlines MARSHALL FIELD EMPLOYEE
INHERITS MILLION.
She couldn't sleep all night and in the morning she
found the manager of the hotel and offered to do anything
she could. She called up Mr. Spotmann and coaxed him
to give her the day off, explaining that she was virtually
prostrated by Miss Perkins's death. Then she called up
the Corn Exchange Bank and talked to a Mr. Smith who
had been in charge of the Perkins estate. He assured her
that the bank would do everything in its power to protect
the heirs and the residuary legatees and said that the
will was in Miss Perkins's safe deposit box and that he
was sure everything was in proper legal form.
229
Eleanor had nothing to do all day, so she got hold of
Eveline for 'lunch and afterwards they went to Keith's
together. She felt it wasn't just proper to go to the theater
with her old friend still lying at the undertaker's, but
she was so nervous and hysterical she had to do some-
thing to take her mind off this horrible shock. Eveline
was very sympathetic and they felt closer than they had
since the Hutchinses had gone abroad. Eleanor didn't
say anything about her hopes.
At the funeral there were only Eleanor and the Irish
chambermaid at the hotel, an old woman who sniffled and
crossed herself a great deal, and Mr. Smith and a Mr.
Sullivan who was representing the Mound City relatives.
Eleanor wore black and the undertaker came up to her
and said, "Excuse me, miss, but I can't refrain from re-
marking how lovely you look, just like a Bermuda lily."
It wasn't as bad as she had expected and afterwards
Eleanor, and Mr. Smith and Mr. Sullivan, the representa-
tive of the law firm who had charge of the interests of
the relatives, were quite jolly together coming out of the
crematorium.
It was a sparkling October day and everybody agreed
that October was the best month in the year and that the
minister had read the funeral service very beautifully.
Mr. Smith asked Eleanor wouldn't she eat lunch with
them as she was mentioned in the will, and Eleanor's
heart almost stopped beating and she cast down her eyes
and said she'd be very pleased.
They all got into a taxi. Mr. Sullivan said it was pleas^
ant to roll away from the funeral chapel and such gloomy
thoughts. They went to lunch at de Yonghe's and Eleanor
made them laugh telling them about how they'd acted at
the hotel and what a scurry everybody had been in, but
when they handed her the menu said that she couldn't
eat a thing. Still when she saw the planked whitefish she
said that she'd take just a little to pick to pieces on her
230
plate. It turned out that the windy October air had mad*
them all hungry and the long ride in the taxi. Eleanor
enjoyed her lunch very much and after the whitefish she
ate a little Waldorf salad and then a peach melba.
The gentlemen asked her whether she would mind if
they smoked cigars and Mr. Smith put on a rakish look
and said would she have a cigarette and she blushed and
said no, she never smoked and Mr. Sullivan said he'd
never respect a woman who smoked and Mr. Smith said
some of the girls of the best families in Chicago smoked
and as for himself he didn't see the harm in it if they
didn't make chimneys of themselves. After lunch they
walked across the street and went up in the elevator to
Mr. Sullivan's office and there they sat down in big leather
chairs and Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Smith put on solemn
faces and Mr. Smith cleared his throat and began to read
the will. Eleanor couldn't make it out at first and Mr,
Smith had to explain to her that the bulk of the fortune
of three million dollars was left to the Florence Crittenton
home for wayward girls, but that the sum of one thou-
sand dollars each was to the three nieces in Mound City
and that a handsome diamond brooch in the form of a
locomotive was left to Eleanor Stoddard and, "If you call
at the Corn Exchange Bank some time tomorrow, Miss
Stoddard," said Mr. Smith, "I shall be very glad to de^
liver it to you."
Eleanor burst out crying.
They both were very sympathetic and so touched that
Miss Stoddard should be so touched by the remembrance
of her old friend. As she left the office, promising to call
for the brooch tomorrow, Mr. Sullivan was just saying in
the friendliest voice, "Mr. Smith, you understand that
I shall have to endeavor to break that will in the interests
of the Mound City Perkinses," and Mr. Smith said in thf
friendliest voice, "I suppose so, Mr. Sullivan, but I don'f
see that you can get very far with it. It's an ironclad
231
copped-riveted document if I do say so as shouldn't, be-
cause I drew it up myself."
So next day at eight Eleanor was on her way down to
Marshall Field's again and there she stayed for several
years. She got the raise and the percentages on commis-
sions and she and Mr. Spotmann got to be quite thick,
but he never tried to make love to her and their relations
were always formal ; that was a relief to Eleanor because
she kept hearing stories about floorwalkers and depart-
ment heads forcing their attentions on the young girl em-
ployees and Mr. Elwood of the furniture department had
been discharged for that very reason, when it came out that
little Lizzie Dukes was going to have a baby, but perhaps
that hadn't been all Mr. Elwood's fault as Lizzie Dukes
didn't look as if she was any better than she should be;
anyway it seemed to Eleanor as if she'd spend the rest of
her life furnishing other people's new drawingrooms and
diningrobms, matching curtains and samples of upholstery
and wallpaper, smoothing down indignant women cus-
tomers who'd been sent an oriental china dog instead of
an inlaid teak teatable or who even after they'd chosen it
themselves weren't satisfied with the pattern on that
cretonne.
She found Eveline Hutchins waiting for her one eve-
ning when the store closed. Eveline wasn't crying but was
deathly pale. She said she hadn't had anything to eat for
two days and wouldn't Eleanor have some tea with her
DVer at the Sherman House or anywhere.
They went to the Auditorium Annex and sat in the
lounge and ordered tea and cinnamon toast and then
Eveline told her that she'd broken off her engagement
with Dirk McArthur and that she'd decided not to kill
herself but to go to work. "I'll never fall in love with
anybody again, that's all, but I've got to do something
and you're just wasting yourself in that stuffy department
232
store, Eleanor j you know you never get a chance to show
what you can do; you're just wasting your ability."
Eleanor said that she hated it like poison but what was
she to do? "Why not do what we've been talking about
all these years . . . Oh, people make me so mad, they
never will have any nerve or do anything that's fun or
interesting ... I bet you if we started a decorating
business we'd have lots of orders. Sally Emerson'll give
us her new house to decorate and then everybody else'll
just have to have us to be in the swim ... I don't think
people really want to live in the horrible stuffy place?
they live in; it's just that they don't know any better."
Eleanor lifted her teacup and drank several little sips.
She looked at her little white carefully manicured hand
with pointed nails holding the teacup. Then she said,
"But where'd we get the capital? We'd have to have a
little capital to start on."
"Dad'll let us have something, I think, and maybe
Sally Emerson might j she's an awfully good sport and
then our first commission'll launch us ... Oh, do come
on, Eleanor j it'll be such fun."
" 'Hutchins and Stoddard, Interior Decorating;' " said
Eleanor, putting down her teacup, "or maybe 'Miss
Hutchins and Miss Stoddard'; why, my dear, I think it's a
grand idea!" "Don't you think just 'Eleanor Stoddard
and Eveline Hutchins' would be better?"
"Oh, well, we can decide on the name when we hire a
studio and have put it in the telephone book. Why don't
we put it this way, Eveline dear ... if you can get your
friend Mrs. Emerson to give us the decorating of her new
house, we'll go in for it, if not we'll wait until we have
a genuine order to start off on." "All right; I know she
will. I'll run right out and see her now." Eveline had a
high color now. She got to her feet and leaned over
Eleanor and kissed her. "Oh, Eleanor, you're a darling/'
"Wait a minute, we haven't paid for our tea," said
Eleanor.
The next month the office was unbearable, and the
customers' complaints and leaving the Ivanhoe in a hurry
every morning and being polite to Mr. Spotmann and
thinking up little jokes to make him laugh. Her room at
the Ivanhoe seemed small and sordid and the smell of
cooking that came up through the window and the grease-
smell of the old elevator. Several days she called up that
she was sick and then found that she couldn't stay in her
room and roamed about the city going to shops and mov-
ing pictureshows and then getting suddenly dead tired
and having to come home in a taxi that she couldn't afford.
She even went back to the Art Institute once in a while,
but she knew all the pictures by heart and hadn't the
patience to look at them any more. Then at last Eveline
got Mrs* Philip Paine Emerson to feeling that her new
house couldn't do without a novel note in the dining-
room and they got her up an estimate much less than any
of the established decorators was asking, and Eleanor had
the pleasure of watching Mr. Spotmann's astonished face
when she refused to stay even with a raise to forty a week
and said that she had a commission with a friend to deco-
rate the new Paine Emerson mansion in Lake Forest.
"Well, my dear," said Mr. Spotmann, snapping his
square white mouth, "if you want to commit suicide of
your career I won't be the one to stop you. You can leave
right this minute if you want to. Of course you forfeit
the Christmas bonus." Eleanor's heart beat fast. She
looked at the gray light that came through the office, and
the yellow cardcatalogue case and the letters on a file and
the little samples dangling from them. In the outer office
Ella Bowen the stenographer had stopped typing; she
was probably listening. Eleanor sniffed the lifeless air
smelt of chintz and furniturevarnish and steamheat
234
and people's breath and then she said, "All right, Mr.
Spotmann, I will."
It took her all day to get her pay and to collect the
insurance money due her and she had a long wrangle with
a cashier about the amount, so that it was late afternoon
before she stepped out into the driving snow of the streets
and went into a drugstore to call up Eveline.
Eveline had already rented two floors of an old Vic-
torian house off Chicago Avenue, and they were busy all
winter decorating the office and showrooms downstairs
and the apartment upstairs where they were going to
live, and doing Sally Emerson's diningroom. They got
a colored maid named Amelia who was a very good cook
although she drank a little, and they had cigarettes and
cocktails at the end of the afternoon and little dinners
with wine, and found a downattheheels French dress-
maker to make them evening gowns to wear when they
went out with Sally Emerson and her set, and rode in
taxis and got to know a lot of really interesting people,
By Spring when they finally got a check for five hundred
dollars out of Philip Paine Emerson they were a thou<
sand dollars in the hole, but they were living the way
they liked. The diningroom was considered a little ex-
treme, but some people liked it, and a few more orders
came. They made many friends and started going round
with artists again and with special writers on The Daily
News and The American who took them out to dinner
in foreign restaurants that were very smoky and where
they talked a great deal about modern French painting
and the Middle West and going to New York. They went
to the Armory Show and had a photograph of Brancusi's
Golden Bird over the desk in the office and copies of the
Little Review and Poetry among the files of letters from
clients and unpaid bills from wholesalers.
Eleanor went out a great deal with Tom Custis who
was an elderly redfaced man, fond of music and chorv\s-
235
girls and drinking, who belonged to all the clubs and
tor years had been a great admirer of Mary Garden.
He had a box at the opera and a Stevens-Duryea and
nothing to do except go to tailors and visit specialists and
occasionally blackball a Jew or a newcomer applying for
membership in some club he belonged to. The Armours
had bought out his father's meatpacking concern when
he was still a college athlete and he hadn't done a stroke
of work since. He claimed to be thoroughly sick of social
life and enjoyed taking an interest in the girls' decorating
business. He kept in close touch with Wall Street and
would occasionally turn over to Eleanor a couple of shares
that he was trading in. If they rose it was her gain, if
they fell it was his loss. He had a wife in a private sani-
tarium and he and Eleanor decided they'd be just friends.
Sometimes he was a little too affectionate coming home in
a taxicab in the evening, but Eleanor would scold him and
he'd be very contrite the next day, and send her great
boxes of white flowers.
Eveline had several beaux, writers and illustrators and
people like that, but they never had any money and ate
and drank everything in the house when they came to
dinner. One of them, Freddy Seargeant, was an actor and
producer temporarily stranded in Chicago. He had friends
in the Shubert office and his great ambition was to put
on a pantomime like Reinhardt's Sumunm y only based
on Maya Indian stories. He had a lot of photographs of
Maya ruins, and Eleanor and Eveline began to design
costumes for it and settings. They hoped to get Tom
Custis or the Paine Emersons to put up money for a
production in Chicago.
The main trouble was with the music. A young pianist
whom Tom Custis had sent to Paris to study began to
write it and came and played it one night. They had quite
a party for him. Sally Emerson came and a lot of fashion-
able people, but Tom Custis drank too many cocktails to
236
be able to hear a note and Amelia the cook got drunk
and spoiled the dinner and Eveline told the young pianist
that his music sounded like movie music and he went off
in a huff. When everybody had gone Freddy Seargeant
and Eveline and Eleanor roamed around the ravaged
apartment feeling very bad indeed. Freddy Seargeant
twisted his black hair, slightly splotched with gray, in his
long hands and said he was going to kill himself, and
Eleanor and Eveline quarrelled violently.
"But it did sound like movingpicture music and, after
all, why shouldn't it?" Eveline kept saying. Then Freddy
Seargeant got his hat and went out saying, "You women
are making life a hell for me," and Eveline burst out
crying and got hysterical and Eleanor had to send for a
doctor.
The next day they scraped up fifty dollars to send
Freddy back to New York, and Eveline went back to live
at the house on Drexel Boulevard, leaving Eleanor to
carry on the decorating business all alone.
Next Spring Eleanor and Eveline sold for five hundred
some chandeliers that they had picked up in a junk shop
on the west side for twentyfive dollars and were just
writing out checks for their more pressing debts when
a telegram arrived.
SIGNED CONTRACT WITH SHUBERTS PRODUCTION RETURN
OF THE NATIVE WILL YOU DO SCENERY COSTUMES HUNDRED
FIFTY A WEEK EACH MUST COME ON NEW YORK IMME-
DIATELY MUST HAVE YOU WIRE IMMEDIATELY HOTEL DES
ARTISTES CENTRAL PARK SOUTH FREDDY
"Eleanor, we've got to do it," said Eveline, taking a
cigarette out of her handbag and walking round the room
puffing at it furiously. "It'll be a rush, but let's make
the Twentieth Century this afternoon." "It's about noon
now," said Eleanor in a trembly voice. Without answer-
ing Eveline went to the phone and called up the Pull-
man office. That evening they sat in their section looking
237
of the window at the steelworks of Indiana Harbor,
the big cement works belching puttycolorcd smoke, the
flaring furnaces of Gary disappearing in smokeswirling
winter dusk. Neither of them could say anything.
THE CAMERA EYE (19)
the methodist minister's wife was a tall thin woman
who sang little songs at the piano in a spindly lost voice
who'd heard you liked books and grew flowers and
vegetables and was so interested because she'd once been
an episcopalian and loved beautiful things and had had
stories she had written published in a magazine and she
was younger than her husband who was a silent black-
haired man with a mouth like a mousetrap and tobacco-
juice on his chin and she wore thin white dresses and used
perfume and talked in a bell-like voice about how things
were lovely as a lily and the moon was bright as a bubble
full to bursting behind the big pine when we walked back
along the shore and you felt you ought to put your arm
round her and kiss her only you didn't want to and any-
way you wouldn't have had the nerve walking slow
through the sand and the pine needles under the big
moon swelled to bursting like an enormous drop of quick-
.silver and she talked awful sad about the things she had
hoped for and you thought it was too bad
238
you liked books and Gibbon's Decline and Fall o)
the Roman Empire and Captain Marryat's novels and
wanted to go away and to sea and to foreign cities Carcas-
sonne Marakesh Isfahan and liked things to be beautiful
and wished you had the nerve to hug and kiss Martha
the colored girl they said was half Indian old Emma's
daughter and little redheaded Mary I taught how to swim
if I only had the nerve breathless nights when the moon
was full but Oh God not lilies
NEWSREEL XIV
BOMBARDIER STOPS AUSTRALIAN
colonel says democrats have brought distress to nation
I'll resign when I die Huerta snarls in grim defi and half
Mexico will die with me no flames were seen but the vast
plume of blackened steam from the crater waved a mile high
in the sky and volcanic ash fell on Macomber Flats thirteen
miles distant
Eggs Noisy? No Pokerchips.
Way down on the levee
In old Alabamy
There's daddy and mammy
And Ephram and Sammy
MOONFAIRIES DANCE ON RAVINIA GREENS
WILSON WILL TAKE ADVICE OF BUSINESS
admits he threw bomb policewoman buys drinks aftef
one loses on wheat slain as burglar
239
On a moonlight night
You can find them all
While they are waiting
Banjoes are syncopating
What's that they y re all saying
What's that they're all singing
recognizing James scrawl the president seized the cracker
and pulled out the fuse. A stream of golden gumdrops fell
over the desk; then glancing at the paper the Chief Executive
read "Don't eat too many of them because Mama says they'll
make you sick if you do."
RIDING SEA WOLF IN MEXICAN WATERS
They all kee^p as way ing
A humming and swinging
It's the good ship Robert E. Lee
That's come to carry the cotton away
ISADORA DUNCAN'S NEW HAPPINESS
IWW troublemakers overran a Garibaldi birthday cele-
bration at Rosebank Staten Island this afternoon, insulted the
Italian flag, pummeled and clubbed members of the Italian
Rifle Society and would have thrown the American flag to
the dirt if
SIX UNCLAD BATHING GIRLS BLACK '
EYES OF HORRID MAN
Indian divers search for drowned boy's body. Some of
the witnesses say they saw a woman in the crowd. She was
hit with a brick. The man in gray took refuge behind her
tkirts to fire. The upper decks and secluded parts of the
ioat are the spooners' paradise where liberties are often taken
with intoxicated young girls whose mothers should not have
permitted them to go on a public boat unescorted.
MIDWEST MAY MAKE OR BREAK WILSON
TELL CAUSES OF UNREST IN LABOR WORLD
240
"Pm a Swiss admiral proceeding to America," and the
copper called a taxi
See them shuffling along
Hear their music and song
It's simply great y mate y
Waiting on the levee
Waiting
for
the
Robert
E.
Lee.
EMPEROR OF THE CARIBBEAN
When Minor C. Keith died all the newspapers
carried his picture, a brighteyed man with a hawknosc
and a respectable bay window, and an uneasy look
under the eyes.
Minor C. Keith was a rich man's son, born in a
family that liked the smell of money, they could smell
inoney half way round the globe in that family.
His Uncle was Henry Meiggs, the Don Enrique
of the West Coast. His father had a big lumber busi-
ness and handled realestate in Brooklyn;
young Keith was a chip of the old block
(Back in fortynine Don Enrique had been drawn
to San Francisco by the gold rush. He didn't go pros-
pecting in the hills, he didn't die of thirst sifting alkali-
dust in Death Valley. He sold outfits to the other
guys. He stayed in San Francisco and played politics
high finance until he got in too deep and had to
get aboard ship in a hurry.
The vessel took him to Chile. He could smell
money in Chile.
He was the capitalista yanqui. He'd build the
railroad from Santiago to Valparaiso. There were
guano deposits on the Chincha Islands. Meiggs could
smell money in guano. He dug himself a fortune out
of guano, became a power on the West Coast, juggled
figures, railroads, armies, the politics of the local
caciques and politocos; they were all chips in a huge
pokergame. Behind a big hand he heaped up the
dollars.
He financed the unbelievable Andean railroads.
When Tomas Guardia got to be dictator of Costa
Rica he wrote to Don Enrique to build him a railroad j
Meiggs was busy in the Andes, a $75,000 dollar
contract Was hardly worth his while,
so he sent for his nephew Minor Keith.
They didn't let grass grow under their feet in
that family:
at sixteen Minor Keith had been on his own, sell-
ing collars and ties in a clothingstore.
After that he was a lumber surveyor and ran a
lumber business.
When his father bought Padre Island off Corpus
Christi Texas he sent Minor down to make money out
of it.
Minor Keith started raising cattle on Padre Island
tnd seining for fish,
but cattle and fish didn't turn over money fast
enough
so he bought hogs and chopped up the steers and
242
boiled the meat and fed it to the hogs and choppec*
up the fish and fed it to the hogs,
but hogs didn't turn over money fast enough,
so he was glad to be off to Limon.
Limon was one of the worst pestholes on the
Caribbean, even the Indians died there of malaria,
yellow jack, dysentery.
Keith went back up to New Orleans on the
steamer John G. Meiggs to hire workers to build the
railroad. He offered a dollar a day and grub and
hired seven hundred men. Some of them had been
down before in the filibustering days of William
Walker.
Of that bunch about twentyfive came out alive.
The rest left their whiskyscalded carcases to rot
in the swamps.
On another load he shipped down fifteen hun-
dred ; they all died to prove that only Jamaica Negroes
could live in Limon.
Minor Keith didn't die.
In 1882 there were twenty miles of railroad built
and Keith was a million dollars in the hole;
the railroad had nothing to haul.
Keith made them plant bananas so that the rail-
road might have something to haul, to market the
bananas he had to go into the shipping business;
this was the beginning of the Caribbean fruittrade
All the while the workers died of whisky, malariq ,
yellow jack, dysentery.
Minor Keith's three brothers died.
243
Minor Keith didn't die.
He built railroads, opened retail stores up and
down the coast in Bluefields, Belize, Limon, bought
and sold rubber, vanilla, tortoiseshell, sarsaparilla, any-
thing he could buy cheap he bought, anything he could
sell dear he sold.
In 1898 in cooperation with the Boston Fruit
Company he formed the United Fruit Company that
has since become one of the most powerful industrial
units in the world.
In 1912 he incorporated the International Rail-
roads of Central America ,
all of it built out of bananas ;
in Europe and the United States people had
started to eat bananas,
so they cut down the jungles through Central
America to plant bananas,
and- built railroads to haul the bananas,
and every year more steamboats of the Great
White Fleet
steamed north loaded with bananas,
and that is the history of the American empire in
the Caribbean,
and the Panama canal and the future Nicaragua
canal and the marines and the battleships and the
bayonets,
Why that uneasy look under the eyes, in the pic-
ture of Minor C. Keith the pioneer of the fruit trade,
the railroad builder, in all the pictures the newspapers
carried of him when he died?
244
THE CAMERA EYE (20)
when the streetcarmen went out on strike in Law-
rence in sympathy with what the hell they were a lot
of wops anyway bohunks hunkies that didn't wash their
necks ate garlic with squalling brats and fat oily wives
the damn dagoes they put up a notice for volunteers
good clean young
to man the streetcars and show the foreign agitators
this was still a white man's
well this fellow lived in Matthews and he'd always
wanted to be a streetcar conductor they said Mr.
Grover had been a streetcar conductor in Albany and
drank and was seen on the street with floosies
well this fellow lived in Matthews and he went ovei
to Lawrence with his roommate and they reported in
Lawrence and people yelled at them Blacklegs Scabs but
those that weren't wops were muckers a low element
they liked each other a lot this fellow did and his room-
mate and he got up on the platform and twirled the bright
brass handle and clanged the bell
it was in the carbarn his roommate was fiddling
with something between the bumpers and this fellow
twirled the shiny brass handle and the car started and
he ran down his roommate and his head was mashed just
like that between the bumpers killed him dead just like
245
that right there in the carbarn and now the fellow's got
to face his roommate's folks
J. WARD MOOREHOUSE
In Pittsburgh Ward Moorehouse got a job as a re-
porter on The Times Dis-patch and spent six months writ-
ing up Italian weddings, local conventions of Elks, obscure
deaths, murders and suicides among Lithuanians, Al-
banians, Croats, Poles, the difficulties over naturalization
papers of Greek restaurant keepers, dinners of the Sons
of Italy. He lived in a big red frame house, at the lower
end of Highland Avenue, kept by a Mrs. Cook, a
crotchety % old woman from Belfast who had been forced
to take lodgers since her husband, who had been a fore-
man in one of the Homestead mills, had been crushed by
a crane dropping a load of pigiron over him. She made
Ward his breakfasts and his Sunday dinners and stood
over him while he was eating them alone in the stuffy
furniturecrowded diningroom telling him about her youth
in the north of Ireland and the treachery of papists and
the virtues of the defunct Mr. Cook.
It was a bad time for Ward. He had no friends in Pitts-
burgh and he had colds and sore throats all through the
cold grimy sleety winter. He hated the newspaper office
ind the inclines and the overcast skies and the breakneck
wooden stairs he was always scrambling up and down, and
the smell of poverty and cabbage and children and wash-
ing in the rattletrap tenements where he was always seek-
ing out Mrs. Piretti whose husband had been killed in a
rumpus in a saloon on Locust Street or Sam Burkovich
who'd been elected president of the Ukrainian singing
246
society, or some woman with sudsy hands whose child had
been slashed by a degenerate. He never got home to the
house before three or four in the morning and by the
time he had breakfasted round noon there never seemed
to be any time to do anything before he had to call up
the office for assignments again. When he had first gotten
to Pittsburgh he had called to see Mr. McGill, whom
he'd met with Jarvis Oppenheimer in Paris. Mr. McGill
remembered him and took down his address and told him
to keep in touch because he hoped to find an opening for
him in the new information bureau that was being or-
ganized by the Chamber of Commerce, but the weeks went
by and he got no word from Mr. McGill. He got an
occasional dry note from Annabelle Marie about legal
technicalities ; she would divorce him charging nonsup-
port, desertion and cruelty. All he had to do was to refuse
to go to Philadelphia when the papers were served on
him. The perfume on the blue notepaper raised a faint
rancor of desire for women in him. But he must keep
himself clean and think of his career.
The worst time was his weekly day off. Often he'd
stay all day sprawled on the bed, too depressed to go out
mto the black slush of the streets. He sent to correspond-
ence schools for courses in journalism and advertising and
even for a course in the care of fruit trees on the impulse
to throw up everything and go West and get a job on a
ranch or something; but he felt too listless to follow them
and the little booklets accumulated week by week on the
table in his room. Nothing seemed to be leading any-
where. He'd go over and over again his whole course of
action since he'd left Wilmington that day on the train to
go down to Ocean City. He must have made a mistake
somewhere but he couldn't see where. He took to playing
solitaire, but he couldn't even keep his mind on that.
He'd forget the cards and sit at the table with a ginger-
breadcolored velveteen cloth on it. looking past the pot
247
of dusty artificial ferns ornamented with a crepe paper
cover and a dusty pink bow off a candybox, down into the
broad street where trolleycars went by continually scrap-
ing round the curve and where the arclights coming on in
the midafternoon murk shimmered a little in the black
ice of the gutters. He thought a lot about the old days at
Wilmington and Marie O'Higgins and his piano lessons
*nd fishing in an old skiff along the Delaware when he'd
been a kidj he'd get so nervous that he'd have to go out
*nd would go and drink a hot chocolate at the sodafoun-
lain on the next corner and then go down town to a cheap
movie or vaudeville show. He took to smoking three
stogies a day, one after each meal. It gave him something
he could vaguely look forward to.
He called once or twice to see Mr. McGill at his office
in the Frick Building. Each time he was away on a busi-
ness trip. He'd have a little chat with the girl at the desk
while wafting and then go away reluctantly, saying, "Oh,
yes, he said he was going on a trip," or, "He must have
forgotten the appointment," to cover his embarrassment
when he had to go away. He was loath to leave the
brightly lit office anteroom, with its great shiny mahogany
chairs with lions' heads on the arms and the tables with
lions' claws for feet and the chirrup of typewriters from
behind partitions, and telephone bells ringing and well-
dressed clerks and executives bustling in and out. Down
at the newspaper office it was noisy with clanging presses
and smelt sour of printer's ink and moist rolls of paper
and sweating copyboys running round in green eyeshades.
And not to know any really nice people, never to get an
assignment that wasn't connected with working people or
foreigners or criminals; he hated it.
One day in the Spring he went to the Schenley to inter-
view a visiting travel lecturer. He felt good about it as he
hoped to wheedle a by-line out of the city editor. He was
picking his way through the lobby crowded by the arrival
248
of a state convention of Kiwanians when he ran into Mr,
McGill. "Why, hello, Moorehouse," said Mr. McGill,
in a casual tone as if he'd been seeing him all along, "I'm
glad I ran into you. Those fools at the office mislaid youi
address. Have you a minute to spare?" "Yes, indeed, Mr.
McGill," said Ward. "I have an appointment to see a man
but he can wait." "Never make a man wait if you have
an appointment with him," said Mr. McGill. "Well, this
isn't a business appointment," said Ward, looking up into
Mr. McGill's face with his boyish blue-eyed smile. "He
won't mind waiting a minute."
They went into the writing room and sat down on a
tapestried sofa. Mr. McGill explained that he had just
been appointed temporary general manager to reorganize
the Bessemer Metallic Furnishings and Products Com-
pany that handled a big line of byproducts of the Home-
stead Mills. He was looking for an ambitious and ener-
getic man to handle the advertising and promotion. "I
remember that booklet you showed me in Paris, Moore-
house, and I think you're the man." Ward looked at the
floor. "Of course that would mean giving up my present
work." "What's that?" "Newspaper work." "Oh, drop
that; there's no future in that . . . We'd have to make
someone else nominal advertising manager for reasons we
won't go into now . . . but you'll be the actual execu-
tive. What kind of a salary would you expect?"
Ward looked Mr. McGill in the eyes, the blood stopped
in his ears while he heard his own voice saying casually:
"How about a hundred a week?"
Mr. McGill stroked his moustache and smiled. "Well,
we'll thrash that out later," he said, getting to his feet.
"I think I can advise you strongly to give up your present
woHc . . . I'll call up Mr. Bateman about it ... so
that he'll understand why we're taking you away from
him . . . No hard feelings, you understand, on account
of your resigning suddenly . . . never want hard feel-
249
ings . . . Come down and see me tomorrow at ten. You
know the office in the Frick Building."
"I think Pve got some valuable ideas about adver-
tising, Mr. McGill, It's the work I'm most interested in
doing," said Ward. Mr. McGill wasn't looking at him
any more. He nodded and went off. Ward went on up
to interview his lecturer, afraid to let himself feel too
jubilant yet.
The next day was his last in a newspaper office. He
accepted a salary of seventyfive with a promise of a raise
as soon as returns warranted it, took a room and bath at
the Schenley, had an office of his own in the Frick Build-
ing where he sat at a desk with a young man named
Oliver Taylor who was a nephew of one of the directors
who was being worked up through the organization.
Oliver Taylor was a firstrate tennis player and belonged
to all the clubs and was only too glad to let Moorehouse
do the work. When he found that Moorehouse had been
abroad and had had his clothes made in England he put
him up at the Sewickley Country Club and took him out
with him for drinks after officehours. Little by little
Moorehouse got to know people and to be invited out as
an eligible bachelor. He started to play golf with an in-
structor on a small course over in Allegheny where he
hoped nobody he knew would go. When he could play a
fair game he went over to Sewickley to try it out.
One Sunday afternoon Oliver Taylor went with him
and pointed out all the big executives of the steel mills
and the mining properties and the oil industry out on the
links on a Sunday afternoon, making ribald remarks about
each one that Ward tittered at a little bit, but that seemed
to him in very bad taste. It was a sunny May afternoon
and he could smell locustblossoms on the breeze off the
fat lands along the Ohio, and there were the sharp whang
of the golfballs and the flutter of bright dresses on the
lawn round the clubhouse, and frazzles of laughter and
250
baritone snatches of the safe talk of business men coming
on the sunny breeze that still had a little scorch of furnace
smoke in it. It was hard to keep the men he was intro-
duced to from seeing how good lie felt.
The rest of the time he did nothing but work. He got
his stenographer, Miss Rodgers, a plainfaced spinster who
knew the metal products business inside out from having
worked fifteen years in Pittsburgh offices, to get him bookf
on the industry that he read at his hotel in the evenings^
so that at executive conferences he astonished them by his
knowledge of the processes and products of the industry.
His mind was full of augerbits, canthooks, mauls, sash-
weights, axes, hatchets, monkey wrenches j sometimes in
the lunch hour he'd stop in to a hardware store on the
pretext of buying a few brads or tacks and talk to the
storekeeper. He read Crowds Jr and various books on
psychology, tried to imagine himself a hardware merchant
or the executive of Hammacher Schlemmer or some other
big hardware house, and puzzled over what kind of litera-
ture from a factory would be appealing to him. Shaving
while his bath was running in the morning he would see
long processions of andirons, grates, furnace fittings,
pumps, sausagegrinders, drills, calipers, vises, casters,
drawerpulls pass between his face and the mirror and
wonder how they could be made attractive to the retail
trade. He was shaving himself with a Gillette 5 why was
he shaving with a Gillette instead of some other kind of
razor? "Bessemer" was a good name, smelt of money
and mighty rolling mills and great executives stepping
out of limousines. The thing to do was to interest the
hardware buyer, to make him feel a part of something
mighty and strong, he would think as he picked out a
necktie. "Bessemer," he'd say to himself as he ate break-
fast. Why should our cotterpins appeal more than any
other cotterpins, he'd ask himself as he stepped on the
streetcar. Jolting in the straphanging crowd on the way
downtown, staring at the headlines in the paper without
seeing them, chainlinks and anchors and ironcouplings
and malleable elbows and unions and bushings and nipples
and pipecaps would jostle in his head. "Bessemer."
When he asked for a raise he got it, to $125.
At a country club dance he met a blond girl who
danced very well. Her name was Gertrude Staple and
she was the only daughter of old Horace Staple who was
director of several corporations, and was reputed to own
a, big slice of Standard Oil stock. Gertrude was engaged
to Oliver Taylor, though they did nothing but quarrel
when they were together, so she confided to Ward while
they were sitting out a dance. Ward's dress suit fitted well
and he looked much younger than most of the men at the
dance. Gertrude said that the men in Pittsburgh had no
allure. Ward talked about Paris and she said that she was
bored to tears and would rather live in Nome, Alaska,
than in Pittsburgh. She was awfully pleased that he knew
Paris and he talked about the Tour d'Argent and the
Hotel Wagram and the Ritz bar and he felt very sore
that he hadn't a car, because he noticed that she was mak-
ing it easy for him to ask her to let him take her home.
But next day he sent her some flowers with a little note in
French that he thought would make her laugh. The next
Saturday afternoon he went to an automobile school to
take lessons in driving a car, and strolled past the Stutz
sales agency to see what kind of terms he could get to
buy a roadster on.
One day Oliver Taylor came into the office with a
funny smile on his face and said, "Ward, Gertrude's got
a crush on you. She can't talk about anything else . . .
Go ahead ; I don't give a damn. She's too goddam much
trouble for me to handle. She tires me out in a half an
hour."
"It's probably just because she doesn't know me," said
Ward, blushing a little.
252
"Too bad her old man won't let her marry anything
but a millionaire. You might get some lovin' out of it,
though."
"I haven't got the time for that stuff," said Ward.
"It don't leave me time for anything else," said Taylor.
"Well, so long . . . You hold down the fort; I've got
a luncheon date with a swell girl . . . she's a warm baby
an' she's dancing in the 'Red Mill,' first row, third from
the left." He winked, and slapped Ward on the back and
went off.
The next time that Ward went to call at the big house
of the Staples that lay back from the trees he went in
a red Stutz roadster that he'd taken out on trial. He
handled it well enough, although he turned in too quickly
at the drive and slaughtered some tulips in a flowerbed,
Gertrude saw him from the library window and kidded
him about it. He said he was a rotten driver, always had
been and always would be. She gave him tea and a cock-
tail at a little table under an appletree back of the house
and he wondered all the time he was talking to her
whether he ought to tell her about his divorce. He told
her about his unhappy life with Annabelle Strang. She
was very sympathetic. She knew of Dr. Strang. "And I
was hoping you were just an adventurer . . . from
plowboy to president, you know . . . that sort of thing.*
"But I am," he said and they both laughed and he
could see that she was really crazy about him.
That night they met at a dance and walked down to
the end of the conservatory where it was very steamy
among the orchids, and he kissed her and told her that
she looked like a pale yellow orchid. After that they al-
ways sneaked off whenever they got a chance. She had a
way of going limp suddenly in his arms under his kisses
that made him sure that she loved him. But when he
got home after those evenings he'd be too nervous and
excited to sleep, and would pace up and down the room
253
wanting a woman to sleep with, and cursing himself out.
Often he'd take a cold bath and tell himself he must at-
tend to business and not worry about those things or let a
girl get under his skin that way. The streets in the lower
part of town were full of prostitutes, but he was afraid
of catching a disease or being blackmailed. Then one
night after a party Taylor took him to a house that he
said was thoroughly reliable where he met a pretty dark
Polish girl who couldn't have been more than eighteen,
tut he didn't go there very often as it cost fifty dollars,
And he was always nervous when he was in the place
for fear there'd be a police raid and he'd have blackmail
to pay.
One Sunday afternoon Gertrude told him that her
mother had scolded her for being seen about with him
^0 much on account of his having a wife in Philadelphia.
The notice of the decree had come the morning before.
Ward was in high spirits and told her about it and asked
her to marry him. They were at the free organ recital in
Carnegie Institute, a good place to meet because nobody
who was anybody ever went there. "Come over to the
Schenley and I'll show you the decree." The music had
started. She shook her head, but patted his hand that lay
on the plush seat beside her knee. They went out in the
middle of the number. The music got on their nerves.
They stood talking a long while in the vestibule. Gertrude
looked miserable and haggard. She said she was in
wretched health and that her father and mother would
never consent to her marrying a man who didn't have as
much income as she did and she wished she was a poor
stenographer or telephone girl that could do as she liked
and that she loved him very much and would always love
him and thought she'd take to drink or dope or some-
u hing because life was just too terrible.
Ward was very cold and kept his jaw set square and
said that she couldn't really care for him and that as far
254
as he was concerned that was the end and that if they me)
they'd be good friends. He drove her out Highland
Avenue in the Stutz that wasn't paid for yet and showed
her the house he'd lived in when he first came to Pitts-
burgh and talked of going out West and starting an adver-
tising business of his own and finally left her at a friend's
house in Highland Park where she'd told her chauffeur
to pick her up at six.
He went back to the Schenley and had a cup of black
coffee sent up to his room and felt very bitter and settled
down to work on some copy he was getting out, saying,
"To hell with the bitch," all the time under his breath.
He didn't worry much about Gertrude in the months
that followed because a strike came on at Homestead and
there were strikers killed by the mine guards and certain
writers from New York and Chicago who were senti-
mentalists began to take a good deal of space in the press
with articles flaying the steel industry and the feudal con-
ditions in Pittsburgh as they called them, and the progres-
sives in Congress were making a howl, and it was rumored
that people wanting to make politics out of it were calling
for a congressional investigation. Mr. McGill and Ward
had dinner together all alone at the Schenley to talk about
the situation, and Ward said that what was necessary was
an entirely new line in the publicity of the industry. It was
the business of the industry to educate the public by care-
fully planned publicity extending over a term of years.
Mr. McGill was very much impressed and said he'd talk
around at directors' meetings about the feasibility of
founding a joint information bureau for the entire in*
dustry. Ward said he felt he ought to be at the head of it;
because he was just wasting his time at the Bessemer
Products j that had all simmered down to a routine job
that anybody could take care of. He talked of going tc
Chicago and starting an advertising agency of his own.
Mr. McGill smiled and stroked his steelgray mustache
255
and said, "Not so fast, young manj you stay around here
a while yet and on my honor you won't regret it," and
Ward said that he was willing, but here he'd been in
Pittsburgh five years and where was he getting?
The information bureau was founded, and Ward was
put in charge of the actual work at $10,000 a year and
began to play stocks a little with his surplus money, but
there were several men over him earning larger salaries
who didn't do anything but get in his way, and he was
very restless. He felt he ought to be married and have
an establishment of his own. He had many contacts in
different branches of the casting and steel and oil in-
dustries, and felt he ought to entertain. Giving dinners at
the Fort Pitt or the Schenley was expensive and somehow
didn't seem solid.
Then one morning he opened his newspaper to find that
Horace Staple had died of angina pectoris the day before
while going up in the elevator of the Carnegie Building,
and that Gertrude and her mother were prostrated at their
palatial residence in Sewickley. He immediately sat down
in the writing room, although it would make him late at
the office, and wrote Gertrude a note:
DEAREST GERTRUDE:
In this terrible moment of grief, allow me to remind
you that I think of you constantly. Let me know at once if
I can be of any use to you in any way. In the valley of
the shadow of death we must realize that the Great Giver
to whom we owe all love and wealth and all affection
around the jocund fireside is also the Grim Reaper . . .
After staring at the words, chewing the end of the pen
a minute, he decided that it was a bit thick about the Grim
Reaper and copied the note out again leaving out the
last sentence, signed it "Your Devoted Ward," and sent
it out to Sewickley by special messenger.
At noon he was just leaving for lunch when the office
256
boy told him there was a lady on his phone. It was Ger-
trude. Her voice was trembly but she didn't seem too
terribly upset. She begged him to take her out to dinner
that night somewhere where they wouldn't be seen because
the house and everything gave her the creeps and that
she'd go mad if she heard any more condolences. He told
her to meet him in the lobby of the Fort Pitt and he'd
run her out to some little place where they could be quiet
and talk.
That evening there was an icy driving wind. The sky
had been leaden all day with inky clouds driving out of
the northwest. She was so muffled up in furs that he didn't
recognize her when she came into the lobby. She held out
her hand to him and said, "Let's get out of here," as
soon as she came up to him. He said he knew a little road-
house on the way to McKeesport but thought the drive
would be too cold for her in his open roadster. She said>
"Let's go; do let's ... I love a blizzard." When she
got into the car she said in a trembling voice, "Glad to
see your old flame, Ward?" and he said, "God, Gertrude,
I am y but are you glad to see me?" And then she said ;
"Don't I look glad?" Then he started to mumble some-
thing about her father, but she said, "Please let's not talk
about that."
The wind was howling behind them all the way up the
Monongahela valley, with occasional lashing flurries of
snow. Tipples and bessemer furnaces and tall ranks of
chimneys stood out inky black against a low woolly sky
that caught all the glare of flaming metal and red slag
and the white of arcs and of locomotive headlights. At
one crossing they almost ran into a train of coalcars. Hei
hand tightened on his arm when the car skidded as he
put on the brakes.
"That was a narrow squeak," he said through clenched
teeth.
257
"I don't care. I don't care about anything tonight,"
she said.
He had to get out to crank the car as he had stalled the
motor. "It'll be all right if we don't freeze to death,"
he said. When he'd clambered back into the car she leaned
over and kissed him on the cheek. "Do you still want to
marry me? I love you, Ward." The motor raced as he
\urned and kissed her hard on the mouth the way he'd
fcissed Annabelle that day in the cottage at Ocean City.
"Of course I do, dear," he said.
The roadhouse was kept by a French couple, and Ward
talked French to them and ordered a chicken dinner and
red wine and hot whisky toddies to warm them up while
they were waiting. There was no one else in the road-
house and he had a table placed right in front of the gas-
logs at the end of a pink and yellow diningroom, dimly
lit, a long ghostly series of empty tables and long win-
dows blocked with snow. Through dinner he told Ger-
trude about his plans to form an agency of his own and
said he was only waiting to find a suitable partner and
he was sure that he could make it the biggest in the coun-
try, especially with this new unexploited angle of the rela-
tions between capital and labor. "Why, I'll be able to help
you a lot with capital and advice and all sorts of things,
once we're married," she said, looking at him with flushed
cheeks and sparkling eyes. "Of course you can, Gertrude."
She drank a great deal during dinner and wanted more
hot whiskies afterwards, and he kissed her a great deal and
ran his hand up her leg. She didn't seem to care what
she did and kissed him right in front of the roadhouse
keeper. When they went out to get in the car to go home
the wind was blowing sixty miles an hour and the snow
had blotted out the road and Ward said it would be
suicide to try to drive to Pittsburgh a night like that and
the roadhouse keeper said that he had a room all ready
for them and that monsieur et madame would be mad to
258
start out, particularly as they'd have the wind in theli
faces all the way. At that Gertrude had a moment of panic
and said she'd rather kill herself than stay. Then she
suddenly crumpled up in Ward's arms sobbing hysteri-
cally, "I want to stay, I want to stay, I love you so."
They called up the Staple house and talked to the night-
nurse who said that Mrs. Staple was resting more easily,
that she'd been given an opiate and was sleeping quietly
as a child, and Gertrude told her that when her mother
woke to tell her she was spending the night with her
friend Jane English and that she'd be home as soon as the
blizzard let them get a car on the road. Then she called
up Jane English and told her that she was distracted with
grief and had taken a room at the Fort Pitt to be alone*
And if her mother called to tell her she was asleep. Then
they called up the Fort Pitt and reserved a room in hef
name. Then they went up to bed. Ward was very happy
and decided he loved her very much and she seemed to
have done this sort of thing before because the first thing
she said was: "We don't want to make this a shotgun
wedding, do we, darling?"
Six months later they were married, and Ward re-
signed his position with the information bureau. He'd
had a streak of luck on the Street and decided to take q
year off for a honeymoon in Europe. It turned out that
the Staple fortune was all left to Mrs. Staple in trust
and that Gertrude would only have an annuity of fifteen
thousand until her mother died, but they were planning
to meet the old lady at Carlsbad and hoped to coax some
capital out of her for the new advertising agency. They
sailed in the bridal suite on the Deutschlcmd to Plymouth
and had a fine passage and Ward was only seasick one day.
259
THE CAMERA EYE (21)
that August it never rained a drop and it had hardly
lained in July the truck garden was in a terrible state
and all through the Northern Neck of Virginia it was
no use pulling cornfodder because the lower leaves were
all withered and curled up at the edges only the to-
matoes gave a crop
when they weren't using Rattler on the farm you'd
ride him (he was a gelding sorrel threeyear old and stum-
bled) through the tall woods of white pine and the sand-
bed roads on fire with trumpetvine and through swamps
dry and cracked crisscross like alligator hide
past the Morris's house where all the Morris chil-
dren looked dry and dusty and brown
and round along the rivershore past Harmony Hall
tvhere Sydnor a big sixfoot-six barefoot man with a long
face and a long nose with a big wart on his nose 'ud be
ashamblin' around and not knowin' what to do on account
of the drought and his wife sick and ready to have an-
other baby and the children with hoopin' cough and his
itomach trouble
and past Sandy Pint agin past the big pine
and Miss Emily 'ud be alookin' over the fence
tstandin' beside the crapemyrtle (Miss Emily wore poke
Vonnets and always had a few flowers and a couple of
260
broilers for sale and the best blood in the south flowed
in her veins Tancheford that's how we spell it but we pro-
nounce it Tofford if only the boys warnt so so noaccount
always drinkin' an' carryin' on down by the rivershoa '
an' runnin' whisky over from Mar'land instead o' fishin'
an' agoin' out blind drunk and gettin' the trapnets cut
up or lost Miss Emily took a drop herself now and
then but she always put a good face on things lookin*
over the picket fence astandin' by the crapemyrtle bush
visitin' with the people passin' along the road)
then down to Lynch's Pint where old Bowie Frank-
lin was (he warn't much account neither looked like a
bantam rooster Bowie Franklin did with his long scrawny
neck an' his ruptured walk couldn't do much work and he
didn't have money to spend on liquor so he just fed his
gray fowls that warn't much account and looked just like
Bowie did and hung round the wharf and sometimes
when the boat was in or there were some fisherman in the
crick on account of it blowin' so hard down the bay some-
body'd slip him a drink o' whisky an' he'd be a whol*
lay asleepin' it off)
Rattler sweat somethin' awful on account o' bein' fed
corn in this hot weather and the old saddle stank and
the horsedoctors buzzed round his flanks and it was time
for supper and you'd ride slowly home hating the god-
dam exhausted land and the drought that wouldn't let
the garden grow and the katydids and the dryflies jeering
261
out of the sapling gums and persimmons ghostly with
dust along the road and the sickleshaped beach where the
seanettles stung you when you tried to swim out and
the chiggers and the little scraps of talk about what was
going on up to the Hague or Warsaw or Pekatone and
\he phone down at the cottage that kept ringing when-
ever any farmer's wife along the line took up the receiver
to talk to any other farmer's wife and all down the line
you could hear the receivers click as they all ran to the
receiver to listen to what was said
and the land between the rivers was flat drained of
all strength by tobacco in the early Walter Raleigh Cap-
tain Jolyi Smith Pocahontas days but what was it before
the war that drained out the men and women?
and I rode Rattler the threeyearold sorrel gelding
who stumbled so much and I hated the suncaked hard-
pan and the clay subsoil and the soughing pines and the
noaccount gums and persimmonbushes and the brambles
there was only the bay you could like sparkling to the
horizon and the southeast wind that freshened every
afternoon and the white sails of bugeyes
NEWSREEL XV
lights go out as Home Sweet Home is played to patrons
V>w wages cause unrest, woman says
262
There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
With a heart that belongs to me
WANT BIG WAR OR NONE
the mannequin who is such a feature of the Paris race*
course surpasses herself in the launching of novelties. She
will put on the most amazing costume and carry it with per-
fect sangfroid. Inconsistency is her watchword
Three German staff officers who passed nearby were
nearly mobbed by enthusiastic people who insisted on shaking
their hands
Girl Steps On Match; Dress Ignited; Dies
And Mary -land
Was j airy -land
When she said that mine she'd be
DANUBE SHOTS SIGNAL FOR EARLY STRIFE
I'm against capital punishment as are all levelminded
women. I hate to think any woman would attend a hanging
It is a terrible thing for the state to commit murder
CZAR LOSES PATIENCE WITH AUSTRIA
panic in exodus from Carlsbad disappearance of Major
reveals long series of assassinations decollete in broad daylight
lingerie frocks that by no possible means could be associated
with the tub What shall be worn next? Paris cries choirboys
go camping professor to tour woods Belgrade Falls
GENERAL WAR NEAR
ASSASSIN SLAYS DEPUTY JAURES
LIVES TWO HOURS AFTER HE'S DEAD
I lost a friend and a pal when Garros gave up his life
but I expect to lose more friends in the profession before this
war is over
LOST TRUNKS SHOW UP IN LONDON
conventions of one sort or another are inevitably side-
stepped or trod upon during the languid or restful days of
summer, and because of the relaxation just now there are
several members of the younger set whose debutante days lie
in the distance of two or even three seasons hence enjoying
the glory of
BLACK POPE ALSO DEAD
large quantities of Virginia tobacco to be imported to
England especially for the use of British troops on the con-
tinent
There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
With a heart that belongs to me
PRINCE OF PEACE
Andrew Carnegie
was born in Dunfermline in Scotland,
came over to the States in an immigrant
ship worked as bobbinboy in a textile factory
fired boilers
clerked in a bobbin factory at $2.50 a week
ran round Philadelphia with telegrams as a West-
ern Union messenger
learned the Morse code was telegraph operator
on the Pennsy lines
was a military telegraph operator in the Civil War
end
always saved his pay 5
whenever he had a dollar he invested it.
Andrew Carnegie started out buying Adams Ex-
press and Pullman stock when they were in a slump;
264
he had confidence in railroads,
he had confidence in communications,
he had confidence in transportation,
he believed in iron.
Andrew Carnegie believed in iron, built bridge*
Bessemer plants blast furnaces rolling mills j
Andrew Carnegie believed in oilj
Andrew Carnegie believed in steel j
always saved his money
whenever he had a million dollars he invested it,
Andrew Carnegie became the richest man in the
world
and died
Bessemer Duquesne Rankin Pittsburgh Bethlehem Gary
Andrew Carnegie gave millions for peace
and libraries and scientific institutes and endow-
ments and thrift
whenever he made a billion dollars he endowed
an institution to promote universal peace
always
except in time of war.
THE CAMERA EYE (22)
all week the fog clung to the sea and the cliffs at
noon there was just enough warmth of the sun through
the fog to keep the salt cod drying on the flakes gray
flakes green sea gray houses white fog at noon there
was just enough sun to ripen bakeapple and wildpear on
the moorlands to warm the bayberry and sweetferr
265
mealtimes in the boardinghouse everybody waited for
the radio operators the radio operators could hardly
eat yes it was war
Will we go in? will Britain go in?
Obligations according to the treaty of . . . handed
the ambassador his f ass-ports every morning they put
out the cod on the flakes spreading them even in the faint
glow of the sun through the fog
a steamer blowing in the distance the lap of the
waves against piles along the seaweedy rocks scream of
gulls clatter of boardinghouse dishes
War declared exyedit . . . Big battle in the North
Sea German Fleet Destroyed BRITISH FLEET DE-
STROYED GERMAN SQUADRON, OFF CAPE
RACE loyal Newfoundlanders to the colors Port closed
at St. Johns Port aux Basques
and every evening they brought in the cod off the
flakes clatter of boardinghouse dishes and everybody wait-
ing for the radio operators
lap of the waves against the piles of the wharf,
scream of gulls circling and swooping white in the white
fog a steamer blowing in the distance and ever/ morn-
ing they spread out the cod on the flakes
266
J. WARD MOOREHOUSE
When Ward came back from his second honeymoon
abroad he was thirtytwo, but he looked older. He had
the capital and the connections and felt that the big mo-
ment had come. The war talk in July had decided him to
cut short his trip. In London he'd picked up a young man
named Edgar Robbins who was in Europe for Interna-
tional News. Edgar Robbins drank too much and was a
fool about the women, but Ward and Gertrude took him
around with them everywhere and confided in each other
that they wanted to straighten him out. Then one day
Robbins took Ward aside and said that he had syphilis
and would have to follow the straight and narrow. Ward
thought the matter over a little and offered him a job in
the New York office that he was going to open as soon as
he got home. They told Gertrude it was liver trouble
and she scolded him like a child when he took a drink and
on the boat back to America they felt he was completely
devoted to both of them. Ward didn't have to write any
copy after that and could put in all his time organizing
the business. Old Mrs. Staple had been induced to put
fifty thousand dollars into the firm. Ward rented an
office at 100 Fifth Avenue, fitted it up with Chinese porce-
lain vases and cloisonne ashtrays from Vantine's and had
a tigerskin rug in his private office. He served tea in the
English style every afternoon and put himself in the tele-
phone book as J. Ward Moorehouse, Public Relations
Counsel. While Robbins was drafting the literature to be
sent out, Ward went to Pittsburgh and Chicago and
Bethlehem and Philadelphia to reestablish contacts.
In Philadelphia he was walking into the lobby of the
Bellevue Stratford when he met Annabelle Marie. She
greeted him amiably and said she'd heard of him and his
publicity business and they had dinner together, talking
267
about old times. "You certainly have improved," Anna-
belle Marie kept saying. Ward could see that she re-
gretted the divorce a little but he felt he couldn't say the
same for her. The lines on her face had deepened and
she didn't finish her sentences, and had a parrot screech
to her voice. She was tremendously made up and he
wondered if she took drugs. She was busy divorcing Beale
who she said had turned homosexual on her. Ward said
dryly that he had married again and was very happy.
"Who wouldn't be with the Staple fortune back of them?"
she said. Her little air of ownership irritated Ward and
he excused himself right after dinner, saying he had work
to do. Annabelle looked at him through halfclosed eyes
with her head to one side, said "I wish you luck," and
went up in the hotel elevator in a shrill cackle of laughter.
Next day he took the Pennsylvania to Chicago, travel-
ing in a drawing room. Miss Rosenthal, his secretary,
and Morton, his English valet, went with him. He had
his dinner in the drawing room with Miss Rosenthal, a
sallowfaced girl, shrewd and plain, who he felt was de-
voted to his interests. She had been with him in Pitts-
burgh with Bessemer Products. When the coffee had been
cleared away and Morton had poured them each out a
swallow of brandy that Miss Rosenthal giggled over a
great deal declaring it would go to her head, he started
to dictate. The train rumbled and lurched and now and
then he could smell coalsmoke and the hot steamygreasy
body of the engine up ahead, hot shiny steel charging
throught the dark Appalachians. He had to talk loudly to
be heard. The rumble of the train made the cords of his
voice Vibrate. He forgot everything in his own words
. . . American industry like a steamengine, like a high-
power locomotive on a great express train charging
through the night of old individualistic methods. . . .
What does a steamengine require? Cooperation, coordi-
268
nation of the inventor's brain, the promoter's brain thai
made the development of these highpower products pos-
sible . . . Coordination of capital, the storedup energy
of the race in the form of credit intelligently directed
. . . labor, the prosperous contented American working
man to whom the unprecedented possibilities of capital
collected in great corporations had given the full dinner-
pail, cheap motor transport, insurance, short working hours
... a measure of comfort and prosperity unequaled be-
fore or since in the tragic procession of recorded history
or in the known regions of the habitable globe.
But he had to stop dictating because he found he'd
lost his voice. He sent Miss Rosenthal to bed and went
to bed himself, but he couldn't sleep; words, ideas, plans,
stockquotations kept unrolling in endless tickertape in his
head.
Next afternoon at the LaSalle he had a call from
Judge Bowie C. Planet. Ward sat waiting for him to
come up, looking out at the very pale blue Lake Michi-
gan sky. In his hand he had a little filing card on which
was written:
Planet, Bowie C . . . Tennessee Judge, married Elsie
Wilson Denver; small copper lead interests. . . . Anaconda?
unlucky oil speculator . . . member one-horse lawfirm Planet
and Wilson, Springfield, Illinois.
"All right, Miss Rosenthal," he said when there was
a knock at the door. She went off into the other room
with the filing card.
Morton opened the door to let in a roundfaced man
with a black felt hat and a cigar.
"Hello, judge," Ward said, getting to his feet and
holding out his hand. "How's everything? Won't you sit
down?" Judge Planet advanced slowly into the room,
He had a curious rolling gait as if his feet hurt him.
They shook hands, and Judge Planet found himself sit-
269
eing facing the steelbright light that came through the
big windows back of Moorehouse's desk.
"Won't you have a cup of tea, sir?" asked Morton,
who advanced slowly with a tray glittering with silver
teathings. The judge was so surprised that he let the
long ash that he'd been carrying on his cigar to prove
to himself he was sober drop off on his bulging vest.
The judge's face remained round and bland. It was the
face of a mucker from which all the lines of muckerdom
had been carefully massaged away. The judge found him-
self sipping a cup of lukewarm tea with milk in it.
"Clears the head, judge, clears the head," said Ward,
whose cup was cooling untasted before him.
Judge Planet puffed silently on his cigar.
"Well, sir," he said, "I'm very glad to see you."
At that moment Morton announced Mr. Barrow, a
skinny man with popeyes and a big adamsapple above a
stringy necktie. He had a nervous manner of speaking
and sitioked too many cigarettes. He had the look of being
stained with nicotine all over, face, fingers, teeth yellow.
On Ward's desk there was another little filing card
that read:
Barrow, G. H., labor connections, reformer type. Once
Bee. Bro. locomotive engineers; unreliable.
As he got to his feet he turned the card over. After
he'd shaken hands with Mr. Barrow, placed him facing
the light and encumbered him with a cup of tea, he began
to talk.
"Capital and labor," he began in a slow careful voice
as if dictating, "as you must have noticed, gentlemen, in
the course of your varied and useful careers, capital and
labor, those two great forces of our national life neither
of which can exist without the other are growing further
and further apart j any cursory glance at the newspapers
will tell you that. Well, it has occurred to me that one
270
reason for this unfortunate state of affairs has been th&
lack of any private agency that might fairly present the
situation to the public. The lack of properly distributed
information is the cause of most of the misunderstandings
in this world . . . The great leaders of American capital,
as you probably realize, Mr. Barrow, are firm believers
in fairplay and democracy and are only too anxious to
give the worker his share of the proceeds of industry if
they can only see their way to do so in fairness to the
public and the investor. After all, the public is the in-
vestor whom we all aim to serve."
"Sometimes," said Mr. Barrow, "but hardly . . ."
"Perhaps you gentlemen would have a whisky and
soda." Morton stood sleekhaired between them with a
tray on which were decanters, tall glasses full of ice and
some open splits of Apollinaris.
"I don't mind if I do," said Judge Planet.
Morton padded out, leaving them each with a clinking
glass. Outside the sky was beginning to glow with evening
a little. The air was winecolored in the room. The glasses
made things chattier. The judge chewed on the end of a
fresh cigar.
"Now, let's see if Pm getting you right, Mr. Moore-
house. You feel that with your connections with advertis-
ing and big business you want to open up a new field in
the shape of an agency to peaceably and in a friendly
fashion settle labor disputes. Just how would you go
about it?"
"I am sure that organized labor would cooperate in
such a movement," said G. H. Barrow, leaning forward
on the edge of his chair. "If only they could be sure that
. . . well, that . . ."
"That they weren't getting the wool pulled over their
eyes," said the judge, laughing,
"Exactly."
"Well, gentlemen, Pm going to put my cards right
271
down on the table. The great motto upon which I have
built up my business has always been cooperation."
"I certainly agree with you there," said the judge,
laughing again and slapping his knee. "The difficult ques-
tion is how to bring about that happy state."
"Well, the first step is to establish contact . . . Right
at this moment under our very eyes we see friendly contact
being established."
"I must admit," said G. H. Barrow with an uneasy
laugh, "I never expected to be drinking a highball with
a member of the firm of Planet and Wilson."
The judge slapped his fat thigh. "You mean on account
of the Colorado trouble . . . ? You needn't be afraid. I
won't eat you, Mr. Barrow . . . But, frankly, Mr.
Moorehouse, this doesn't seem to me to be just the time
to launch your little project."
"This war in Europe . . ." began G. H. Barrow.
"Is Afnerica's great opportunity . . . You know the
proverb about when thieves fall out . . . Just at present
I admit we find ourselves in a moment of doubt and
despair, but as soon as American business recovers from
the first shock and begins to pull itself together . . .
Why, gentlemen, I just came back from Europe ; my wife
and I sailed the day Great Britain declared war ... I
ran tell you it was a narrow squeak ... Of one thing I
can assure you with comparative certainty, whoever wins,
Europe will be economically ruined. This war is America's
great opportunity. The very fact of our neutrality . . ."
"I don't see who will be benefited outside of the muni-
tionsmakers," said G. H. Barrow.
Wa,rd talked a long time, and then looked at his watch,
that lay on the desk before him, and got to his feet. "Gen-
tlemen, I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me. I have just
time to dress for dinner." Morton was already standing
beside the desk with their hats. It had gotten dark in the
room. "Lights, please, Morton," snapped Ward. As they
272
went out Judge Planet said, "Well, it's been a very pleas
ant chat, Mr. Moorehouse, but Pm afraid your schemes
are a little idealistic. " "Pve rarely heard a business man
speak with such sympathy and understanding of the laboi
situation," said G. H. Barrow. "I only voice the senti-
ments of my clients," said Ward as he bowed them out
Next day he spoke at a Rotary Club luncheon on "Laboi
Troubles: A Way Out." He sat at a long table in the
big hotel banquet hall full of smells of food and cigarettes,
and scurrying waiters. He spread the food a little round
his plate with a fork, answering when he was spoken to,
joking a little with Judge Planet, who sat opposite him,
trying to formulate sentences out of the haze of phrases
in his mind. At last it was time for him to get to his feet.
He stood at the end of the long table with a cigar in his
hand, looking at the two rows of heavyjowled faces turned
towards him.
"When I was a boy down along the Delaware . . ."
He stopped. A tremendous clatter of dishes was coming
from behind the swinging doors through which waiters
were still scuttling with trays. The man who had gone to
the door to make them keep quiet came stealthily back.
You could hear his shoes creak across the parquet floor.
Men leaned forward along the table. Ward started off
again. He was going on now; he hardly knew what he
was saying, but he had raised a laugh out of them. The
tension relaxed. "American business has been slow to take
advantage of the possibilities of modern publicity . . ,
education of the public and of employers and employees,
all equally servants of the public . . . Cooperation . . .
stockownership giving the employee an interest in the in-
dustry . . . avoiding the grave dangers of socialism and
demagoguery and worse ... It is in such a situation that
the public relations counsel can step in in a quiet manl)
way and say, Look here, men, let's talk this over eyf
to eye . . . But his main importance is in times of in-
273
Justrial peace . . . when two men are sore and just about
to hit one another is no time to preach public service to
them . . , The time for an educational campaign and an
oral crusade that will drive home to the rank and file of
the mighty colossus of American uptodate industry is
right now, today."
There was a great deal of clapping. He sat down and
sought out Judge Planet's face with his blue-eyed smile.
Judge Planet looked impressed.
NEWSREEL XVI
the Philadelphian had completed the thirteenth lap and
was two miles away on the fourteenth. His speed it is
thought must have been between a hundred and a hundred
and ten miles an hour. His car wavered for a flash and then
careered to the left. It struck a slight elevation and jumped.
When the car alighted it was on four wheels atop of a high
embankment. Its rush apparently was unimpeded. Wishart
turned the car off the embankment and attempted to regain
the road. The speed would not permit the slight turn neces-
sary, however, and the car plowed through the frontyard
of a farmer residing on the course. He escaped one tree but
was brought up sideways against another. The legs being
impeded by the steering gear they were torn from the trunk
ns he was thrown through
/ want to go
To Mexico
Under the stars and strifes to fight the foe
SNAPS CAMERA; ENDS LIFE
gay little chairs and tables stand forlornly on the side-
walk for there are few people feeling rich enough to take
even a small drink
274
PLUMBER HAS 100 LOVES
BRINGS MONKEYS HOME
missing rector located losses in U S crop report let bab)
go naked if you want it to be healthy if this mystery is ever
solved you will find a woman at the bottom of the mystery
said Patrolman E. B. Garfinkle events leading up to the
present war run continuously back to the French Revolution
UNIVERSITY EXPELS GUM
they seemed to stagger like drunken men suddenly hit
between the eyes after which they made a run for us shout-
ing some outlandish cry we could not make out
And the ladies of the harem
Knew exactly how to wear *em
In oriental Baghdad long ago.
THE CAMERA EYE (23)
this friend of mother's was a very lovely woman with
lovely blond hair and she had two lovely daughters
the blond one married an oil man who was bald as the
palm of your hand and went to live in Sumatra the
dark one married a man from Bogota and it was a long
trip in a dugout canoe up the Magdalena River and the
natives were Indians and slept in hammocks and had
such horrible diseases and when the woman had a baby
it was the husband who went to bed and used poisoned
arrows and if you got a wound in that country it never
healed but festered white and maturated and the dugout
275
tipped over so easily into the warm steamy water full of
ravenous fish that if you had a scratch on you or an un-
healed wound it was the smell of blood attracted them
sometimes they tore people to pieces
it was eight weeks up the Magdalena River in dug-
out canoes and then you got to Bogota
poor Jonas Fenimore came home from Bogota a
very sick man and they said it was elephantiasis he
was a good fellow and told stories about the steamy jungle
and the thunderstorms and the crocodiles and the hor-
rible diseases and the ravenous fish and he drank up all
the whisky in the sideboard and when he went in swim-
ming you could see that there were brown thick blotches
on his legs like the scale on an apple and he liked to
drink whisky and he talked about Colombia becoming
one of the richest countries in the world and oil and rare
Woods for veneering and tropical butterflies
but the trip up the Magdalena River was too long
and too hot and too dangerous and he died
they said it was whisky and elephantiasis
and the Magdalena River
ELEANOR STODDARD
When they first arrived in. New York, Eleanor, who'd
never been East before, had to rely on Eveline for every-
276
thing. Freddy met them at the train and took them to get
rooms at the Brevoort. He said it was a little far from
the theater but much more interesting than an uptown
hotel, all the artists and radicals and really interesting
people stayed there and it was very French. Going down
in the taxi he chattered about the lovely magnificent play
and his grand part, and what a fool the director Ben
Freelby was, and how one of the backers had only put up
half the money he'd promised ; but that Josephine Gil-
christ, the business manager, had the sum virtually lined
up now and the Shuberts were interested and they would
open out of town at Greenwich exactly a month from
today. Eleanor looked out at Fifth Avenue and the chilly
Spring wind blowing women's skirts, a man chasing a
derby hat, the green buses, taxicabs, the shine on shop-
windows; after all, this wasn't so very different from Chi-
cago. But at lunch at the Brevoort it was very different,
Freddy seemed to know so many people and introduced
them to everybody as if he was very proud of them. They
were all names she had heard or read of in the book
column of The Daily News. Everybody seemed very
friendly. Freddy talked French to the waiter and the hoi-
landaise sauce was the most delicious she had ever eaten.
That afternoon on the way to rehearsal, Eleanor had
her first glimpse of Times Square out of the taxicab
window. In the dark theater they found the company
sitting waiting for Mr. Freelby. It was very mysterious,
with just a single big electric light bulb hanging over the
stage and the set for some other play looking all flat and
dusty.
A grayhaired man with a broad sad face and big circles
under his eyes came in. That was the famous Benjamin
Freelby j he had a tired fatherly manner and asked
Eveline and Eleanor up to his apartment to dinner with
Freddy that night so that they could talk at their ease
about the settings and the costumes. Eleanor was relieved
that he was so kind and tired and thought that after all
she and Eveline were much better dressed than any of
those New York actresses. Mr. Freelby made a great fuss
about there being no lights j did they expect him to re-
hearse in the dark? The stagemanager with the manu-
script in his hand ran round looking for the electrician
and somebody was sent to call up the office. Mr. Freelby
walked about the stage and fretted and fumed and said,
"This is monstrous." When the electrician arrived wiping
his mouth with the back of his hand, and finally switched
on the houselights and some spots, Mr. Freelby had to
have a table and chair and a reading light on the table.
Nobody seemed to be able to find a chair the right height
for him. He kept fuming up and down, tugging at his
coarse gray hair and saying, "This is monstrous." At last
he got settled and he said to Mr. Stein, the stagemanager,
a lanky man who sat in another chair near him, "We'll
start with act one, Mr. Stein. Has everybody their parts?"
Several actors got on the stage and stood around and
the rest talked in low voices. Mr. Freelby "shushed" them
and said, "Please, children, we've got to be quiet," and
the rehearsal was in progress.
From that time on everything was a terrible rush.
Eleanor never seemed to get to bed. The scenepainter,
Mr. Bridgeman, at whose studios the scenery was painted
found objections to every thing 5 it turned out that some-
one else, a pale young man with glasses who worked for
Mr. Bridgeman would have to design the scenery from
their sketches and that they couldn't have their names in
the program at all except for the costumes on account of
not belonging to the scene designers' union. When they
weren't wrangling at the Bridgeman Studios they were
dashing about the streets in taxicabs with samples of ma-
terials. They never seemed to get to bed before four or
five in the morning. Everybody was so temperamental and
278
Eleanor had quite a siege each week to get a check out
of Miss Gilchrist.
When the costumes were ready, all in early Victorian
style, and Eleanor and Freddy and Mr. Freelby went to
see them at the costumers' they really looked lovely but
the costumers wouldn't deliver them without a check and
nobody could find Miss Gilchrist and everybody was run-
ning round in taxis and at last late that night Mr. Freelby
said he'd give his personal check. The transfer company
had its trucks at the door with the scenery but wouldn't
let the flats be carried into the theater until they had a
check. Mr. Bridgeman was there, too, saying his check
had come back marked no funds and he and Mr. Freelby
had words in the boxoffice. At last Josephine Gilchrist
appeared in a taxi with five hundred dollars in bills on
account for Mr. Bridgeman and for the transfer company.
Everybody smiled when they saw the crisp orangebacked
bills. It was a great relief.
When they had made sure that the scenery was going
into the theater, Eleanor and Eveline and Freddy Sear-
geant and Josephine Gilchrist and Mr. Freelby all went
to Bustanoby's to get a bite to eat and Mr. Freelby set
them up to a couple of bottles of Pol Roger and Josephine
Gilchrist said that she felt it in her bones that the play
would be a hit and that didn't often happen with her,
and Freddy said the stagehands liked it and that was
always a good sign and Mr. Freelby said Ike Gold, the
Shuberts' officeboy, had sat through the run-through with
the tears running down his cheeks, but nobody knew whaf
theater they'd open in after a week in Greenwich and
a week in Hartford and Mr. Freelby said he'd go and
talk to J. J. about it personally first thing in the morning.
Friends from Chicago called up who wanted to get
into the dress rehearsal. It made Eleanor feel quite im-
portant, especially when Sally Emerson called up. The
dress rehearsal dragged terribly, half the scenery hadn't
come and the Wessex villagers didn't have any costumes,
but everybody said that it was a good sign to have a bad
dress rehearsal.
Opening night Eleanor didn't get any supper and had
only a half an hour to dress in. She was icy all over with
excitement. She hoped the new chartreuse tulle evening
dress she'd charged at Tappe's looked well but she didn't
have time to worry. She drank a cup of black coffee and
it seemed as if the taxi never would get uptown. When
she got to the theater the lobby was all lit up and full
of silk hats and bare powdered backs and diamonds and
eveningwraps and all the firstnighters looked at each other
and waved to their friends and talked about who was
there and kept trooping up the aisle half way through the
first act. Eleanor and Eveline stood stiffly side by side in
the back of the theater and nudged each other when a
costume looked good and agreed that the actors were too
dreadful and that Freddy Seargeant was the worst. At
the party that Sally Emerson gave for them afterwards
at the duplex apartment of her friends the Careys every-
body said that the scenery and costumes were lovely and
that they were sure the play would be a great success.
Eleanor and Eveline were the center of everything and
Eleanor was annoyed because Eveline drank a little too
much and was noisy. Eleanor met a great many interest-
ing people and decided that she'd stay on in New York
whatever happened.
The play failed after two weeks and Eleanor and
Eveline never did get seven hundred and fifty dollars
chat the management owed them. Eveline went back to
Chicago, and Eleanor rented an apartment on Eighth
Street. Sally Emerson had decided that Eleanor had great
talent and got her husband to put up a thousand dollars
to start her New York decorating business on. Eveline
Hutchins' father was sick, but she wrote from Chicago
that she'd be on whenever she could.
280
While Sally Emerson was in New York that summer
Eleanor went out with her all the time and got to know
many rich people. It was through Alexander Parsons that
she got the job to decorate the house the J. Ward Moore-
houses were building near Great Neck. Mrs. Moorehouse
walked round the unfinished house with her. She was a
washedout blonde who kept explaining that she'd do the
decorating herself only she hadn't the strength since her
operation. She'd been in bed most of the time since her
second child was born and told Eleanor all about her
operation. Eleanor hated to hear about women's com-
plaints and nodded coldly from time to time, making
businesslike comments about furniture and draperies and
now and then jotting notes on the decoration down on a
piece of paper. Mrs. Moorehouse asked her to stay to
lunch in the little cottage where they were living until
they got the house finished. The little cottage was a large
house in Dutch Colonial style full of pekinese dogs and
maids in flounced aprons and a butler. As they went into
the diningroom Eleanor heard a man's voice in an ad-
joining room and smelt cigarsmoke. At lunch she was
introduced to Mr. Moorehouse and a Mr. Perry. They
had been playing golf and were talking about Tampico
and oil wells. Mr. Moorehouse offered to drive her back
to town after lunch and she was relieved to get away from
Mrs. Moorehouse. She hadn't had a chance to talk about
her ideas for decorating the new house yet, but, going in,
Mr. Moorehouse asked her many questions about it and
they laughed together about how ugly most people's
houses were, and Eleanor thought that it was very inter-
esting to find a business man who cared about those things.
Mr. Moorehouse suggested that she prepare the estimates
and bring them to his office. "How will Thursday do? r
Thursday would be fine and he had no date that day and
they'd have a bite of lunch together if she cared to.
"Mealtime's the only time I get to devote to the things
281
of the spirit," he said with a blue twinkle in his eye, so
they both said "Thursday" again when he let Eleanor
out at the corner of Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue and
Eleanor thought he looked as if he had a sense of humor
jid thought she liked him much better than Tom Custis.
Eleanor found that she had to have many interviews
with Ward Moorehouse as the work went on. She had
him to dinner at her place on Eighth Street and she had
her Martinique maid Augustine cook* saute chicken with
red peppers and tomatoes. They had cocktails with ab-
sinthe in them and a bottle of very good burgundy and
Ward Moorehouse enjoyed sitting back on the sofa and
talking and she enjoyed listening and began to call him
J. W. After that they were friends quite apart from the
work on the house at Great Neck.
He told Eleanor about how he'd been a boy in Wil-
mington, Delaware, and the day the militia fired on the
old darkey and thought it was the Spanish fleet and about
his unhappy .first marriage and about how his second wife
was an invalid and about his work as a newspaperman
and in advertising offices, and Eleanor, in a gray dress
with just a touch of sparkly something on one shoulder
and acting the discreet little homebody, led him on to
explain about the work he was doing keeping the public
informed about the state of relations between capital and
labor and stemming the propaganda of sentimentalists
s and reformers, upholding American ideas against crazy
German socialistic ideas and the panaceas of discontented
dirtfarmers in the Northwest. Eleanor thought his ideas
were very interesting, but she liked better to hear about
the stockexchange and how the Steel Corporation was
founded and the difficulties of the oil companies in Mex-
ico, and Hearst and great fortunes. She asked him about
some small investment she was making, and he looked up
at her with twinkly blue eyes in a white square face where
prosperity was just beginning to curve over the square-
282
ness of the jowl and said, "Miss Stoddard, may I have
the honor or being your financial adviser?"
Eleanor thought his slight southern accent and old-
school gentlemanly manners very attractive. She wished
she had a more distinctivelooking apartment and that
she'd kept some of the crystal chandeliers instead of sell-
ing them. It was twelve o'clock before he left, saying he'd
had a very pleasant evening but that he must go to answer
some longdistance calls. Eleanor sat before the mirror
at her dressingtable rubbing cold cream on her face by the
light of two candles. She wished her neck wasn't so
scrawny and wondered how it would be to start getting
a henna rinse now and then when she got her hair washed.
THE CAMERA EYE (24)
raining in historic Quebec it was raining on the
Chateau in historic Quebec where gallant Wolfe in 9
threecornered hat sat in a boat in a lithograph and read
Gray's "Elegy" to his men gallant Wolfe climbing up the
cliffs to meet gallant Montcalm in a threecornered hat on
the plains of Abraham with elaborate bows and lace ruffles
on the uniforms in the hollow squares and the gallantry
and the command to fire and the lace rufftes ruined in
the mud on the plains of Abraham
but the Chateau was the Chateau Frontenac world-
famous hostelry historic in the gray rain in historic gray
Quebec and we were climbing up from the Saguenay Rhrer
Scenic Steamer Greatest Scenic Route in the World the
283
Chautauqua Lecturer and his wife and the baritone from
Athens Kentucky where they have a hill called the Acrop-
olis exactly the way it is in Athens Greece and culture
and a reproduction of the Parthenon exactly the way it
is in Athens Greece
stony rain on stony streets and out onto the platform
and the St. Lawrence people with umbrellas up walking
back and forth on the broad wooden rainy platform look-
ing over the slatepointed roofs of Quebec and the coal-
wharves and the grainelevators and the ferries and the
Empress of Ireland with creamcolored funnels steam-
ing in from the Other Side and Levis and green hills
across the river and the Isle of Orleans green against
green and the stony rain on the shining gray slatepointed
roofs of Quebec
but the Chautauqua Lecturer wants his dinner and
quarrels with his wife and makes a scene in the historic
diningroom of the historic Chateau Frontenac and the
headwaiter comes and the Chautauqua Lecturer's a big
thick curlyhaired angry man with a voice used to bawling
in tents about the Acropolis just like it is in Athens Greece
and the Parthenon just like it is in Athens Greece and the
Winged Victory and the baritone is too attentive to the
umall boy who wants to get away and wishes he hadn't
said he'd come and wants to shake the whole bunch
but it's raining in historic Quebec and walking down
the street alone with the baritone he kept saying about
284
how there were bad girls in a town like this and boys
shouldn't go with bad girls and the Acropolis and the
bel canto and the Parthenon and voice culture and the
beautiful statues of Greek boys and the Winged Victory
and the beautiful statues
but I finally shook him and went out on the cars
to see the falls of Montmorency famous in song and
story and a church full of crutches left by the sick in St.
Anne de Beaupre
and the gray rainy streets full of girls
JANEY
In the second year of the European War Mr. Carroll
sold out his interest in the firm of Dreyfus and Carroll
to Mr. Dreyfus and went home to Baltimore. There was
a chance that the state Democratic convention would
nominate him for Governor. Janey missed him in the office
and followed all the reports of Maryland politics with
great interest. When Mr. Carroll didn't get the nomina-
tion Janey felt quite sorry about it. Round the office there
got to be more and more foreigners and talk there took on
a distinctly pro-German trend that she didn't at all like.
Mr. Dreyfus was very polite and generous with his em-
ployees but Janey kept thinking of the ruthless invasion
of Belgium and the horrible atrocities and didn't like to
be working for a Hun, so she began looking round for
another job. Business was slack in Washington and she
knew it was foolish to leave Mr. Dreyfus but she couldn't
help it so she went to work for Smedley Richards, a real'
285
estate operator on Connecticut Avenue, at a dollar less a
week. Mr. Richards was a stout man who talked a great
deal about the gentleman's code and made love to her.
For a couple of weeks she kept him off, but the third week
he took to drinking and kept putting his big beefy hands
on her and borrowed a dollar one day and at the end of
the week said he wouldn't be able to pay her for a day
or two, so she just didn't go back and there she was out
of a job.
It was scary being out of a job} she dreaded having
to go back to live at her mother's with the boarders and
her sisters' noisy ways. She read the ads in The Star and
The Post every day and answered any she saw, but some-
one had always been there ahead of her, although she
got to the address the first, thing in the morning. She
even put her name down at an employment agency. The
woman at the desk was a stout woman with bad teeth and
A mean smile, she made Janey pay two dollars as a regis-
tration fee and showed her the waiting list of expert
stenographers she had and said that girls ought to marry
and that trying to earn their own living was stuff and
nonsense because it couldn't be done. The bad air and the
pinched faces of the girls waiting on benches made her
feel quite sick so she went and sat a little while in the
sun in Lafayette Square getting her courage up to tell
Alice, who was still at Mrs. Robinson's, that she hadn't
found a job yet. A young man with a red face sat down
beside her and tried to start talking to her, so she had to
walk on. She went into a drugstore and had a chocolate
milk, but the sodajerker tried to kid her a little, and she
burst out crying. The sodajerker looked scared to death
and said, "Beg pardon, miss, I didn't mean no offence."
Her eyes were still red when she met Alice coming out
of the Riggs Building j Alice insisted on paying for a
thirtyfive cent lunch for her at The Brown Teapot, al-
though Janey couldn't eat a thing. Alice had an Itold-
286
youso manner that made Janey mad, and she said that it
was too late now for her to try to go back to Mrs. Robin-
son's because Mrs. Robinson didn't have work for the
girls she had there as it was. That afternoon Janey felt
too discouraged to look for work and roamed round the
Smithsonian Institution trying to interest herself in the
specimens of Indian beadwork and war canoes and totem-
poles, but everything gave her the creeps and she went
up to the room and had a good cry. She thought of Joe
and Jerry Burnham and wondered why she never got
letters from them, and thought of the poor soldiers in
the trenches and felt very lonely. By the time Alice came
home she'd washed her face and put on powder and rouge
.and was bustling briskly about their room; she joked
Alice about the business depression and said that if she
couldn't get a job in Washington she'd go to Baltimore or
New York or Chicago to get a job. Alice said that sort of
talk made her miserable. They went out and ate a ham
sandwich and a glass of milk for supper to save money.
All that fall Janey went round trying to get work,
She got so that the first thing she was conscious of in the
morning when she woke up was the black depression of
having nothing to do. She ate Christmas dinner with her
mother and sisters and told them that she'd been prom-
ised twentyfive a week after the first of the year to keep
them from sympathizing with her. She wouldn't give
them the satisfaction.
At Christmas she got a torn paper package from Joe
through the mail with an embroidered kimono in it. She
went through the package again and again hoping to find
a letter, but there was nothing but a little piece of paper
with Merry Xmas scrawled on it. The package was post-
marked St. Nazaire in France and was stamped OUVERT
PAR LA CENSURE. It made the war seem very near to her
and she hoped Joe wasn't in any danger over there.
One icy afternoon in January when Janey was lying
287
on the bed reading The Old Wives' Tale, she heard the
voice of Mrs. Baghot, the landlady, calling her. She was
afraid it was about the rent that they hadn't paid that
month yet, but it was Alice on the phone. Alice said for
her to come right over because there was a man calling
up who wanted a stenographer for a few days and none of
the girls were in and she thought Janey might just as
well go over and see if she wanted the job. "What's the
address? I'll go right over." Alice told her the address.
Her voice was stuttering excitedly at the other end of the
line. "I'm so scared ... if Mrs. Robinson finds out she'll
be furious." "Don't worry, and I'll explain it to the
man," said Janey.
The man was at the Hotel Continental on Pennsyl-
vania Avenue. He had a bedroom and a parlor littered
with typewritten sheets and papercovered pamphlets. He
wore shellrimmed spectacles that he kept pulling off and
putting on as if he wasn't sure whether he saw better
with them or without them. He started to dictate without
looking at Janey, as soon as she'd taken off her hat and
gotten pad and pencil out of her handbag. He talked in
jerks as if delivering a speech, striding back and forth on
long thin legs all the while. It was some sort of article
to be marked "For immediate release," all about capital
and labor and the eighthour day and the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers. It was with a little feeling of
Worry that she worked out that he must be a laborleader.
When he'd finished dictating he went out of the room
abruptly and told her please to type it out as soon as she
could that he'd be back in a minute. There was a Reming-
ton on the table but she had to change the ribbon and
typed in a great hurry for fear he would come back and
find her not finished. Then she sat there waiting, with
the article and the carbon copies all piled on the table
looking neat and crisp. An hour passed and he didn't
come. Janey got restless, roamed about the room, looked
288
into the pamphlets. They were all about labor and eco-
nomics and didn't interest her. Then she looked out of
the window and tried to crane her neck out to see what
time it said by the clock on the postoffice tower. But she
couldn't see it, so she went over to the phone to ask the
office if Mr. Barrow was in the hotel please to tell him his
manuscript was ready. The desk said it was five o'clock and
that Mr. Barrow hadn't come in yet, although he'd left
word that he'd be back immediately. As she set down the
receiver she knocked a letter on lavender paper off the
stand. When she picked it up, as she had nothing to do
and was tired of playing naughts and crosses with herself,
she read it. She was ashamed of herself but once she'd
started she couldn't stop.
DEAR G. H.
I hate to do this but honestly, kid, I'm, in a hell of a fix
for jack. You've got to come across with two thousand
iron men ($2000) or else I swear I'll stop behaving like
a lady and raise the roof. I hate to do this but I know
you've got it or else I wouldn't plague you like I do. 1
mean business this time
the little girl you used to love
QUEENIE
Janey blushed and put the letter back exactly the way
it had been. Weren't men awful, always some skeleton in
the closet. It was dark outside and Janey was getting
hungry and uneasy when the telephone rang. It was Mr.
Barrow, who said that he was sorry he'd kept her waiting
and that he was at the Shoreham in Mr. Moorehouse's
suite and would she mind coming right over no, not to
bring the manuscript but he had some more dictation
for her right there, J. Ward Moorehouse it was, sh$
must know the name. Janey didn't know the name, but
the idea of going to take dictation at the Shoreham quite
thrilled her and this letter and everything. This was some
289
excitement like when she used to go round with Jerry
Burnham. She put on her hat and coat, freshened up her
face a little in the mirror over the mantel and walked
through the stinging January evening to the corner of F
and 1 4th where she stood waiting for the car. She wished
she had a muff 5 the lashing wind bit into her hands in
her thin gloves and into her legs just above the shoetops.
She wished she was a wealthy married woman living in
Chevy Chase and waiting for her limousine to come by
and take her home to her husband and children and a
roaring open fire. She remembered Jerry Burnham and
wondered if she could have married him if she'd handled
it right. Or Johnny Edwards $ he'd gone to New York
when she'd refused him, and was making big money in a
broker's office. Or Morris Byer. But he was a Jew. This
year she hadn't had any beaux. She was on the shelf 5 that
was about, the size of it.
At the corner before the Shoreham she got out of the
car. The lobby was warm. Welldressed people stood
around talking in welldressed voices. It smelt of hothouse
flowers. At the desk they told her to go right up to apart-
ment number eight on the first floor. A man with a wrin-
kled white face under a flat head of sleek black hair opened
the door. He wore a sleek black suit and had a discreet
skating walk. She said she was the stenographer for Mr.
Barrow and he beckoned her into the next room. She stood
at the door waiting for someone to notice her. At the end
of the room there was a big fireplace where two logs
blazed. In front of it was a broad table piled with maga-
zines, newspapers, and typewritten manuscripts. On one
end stood a silver teaservice, on the other a tray with
decanters, a cocktail shaker and glasses. Everything had
a, wellpolished silvery gleam, chairs, tables, teaset, and
the watchchain and the teeth and sleek prematurely gray
hair of the man who stood with his back to the fire.
Immediately she saw him Janey thought he must be
a fine man. Mr. Barrow and a little baldheaded man sat
in deep chairs on either side of the fireplace listening to
what he said with great attention.
"It's a very important thing for the future of this
country," he was saying in a low earnest voice. "I can
assure you that the great executives and the powerful in-
terests in manufacturing and financial circles are watching
these developments with the deepest interest. Don't quote
me in this; I can assure you confidentially that the Presi-
dent himself . . ." His eye caught Janey's. "I guess this
is the stenographer. Come right in, Miss . . ." "Williams
is the name," said Janey.
His eyes were the blue of alcoholflame, with a boyish
flicker in them} this must be J. Ward Moorehouse whose
name she ought to know.
"Have you a pencil and paper? That's fine; sit right
down at the table. Morton, you'd better carry away those
teathings." Morton made the teathings disappear noise-
lessly. Janey sat down at the end of the table and brought
out her pad and pencil. "Hadn't you better take off your
hat and coat, or you won't feel them when you go out?"
There was something homey in his voice, different when
he talked to her than when he talked to the men. She
wished she could work for him. Anyway she was glad she
had come.
"Now, Mr. Barrow, what we want is a statement that
will allay unrest. We must make both sides in this con-
troversy understand the value of cooperation. That's a
great word, cooperation . . . First we'll get it down in
rough . . . You'll please make suggestions from the
angle of organized labor, and you, Mr. Jonas, from the
juridical angle. Ready, Miss Williams . , . Released by
J. Ward Moorehouse, Public Relations Counsel, Hotel
Shoreham, Washington, D. C, Jan. 15, 1916 . . ." Then
Janey was too busy taking down the dictation to catch the
sense of what was being said.
291
That evening when she got home she found Alice al-
ready in bed. Alice wanted to go to sleep, but Janey
chattered like a magpie about Mr. Barrow and labor
troubles and J. Ward Moorehouse and what a fine man
he was, and so kind and friendly and had such interesting
ideas for collaboration between capital and labor, and
spoke so familiarly about what the President thought and
what Andrew Carnegie thought and what the Rockefeller
interests or Mr. Schick or Senator LaFollette intended,
and had such handsome boyish blue eyes, and was so nice,
and the silver teaservice, and how young he looked in
spite of his prematurely gray hair, and the open fire and
the silver cocktail shaker and the crystal glasses.
"Why, Janey ," broke in Alice, yawning, "I declare you
must have a crush on him. I never heard you talk about
a man that way in my life." Janey blushed and felt very
sore at Alice. "Oh, Alice, you're so silly . . . It's no use
talking to you about anything." She got undressed and
turned out the light. It was only when she got to bed
that she remembered that she hadn't had any supper.
She didn't say anything about it because she was sure
Alice would say something silly.
Next day she finished the job for Mr. Barrow. All
morning she wanted to ask him about Mr. Moorehouse,
where he lived, whether he was married or not, where
he came from, but she reflected it wouldn't be much use.
That afternoon, after she had been paid, she found herself
walking along H Street past the Shoreham. She pretended
to herself that she wanted to look in the storewindows,
She didn't see him, but she saw a big shiny black lim-
ousine with a monogram that she couldn't make out with-
out stooping and it would look funny if she stooped 5 she
decided that was his car.
She walked down the street to the corner opposite the
big gap in the houses where they were tearing down the
Arlington. It was a clear sunny afternoon. She walked
292
round Lafayette Square looking at the statue of Andrew
Jackson on a rearing horse among the bare trees.
There were children and nursemaids grouped on the
benches. A man with a grizzled Vandyke with a black
portfolio under his arm sat down on one of the benches
and immediately got up again and strode off j foreign
diplomat, thought Janey, and how fine it was to live in the
Capital City where there were foreign diplomats and
men like J. Ward Moorehouse. She walked once more
round the statue of Andrew Jackson rearing green and
noble on a greennoble horse in the russet winter afternoon
sunlight and then back towards the Shoreham, walking
fast as if she were late to an appointment. She asked ?
bellboy where the public stenographer was. He sent her
up to a room on the second floor where she asked an acid-
eyed woman with a long jaw, who was typing away with
her eyes on the little sector of greencarpeted hall she
could see through the halfopen door, whether she kne^
of anyone who wanted a stenographer. The acideyed
woman stared at her. "Well, this isn't an agency, you
know." "I knowj I just thought on the chance . . ." said
Janey, feeling everything go suddenly out of her. "Do
you mind if I sit down a moment?" The acideyed woman
continued staring at her.
"Now, where have I seen you before . . . ? No, don't
remind me . . . You . . . you were working at Mrs.
Robinson's the day I came in to take out her extra work.
There, you see, I remember you perfectly." The woman
smiled a yellow smile. "Pd have remembered you," said
Janey, "only Pm so tired of going round looking for a
job."
"Don't I know?" sighed the woman.
"Don't you know anything I could get?"
"I'll tell you what you do ... They were phoning
for a girl to take dictation in number eight. They're using
293
*em up like . . . like sixty in there, incorporating some
v.oncern or something. Now, my dear, you listen to me,
| ou go in there and take off your hat like you'd come from
somewhere and start taking dictation and they won't throw
you out, my dear, even if the other girl just came, they
use 'em up too fast."
Before Janey knew what she was doing she'd kissed
the acideyed woman on the edge of the jaw and had
walked fast along the corridor to number eight and was
being let in by the sleekhaired man who recognized her
and asked, "Stenographer?"
"Yes," said Janey and in another minute she had taken
out her pad and paper and taken off her hat and coat and
was sitting at the end of the shinydark mahogany table
in front of the crackling fire, and the firelight glinted on
silver decanters and hotwater pitchers and teapots and
on the black perfectly shined shoes and in the flameblue
eyes of J. Ward Moorehouse.
There she was sitting taking dictation from J. Ward
Moorehouse.
At the end of the afternoon the sleekhaired man came
in and said, "Time to dress for dinner, sir," and J. Ward
Moorehouse grunted and said, "Hell." The sleekhaired
man skated a little nearer across the thick carpet. "Beg
pardon, sir; Miss Rosenthal's fallen down and broken
*er 'ip. Fell on the hice in front of the Treasury Buildin',
"The hell she has ... Excuse me, Miss Williams,"
he said and smiled. Janey looked up at him indulgent-
understandingly and smiled too. "Has she been fixed up
all right?"
"Mr. Mulligan took her to the orspital, sir."
"That's right . . . You go downstairs, Morton, and
lend her some flowers. Pick out nice ones."
"Yessir . . . About five dollars' worth, sir?*
294
"Two fifty's the limit, Morton, and put my card in."
Morton disappeared. J. Ward Moorehouse walked up
and down in front of the fireplace for a while as if he were
going to dictate. Janey's poised pencil hovered above the
pad. J. Ward Moorehouse stopped walking up and down
and looked at Janey. "Do you know anyone, Miss Wil-
liams ... I want a nice smart girl as stenographer and
secretary, someone I can repose confidence in ... Damn
that woman for breaking her hip."
Janey's head swam. "Well, Pm looking for a position
of that sort myself."
J. Ward Moorehouse was still looking at her with a
quizzical blue stare. "Do you mind telling me, Miss Wil-
liams, why you lost your last job?"
"Not at all. I left Dreyfus and Carroll, perhaps you
know them ... I didn't like what was going on round
there. It would have been different if old Mr. Carroll
had stayed, though Mr. Dreyfus was very kind, Pnr
sure."
"He's an agent of the German government."
"That's what 1 mean. I didn't like to stay after the
President's proclamation."
"Well, round here we're all for the Allies, so it'll be
quite all right. I think you're just the person I like . . .
Of course, can't be sure, but all my best decision? are made
in a hurry. How about twenty five a week to begin on?"
"All right, Mr. Moorehouse j it's going to be very in-
teresting work, I'm sure."
"Tomorrow at nine please, and send these telegrams
from me as you go out:
"Mrs. J. Ward Moorehouse
"Great Neck Long Island New York
"May have to go Mexico City explain Saltworths un-
able attend 
