Taylor said There’s another American come and he had teeth like Teddy in the newspapers and a turnedup 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 I’m for Roosevelt wanto fight? all trembly one said I’m 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 Wabash far away.
Mac
Next morning soon after daylight Fainy limped out of a heavy shower into the railroad station at Gaylord. There was a big swag-bellied 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 bulljawed face and 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 Fainy. “My name’s McCreary. I’m 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 superintendent 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 without extra charge. Then he fished up two mashed cigarettes 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?” “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,” said Mac. “I like to know what’s goin’ on in the world.”
“A lot of lies most of it… all owned by the interests.”
“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 the 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 often 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 weekold paper turn and turn about and talked.
“Maybe in Russia it’ll start; that’s the most backward country where the people are oppressed worst… 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 somebody.”
“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 oppression 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, I 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 socialistic 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.”