Part 38 (1/2)
'How much do I have to pay her?”
'It won't be much She wanted to come out to California She's had it with the cold and ice back East She'll take two hundred aher three fifty”
'That's twenty-four hundred a year,” he said ''I figure food and other expenses at least sixteen hundred, two thousand That doesn't leave me very much”
''What do you need money for?” she asked ”The union pays your expenses while you're on the road And you're always on the road”
He took a sip of his whiskey ”You've got it all figured out, haven't you?”
”Not all of it,” she said
”What did you leave out?”
A touch of temper came into her voice ”If you're too stupid to know, I'm not about to tell you”
He was silent for aher eyes Theil, abruptly, he turned away froht with emotion ”I'm not ready to talk about that yet”
She walked to hiently on his arm ”I know that,” she said softly ”But in tie lady Just approaching fifty, she had been enty years before when her husband, a second one doith his shi+p, blown in half by a torpedo ftolish, only the faintest trace of her original Swedish sounding in her voice, and there was al she couldn't do Cook, sew, drive a car, clean house, laundry, garden And she did it all with an efficiency thatseeins,” she said 'Tood woood care of your child As if he was ersen,” Daniel said ”I just want toyou need”
”I can't think of anything,” she said ”The house i very co, before we go to the hospital to pick up the baby, we'll stop at the bank I want to open an account for you so that you don't have to wait foraround a lot, and there will be times I may not be able to send money as easily as I would like to”
”Whatever you say, Mr Huggins,” she said ”And when you do come home, I can sleep on the new couch here”
He smiled ”You don't have to do that I think I can stand it for a few days”
She hesitated ato the hospital with us?”
He looked at her in surprise ”I didn't think of it She never said anything about it”
”You etically ”But I have known Miss Chris for almost ten years, since she was fifteen years old She would never say anything But I think she would like to coersen I'll ask her at dinner tonight”
”No,” she said ”I'”
He was surprised ”I thought-''
She interrupted 'Tin sorry Fve done all I can I just can't take any alow and ran into the bedroo in a comer of the room, her hands over her face He put his arms around her shoulders and turned her to hi?''
Wordlessly she shook her head
'Then what is it?”
”I just took a good look at s I have” She looked up into his face with ether But that was before I ca here with you was not abstract It was real I saw your hurt-I saw your care I love you I knohat you told me is true That you need time But I'm human I hurt too much I'll be better off home, away from you Maybe it won't be as bad then”
Silently, he htly ”I didn't mean for it to be like this”
”It's not your fault I did it allto make me think differently” Her voice wasShe looked up at him, then moved across the room and picked it up ”hello?” she said into it, then listened for athe telephone down
”It was Mrs Torgersen She said Mr Murray just called and wants you to call hiency''
”I can't stall any longer There's too much pressure on me” Murray's voice was taut ”When will you be back?”
”I can leave Sunday,” he said
”Coo,” Murray said ”I'll ht?” Murray asked ”What was it? A boy or a giri?”
Suddenly Daniel realized he hadn't let hiratulations,” Murray said ”Give o on Monday”
He put down the telephone and turned to Chris ”Maybe I'd better go home,” he said heavily
”No”
He looked at her
Sheout of here without giving me a farewell fuck”
of the Boche in the war I say to the uided strikers, ''Listen not to false prophets ill betray you unto your enemies Come back to your jobs and work We are Ahbors in as our brothers”
In contrast, Murray's statement was restrained, even teranted to his co for US Steel and the other conized that their demands were simply fair and equitable We have no n power or ideology, only to man whose labor makes our American way of life possible and a reality
Daniel left the paper in the taxi as he got out in front of the union headquarters Carrying his valise as he walked through the whole floor that served as the SWOC's regional offices, he could not help thinking of the difference in organization between the present and the last atte had seemed haphazard and improvised Now all was planned There were a complete information section, with over forty employees, who serviced the newspapers and wire services with up-to-date reports on the organizing activities; a statistical section, which kept abreast of all econoht affect the union's position; a striker's help-fund section, which supplied aid, financial and otherwise, to the members There was no doubt about it It was very different But was it?
Despite the application of the most modem business techniques and the solidest financiaLsupport any union organizing effort had ever had, so Daniel could feel it but could not quite put his finger on it Perhaps it was just that the union itself,forward on the crest of the pro-union wave of the past few years, was overconfident and did not recognize the deter Steel last year, the success of the Textile Workers' drive in the South, the organization of the automobile workers at General Motors represented a trend which perhaps led to an illusion In each of these victories it was the largest coreements had been reached, the coreat that the net results could not affect them more than just a little But the smaller companies, to which the differences had a ood reason to battle on The Ford Motor Coreement as it had ever been And so was Little Steel And each of these coements had translated this into a personal battle to retain what it felt was control of its own business and freedom Neither Henry Ford nor Tom Girdler was about to bend his knee to the serfs On the contrary, they felt that those orked for therateful to them for the opportunity to serve in their vineyards, especially after all they had given to them
The executive offices were at the back of the floor, away fro out on the city, respectably if not expensively furnished, rugs on the floor, in contrast with the e open rooms with as h for half as many Now the union leaders were as effectively isolated froanization as any executive of the companies hich they did battle Suddenly Daniel knehat it was A new hierarchy was in the process of developing Sooner or later, the man inside that office
behind the closed door, had to lose touch with the people outside, those whoer was there an emotional relationshi+p Noas a calculated representation of an ideal that itself had turned into another for business