The Valley of the Moon Jack London

by Jack London

of my arms. I guess I know how good the things are you wear--good

  to me, I mean, too. I'm dry behind the ears, an' maybe I've

  learned a few things I oughtn't to before I knew you. But I know

  what I'm talkin' about, and I want to say that outside the

  clothes down underneath, an' the clothes down underneath the

  outside ones, I never saw a woman like you. Oh--"

  He threw up his hands as if despairing of ability to express what

  he thought and felt, then essayed a further attempt.

  "It's not a matter of bein' only clean, though that's a whole

  lot. Lots of women are clean. It ain't that. It's something more,

  an' different. It's . . . well, it's the look of it, so white, an'

  pretty, an' tasty. It gets on the imagination. It's something I

  can't get out of my thoughts of you. I want to tell you lots of

  men can't strip to advantage, an' lots of women, too. But

  you--well, you're a wonder, that's all, and you can't get too

  many of them nice things to suit me, and you can't get them too

  nice.

  "For that matter, Saxon, you can just blow yourself. There's lots

  of easy money layin' around. I'm in great condition. Billy Murphy

  pulled down seventy-five round iron dollars only last week for

  puttin' away the Pride of North Beach. That's what ha paid us the

  fifty back out of."

  But this time it was Saxon who rebelled.

  "There's Carl Hansen," Billy argued. "The second Sharkey, the

  alfalfa sportin' writers are callin' him. An' he calls himself

  Champion of the United States Navy. Well, I got his number. He's

  just a big stiff. I've seen 'm fight, an' I can pass him the

  sleep medicine just as easy. The Secretary of the Sportin' Life

  Club offered to match me. An' a hundred iron dollars in it for

  the winner. And it'll all be yours to blow in any way you want.

  What d'ye say?"

  "If I can't work for money, you can't fight," was Saxon's

  ultimatum, immediately withdrawn. "But you and I don't drive

  bargains. Even if you'd let me work for money, I wouldn't let you

  fight. I've never forgotten what you told me about how

  prizefighters lose their silk. Well, you're not going to lose

  yours. It's half my silk, you know. And if you won't fight, I

  won't work--there. And more, I'll never do anything you don't

  want me to, Billy."

  "Same here," Billy agreed. "Though just the same I'd like most to

  death to have just one go at that squarehead Hansen." He smiled

  with pleasure at the thought. "Say, let's forget it all now, an'

  you sing me 'Harvest Days' on that dinky what-you-may-call-it."

  When she had complied, accompanying herself on the ukulele, she

  suggested his weird "Cowboy's Lament." In some inexplicable way

  of love, she had come to like her husband's one song. Because he

  sang it, she liked its inanity and monotonousness; and most of

  all, it seemed to her, she loved his hopeless and adorable

  flatting of every note. She could even sing with him, flatting as

  accurately and deliciously as he. Nor did she undeceive him in

  his sublime faith.

  "I guess Bert an' the rest have joshed me all the time," he said.

  "You and I get along together with it fine," she equivocated; for

  in such matters she did not deem the untruth a wrong.

  Spring was on when the strike came in the railroad shops. The

  Sunday before it was called, Saxon and Billy had dinner at Bert's

  house. Saxon's brother came, though he had found it impossible to

  bring Sarah, who refused to budge from her household rut. Bert

  was blackly pessimistic, and they found him singing with sardonic

  glee:

  "Nobody loves a mil-yun-aire.

  Nobody likes his looks.

  Nobody'll share his slightest care,

  He classes with thugs and crooks.

  Thriftiness has become a crime,

  So spend everything you earn;

  We're living now in a funny time,

  When money is made to burn."

  Mary went about the dinner preparation, flaunting unmistakable

  signals of rebellion; and Saxon, rolling up her sleeves and tying

  on an apron, washed the breakfast dishes. Bert fetched a pitcher

  of steaming beer from the corner saloon, and the three men smoked

  and talked about the coming strike.

  "It oughta come years ago," was Bert's dictum. "It can't come any

  too quick now to suit me, but it's too late. We're beaten thumbs

  donn. Here's where the last of the Mohegans gets theirs, in the

  neck, ker-whop!"

  "Oh, I don't know," Tom, who had been smoking his pipe gravely,

  began to counsel. "Organized labor's gettin' stronger every day.

  Why, I can remember when there wasn't any unions in California,

  Look at us now--wages, an' hours, an' everything."

  "You talk like an organizer," Bert sneered, "shovin' the bull con

  on the boneheads. But we know different. Organized wages won't

  buy as much now as unorganized wages used to buy. They've got us

  whipsawed. Look at Frisco, the labor leaders doin' dirtier

  polities than the old parties, pawin' an' squabblin' over graft,

  an' goin' to San Quentin, while--what are the Frisco carpenters

  doin'? Let me tell you one thing, Tom Brown, if you listen to all

  you hear you'll hear that every Frisco carpenter is union an'

  gettin' full union wages. Do you believe it? It's a damn lie.

  There ain't a carpenter that don't rebate his wages Saturday

  night to the contractor. An' that's your buildin' trades in San

  Francisco, while the leaders are makin' trips to Europe on the

  earnings of the tenderloin--when they ain't coughing it up to the

  lawyers to get out of wearin' stripes."

  "That's all right," Tom concurred. "Nobody's denyin' it. The

  trouble is labor ain't quite got its eyes open. It ought to play

  politics, but the politics ought to be the right kind."

  "Socialism, eh?" Bert caught him up with scorn. "Wouldn't they

  sell us out just as the Ruefs and Schmidts have?"

  "Get men that are honest," Billy said. "That's the whole trouble.

  Not that I stand for socialism. I don't. All our folks was a long

  time in America, an' I for one won't stand for a lot of fat

  Germans an' greasy Russian Jews tellin' me how to run my country

  when they can't speak English yet."

  "Your country!" Bert cried. "Why, you bonehead, you ain't got a

  country. That's a fairy story the grafters shove at you every

  time they want to rob you some more."

  "But don't vote for the grafters," Billy contended. "If we

  selected honest men we'd get honest treatment."

  "I wish you'd come to some of our meetings, Billy," Tom said

  wistfully. "If you would, you'd get your eyes open an' vote the

  socialist ticket next election."

  "Not on your life," Billy declined. "When you catch me in a

  socialist meeting'll be when they can talk like white men."

  Bert was humming:

  "We're living now in a funny time,

  When money is made to burn."

  Mary was too angry with her husband, because of the impending

  strike and his incendiary utterances, to hold conversation with

  Saxon, and the latter, bepuzzled, listened to the co
nflicting

  opinions of the men.

  "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 hell," 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 cock. The time for fightin' 's

  come."

  "A hell 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 wont to know. I'd see'm all in hell if I

  could, before I go."

  "He's a bloody-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

  "Nobody loves a mil-yun-aire,

  Nobody likes his looks,

  Nobody'll share his slightest care,

  He classes 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

  class 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 hell-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 hell! 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

  washin'. 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:

  "Nobody likes a mil-yun-aire,

  Nobody likes his looks,

  Nobody'll share his slightest care,

  He classes with thugs and crooks."

  Mary, at the sink, where Saxon was just finishing the last dish,

  untied Saxon's apron 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.

  "You must a-had a souse last night," Tom grinned.

  Bert shook his head.

  "Aw, what's the use of gettin' grouched?" Billy cheered. "It's a

  pretty good country."

  "It WAS a pretty good country," Bert replied, "when we was all

  Mohegans. But not now. We're jiggerooed. We're hornswoggled.

  We're backed to a standstill. We're double-crossed to a

  fare-you-well. My folks fought for this country. So did yourn,

  all of you. We freed the niggers, killed the Indians, an starved,

  an' froze, an' sweat, an' fought. This land looked good to us. We

  cleared it, an' broke it, an' made the roads, an' built the

  cities. And there was plenty for everybody. And we went on

  fightin' for it. I had two uncles killed at Gettysburg. All of us

  was mixed up in that war. Listen to Saxon talk any time what her

  folks went through to get out here an' get ranches, an' horses,

  an' cattle, an' everything. And they got 'em. All our folks' got

  'em, Mary's, too--"

  "And if they'd ben smart they'd a-held on to them," she

  interpolated.

  "Sure thing," Bert continued. "That's the very point. We're the

  losers. We've ben robbed. We couldn't mark cards, deal from the

  bottom, an' ring in cold decks like the others. We're the white

  folks that failed. You see, times changed, and there was two

  kinds of us, the lions and the plugs. The plugs only worked, the

  lions only gobbled. They gobbled the farms, the mines, the

  factories, an' now they've gobbled the government. We're the

  white folks an' the children of white folks, that was too busy

  being good to be smart. We're the white folks that lost out.

  We're the ones that's ben skinned. D'ye get me?"

  "You'd make a good soap-boxer," Tom commended, "if only you'd get

  the kinks straightened out in your reasoning."

  "It sounds all right, Bert," Billy said, "only it ain't. Any man

  can get rich to-day--"

  "Or be president of the United States," Bert snapped. "Sure

  thing--if he's got it in him. Just the same I ain't heard you

  makin' a noise like a millionaire or a president. Why? You ain't

  got it in you. You're a bonehead. A plug. That's why. Skiddoo for

  you. Skiddoo for all of us."

  At the table, while they ate, Tom talked of the joys of

  farm-life he had known as a boy and as a young man, and confided

  that it was his dream to go and take up government land somewhere

  as his people had done before him. Unfortunately, as he

  explained, Sarah was set, so that the dream must remain a dream.

&nbs
p; "It's all in the game," Billy sighed. "It's played to rules. Some

  one has to get knocked out, I suppose."

  A little later, while Bert was off on a fresh diatribe, Billy

  became aware that he was making comparisons. This house was not

  like his house. Here was no satisfying atmosphere. Things seemed

  to run with a jar. He recollected that when they arrived the

  breakfast dishes had not yet been washed. With a man's general

  obliviousness of household affairs, he had not noted details; yet

  it had been borne in on him, all morning, in a myriad ways, that

  Mary was not the housekeeper Saxon was. He glanced proudly across

  at her, and felt the spur of an impulse to leave his seat, go

  around, and embrace her. She was a wife. He remembered her dainty

  undergarmenting, and on the instant, into his brain, leaped the

  image of her so appareled, only to be shattered by Bert.

  "Hey, Bill, you seem to think I've got a grouch. Sure thing. I

  have. You ain't had my experiences. You've always done teamin'

  an' pulled down easy money prizefightin'. You ain't known hard

  times. You ain't ben through strikes. You ain't had to take care

  of an old mother an' swallow dirt on her account. It wasn't until

  after she died that I could rip loose an' take or leave as I felt

  like it.

  "Take that time I tackled the Niles Electric an' see what a

  work-plug gets handed out to him. The Head Cheese sizes me up,

  pumps me a lot of questions, an' gives me an application blank. I

  make it out, payin' a dollar to a doctor they sent me to for a

  health certificate. Then I got to go to a picture garage an' get

  my mug taken for the Niles Electric rogues' gallery. And I cough

  up another dollar for the mug. The Head Squirt takes the blank,

  the health certificate, and the mug, an' fires more questions.

  DID I BELONG TO A LABOR UNION?--ME? Of course I told'm the truth

  I guess nit. I needed the job. The grocery wouldn't give me any

  more tick, and there was my mother.

  "Huh, thinks I, here's where I'm a real carman. Back platform for

  me, where I can pick up the fancy skirts. Nitsky. Two dollars,

  please. Me--my two dollars. All for a pewter badge. Then there

  was the uniform--nineteen fifty, and get it anywhere else for

  fifteen. Only that was to be paid out of my first month. And then

  five dollars in change in my pocket, my own money. That was the

  rule.--I borrowed that five from Tom Donovan, the policeman. Then

  what? They worked me for two weeks without pay, breakin' me in."

  "Did you pick up any fancy skirts?" Saxon queried teasingly.

  Bert shook his head glumly.

  "I only worked a month. Then we organized, and they busted our

  union higher'n a kite."

  "And you boobs in the shops will be busted the same way if you go

  out on strike," Mary informed him.

  "That's what I've ben tellin' you all along," Bert replied. "We

  ain't got a chance to win."

  "Then why go out?" was Saxon's question.

  He looked at her with lackluster eyes for a moment, then answered

  "Why did my two uncles get killed at Gettysburg?"

  CHAPTER VIII

  Saxon went about her housework greatly troubled. She no longer

  devoted herself to the making of pretties. The materials cost

  money, and she did not dare. Bert's thrust had sunk home. It

  remained in her quivering consciousness like a shaft of steel

  that ever turned and rankled. She and Billy were responsible for

  this coming young life. Could they be sure, after all, that they

  could adequately feed and clothe it and prepare it for its way in

  the world? Where was the guaranty? She remembered, dimly, the

  blight of hard times in the past, and the plaints of fathers and

  mothers in those days returned to her with a new significance.

  Almost could she understand Sarah's chronic complaining.

  Hard times were already in the neighborhood, where lived the

  families of the shopmen who had gone out on strike. Among the

  small storekeepers, Saxon, in the course of the daily marketing,