Part 29 (1/2)
”Where are we at?” she asked them, with a merriness that concealed her anxiety at heart.
”We ain't at,” Bert snarled. ”We're gone.”
”But meat and oil have gone up again,” she chafed. ”And Billy's wages have been cut, and the shop men's were cut last year. Something must be done.”
”The only thing to do is fight like h.e.l.l,” Bert answered. ”Fight, an' go down fightin'. That's all. We're licked anyhow, but we can have a last run for our money.”
”That's no way to talk,” Tom rebuked.
”The time for talkin' 's past, old c.o.c.k. The time for fightin' 's come.”
”A h.e.l.l of a chance you'd have against regular troops and machine guns,”
Billy retorted.
”Oh, not that way. There's such things as greasy sticks that go up with a loud noise and leave holes. There's such things as emery powder--”
”Oh, ho!” Mary burst out upon him, arms akimbo. ”So that's what it means. That's what the emery in your vest pocket meant.”
Her husband ignored her. Tom smoked with a troubled air. Billy was hurt.
It showed plainly in his face.
”You ain't ben doin' that, Bert?” he asked, his manner showing his expectancy of his friend's denial.
”Sure thing, if you want to know. I'd see'm all in h.e.l.l if I could, before I go.”
”He's a b.l.o.o.d.y-minded anarchist,” Mary complained. ”Men like him killed McKinley, and Garfield, an'--an' an' all the rest. He'll be hung. You'll see. Mark my words. I'm glad there's no children in sight, that's all.”
”It's hot air,” Billy comforted her.
”He's just teasing you,” Saxon soothed. ”He always was a josher.”
But Mary shook her head.
”I know. I hear him talkin' in his sleep. He swears and curses something awful, an' grits his teeth. Listen to him now.”
Bert, his handsome face bitter and devil-may-care, had tilted his chair back against the wall and was singing
”n.o.body loves a mil-yun-aire, n.o.body likes his looks, n.o.body'll share his slightest care, He cla.s.ses with thugs and crooks.”
Tom was saying something about reasonableness and justice, and Bert ceased from singing to catch him up.
”Justice, eh? Another pipe-dream. I'll show you where the working cla.s.s gets justice. You remember Forbes--J. Alliston Forbes--wrecked the Alta California Trust Company an' salted down two cold millions. I saw him yesterday, in a big h.e.l.l-bent automobile. What'd he get? Eight years'
sentence. How long did he serve? Less'n two years. Pardoned out on account of ill health. Ill h.e.l.l! We'll be dead an' rotten before he kicks the bucket. Here. Look out this window. You see the back of that house with the broken porch rail. Mrs. Danaker lives there. She takes in was.h.i.+n'. Her old man was killed on the railroad. Nitsky on damages--contributory negligence, or fellow-servant-something-or-other flimflam. That's what the courts handed her. Her boy, Archie, was sixteen. He was on the road, a regular road-kid. He blew into Fresno an' rolled a drunk. Do you want to know how much he got? Two dollars and eighty cents. Get that?--Two-eighty. And what did the alfalfa judge hand'm? Fifty years. He's served eight of it already in San Quentin. And he'll go on serving it till he croaks. Mrs. Danaker says he's bad with consumption--caught it inside, but she ain't got the pull to get'm pardoned. Archie the Kid steals two dollars an' eighty cents from a drunk and gets fifty years. J. Alliston Forbes sticks up the Alta Trust for two millions en' gets less'n two years. Who's country is this anyway? Yourn an' Archie the Kid's? Guess again. It's J. Alliston Forbes'--Oh:
”n.o.body likes a mil-yun-aire, n.o.body likes his looks, n.o.body'll share his slightest care, He cla.s.ses with thugs and crooks.”
Mary, at the sink, where Saxon was just finis.h.i.+ng the last dish, untied Saxon's ap.r.o.n and kissed her with the sympathy that women alone feel for each other under the shadow of maternity.
”Now you sit down, dear. You mustn't tire yourself, and it's a long way to go yet. I'll get your sewing for you, and you can listen to the men talk. But don't listen to Bert. He's crazy.”
Saxon sewed and listened, and Bert's face grew bleak and bitter as he contemplated the baby clothes in her lap.
”There you go,” he blurted out, ”bringin' kids into the world when you ain't got any guarantee you can feed em.”