by Jack London
could sense the air of despondency. Light and geniality seemed to
have vanished. Gloom pervaded everywhere. The mothers of the
children that played in the streets showed the gloom plainly in
their faces. When they gossiped in the evenings, over front gates
and on door stoops, their voices were subdued and less of
laughter rang out.
Mary Donahue, who had taken three pints from the milkman, now
took one pint. There were no more family trips to the moving
picture shows. Scrap-meat was harder to get from the butcher.
Nora Delaney, in the third house, no longer bought fresh fish for
Friday. Salted codfish, not of the best quality, was now on her
table. The sturdy children that ran out upon the street between
meals with huge slices of bread and butter and sugar now came out
with no sugar and with thinner slices spread more thinly with
butter. The very custom was dying out, and some children already
had desisted from piecing between meals.
Everywhere was manifest a pinching and scraping, a tightning and
shortening down of expenditure. And everywhere was more
irritation. Women became angered with one another, and with the
children, more quickly than of yore; and Saxon knew that Bert and
Mary bickered incessantly.
"If she'd only realize I've got troubles of my own," Bert
complained to Saxon.
She looked at him closely, and felt fear for him in a vague, numb
way. His black eyes seemed to burn with a continuous madness. The
brown face was leaner, the skin drawn tightly across the
cheekbones. A slight twist had come to the mouth, which seemed
frozen into bitterness. The very carriage of his body and the way
he wore his hat advertised a recklessness more intense than had
been his in the past.
Sometimes, in the long afternoons, sitting by the window with
idle hands, she caught herself reconstructing in her vision that
folk-migration of her people across the plains and mountains and
deserts to the sunset land by the Western sea. And often she
found herself dreaming of the arcadian days of her people, when
they had not lived in cities nor been vexed with labor unions and
employers' associations. She would remember the old people's
tales of self-sufficingness, when they shot or raised their own
meat, grew their own vegetables, were their own blacksmiths and
carpenters, made their own shoes--yes, and spun the cloth of the
clothes they wore. And something of the wistfulness in Tom's face
she could see as she recollected it when he talked of his dream
of taking up government land.
A farmer's life must be fine, she thought. Why was it that people
had to live in cities? Why had times changed? If there had been
enough in the old days, why was there not enough now? Why was it
necessary for men to quarrel and jangle, and strike and fight,
all about the matter of getting work? Why wasn't there work for
all?--Only that morning, and she shuddered with the recollection,
she had seen two scabs, on their way to work, beaten up by the
strikers, by men she knew by sight, and some by name, who lived
in the neighhorhood. It had happened directly across the street.
It had been cruel, terrible--a dozen men on two. The children had
begun it by throwing rocks at the scabs and cursing them in ways
children should not know. Policemen had run upon the scene with
drawn revolvers, and the strikers had retreated into the houses
and through the narrow alleys between the houses. One of the
scabs, unconscious, had been carried away in an ambulance; the
other, assisted by special railroad police, had been taken away
to the shops. At him, Mary Donahue, standing on her front stoop,
her child in her arms, had hurled such vile abuse that it had
brought the blush of shame to Saxon's cheeks. On the stoop of the
house on the other side, Saxon had noted Mercedes, in the height
of the beating up, looking on with a queer smile. She had seemed
very eager to witness, her nostrils dilated and swelling like the
beat of pulses as she watched. It had struck Saxon at the time
that the old woman was quite unalarmed and only curious to see.
To Mercedes, who was so wise in love, Saxon went for explanation
of what was the matter with the world. But the old woman's wisdom
in affairs industrial and economic was cryptic and unpalatable.
"La la, my dear, it is so simple. Most men are born stupid. They
are the slaves. A few are born clever. They are the masters. God
made men so, I suppose."
"Then how about God and that terrible beating across the street
this morning?"
"I'm afraid he was not interested," Mercedes smiled. "I doubt he
even knows that it happened."
"I was frightened to death," Saxon declared. "I was made sick by
it. And yet you--I saw you--you looked on as cool as you please,
as if it was a show."
"It was a show, my dear."
"Oh, how could you?"
"La la, I have seen men killed. It is nothing strange. All men
die. The stupid ones die like oxen, they know not why. It is
quite funny to see. They strike each other with fists and clubs,
and break each other's heads. It is gross. They are like a lot of
animals. They are like dogs wrangling over bones. Jobs are bones,
you know. Now, if they fought for women, or ideas, or bars of
gold, or fabulous diamonds, it would be splendid. But no; they
are only hungry, and fight over scraps for their stomach."
"Oh, if I could only understand!" Saxon murmured, her hands
tightly clasped in anguish of incomprehension and vital need to
know.
"There is nothing to understand. It is clear as print. There have
always been the stupid and the clever, the slave and the master,
the peasant and the prince. There always will be."
"But why?"
"Why is a peasant a peasant, my dear? Because he is a peasant.
Why is a flea a flea?"
Saxon tossed her head fretfully.
"Oh, but my dear, I have answered. The philosophies of the world
can give no better answer. Why do you like your man for a husband
rather than any other man? Because you like him that way, that is
all. Why do you like? Because you like. Why does fire burn and
frost bite? Why are there clever men and stupid men? masters and
slaves? employers and workingmen? Why is black black? Answer that
and you answer everything."
"But it is not right That men should go hungry and without work
when they want to work if only they can get a square deal," Saxon
protested.
"Oh, but it is right, just as it is right that stone won't burn
like wood, that sea sand isn't sugar, that thorns prick, that
water is wet, that smoke rises, that things fall down and not
up."
But such doctrine of reality made no impression on Saxon.
Frankly, she could not comprehend. It seemed like so much
nonsense.
"Then we have no liberty and independence," she cried
passionately. "One man is not as good as another. My child has
not the right to live tha
t a rich mother's child has."
"Certainly not," Mercedes answered.
"Yet all my people fought for these things," Saxon urged,
remembering her school history and the sword of her father.
"Democracy--the dream of the stupid peoples. Oh, la la, my dear,
democracy is a lie, an enchantment to keep the work brutes
content, just as religion used to keep them content. When they
groaned in their misery and toil, they were persuaded to keep on
in their misery and toil by pretty tales of a land beyond the
skies where they would live famously and fat while the clever
ones roasted in everlasting fire. Ah, how the clever ones must
have chuckled! And when that lie wore out, and democracy was
dreamed, the clever ones saw to it that it should be in truth a
dream, nothing but a dream. The world belongs to the great and
clever."
"But you are of the working people," Saxon charged.
The old woman drew herself up, and almost was angry.
"I? Of the working people? My dear, because I had misfortune with
moneys invested, because I am old and can no longer win the brave
young men, because I have outlived the men of my youth and there
is no one to go to, because I live here in the ghetto with Barry
Higgins and prepare to die--why, my dear, I was born with the
masters, and have trod all my days on the necks of the stupid. I
have drunk rare wines and sat at feasts that would have supported
this neighborhood for a lifetime. Dick Golden and I--it was
Dickie's money, but I could have had it Dick Golden and I dropped
four hundred thousand francs in a week's play at Monte Carlo. He
was a Jew, but he was a spender. In India I have worn jewels that
could have saved the lives of ten thousand families dying before
my eyes."
"You saw them die? . . . and did nothing?" Saxon asked aghast.
"I kept my jewels--la la, and was robbed of them by a brute of a
Russian officer within the year."
"And you let them die," Saxon reiterated.
"They were cheap spawn. They fester and multiply like maggots.
They meant nothing--nothing, my dear, nothing. No more than your
work people mean here, whose crowning stupidity is their
continuing to beget more stupid spawn for the slavery of the
masters."
So it was that while Saxon could get little glimmering of common
sense from others, from the terrible old woman she got none at
all. Nor could Saxon bring herself to believe much of what she
considered Mercedes' romancing. As the weeks passed, the strike
in the railroad shops grew bitter and deadly. Billy shook his
head and confessed his inability to make head or tail of the
troubles that were looming on the labor horizon.
"I don't get the hang of it," he told Saxon. "It's a mix-up. It's
like a roughhouse with the lights out. Look at us teamsters. Here
we are, the talk just starting of going out on sympathetic strike
for the mill-workers. They've ben out a week, most of their
places is filled, an' if us teamsters keep on haulin' the
mill-work the strike's lost."
"Yet you didn't consider striking for yourselves when your wages
were cut," Saxon said with a frown.
"Oh, we wasn't in position then. But now the Frisco teamsters and
the whole Frisco Water Front Confederation is liable to back us
up. Anyway, we're just talkin' about it, that's all. But if we do
go out, we'll try to get back that ten per cent cut."
"It's rotten politics," he said another time. "Everybody's
rotten. If we'd only wise up and agree to pick out honest men--"
"But if you, and Bert, and Tom can't agree, how do you expect all
the rest to agree?" Saxon asked.
"It gets me," he admitted. "It's enough to give a guy the willies
thinkin' about it. And yet it's plain as the nose on your face.
Get honest men for politics, an' the whole thing's straightened
out. Honest men'd make honest laws, an' then honest men'd get
their dues. But Bert wants to smash things, an' Tom smokes his
pipe and dreams pipe dreams about by an' by when everybody votes
the way he thinks. But this by an' by ain't the point. We want
things now. Tom says we can't get them now, an' Bert says we
ain't never goin' to get them. What can a fellow do when
everybody's of different minds? Look at the socialists
themselves. They're always disagreeing, splittin' up, an' firin'
each other out of the party. The whole thing's bughouse, that's
what, an' I almost get dippy myself thinkin' about it. The point
I can't get out of my mind is that we want things now."
He broke off abruptly and stared at Saxon.
"What is it?" he asked, his voice husky with anxiety. "You ain't
sick . . . or . . . or anything?"
One hand she had pressed to her heart; but the startle and fright
in her eyes was changing into a pleased intentness, while on her
mouth was a little mysterious smile. She seemed oblivious to her
husband, as if listening to some message from afar and not for
his ears. Then wonder and joy transfused her face, and she looked
at Billy, and her hand went out to his.
"It's life," she whispered. "I felt life. I am so glad, so glad."
The next evening when Billy came home from work, Saxon caused him
to know and undertake more of the responsibilities of fatherhood.
"I've been thinking it over, Billy," she began, "and I'm such a
healthy, strong woman that it won't have to be very expensive.
There's Martha Skelton--she's a good midwife."
But Billy shook his head.
"Nothin' doin' in that line, Saxon. You're goin' to have Doc
Hentley. He's Bill Murphy's doc, an' Bill swears by him. He's an
old cuss, but he's a wooz."
"She confined Maggie Donahue," Saxon argued; "and look at her and
her baby."
"Well, she won't confine you--not so as you can notice it."
"But the doctor will charge twenty dollars," Saxon pursued, "and
make me get a nurse because I haven't any womenfolk to come in.
But Martha Skelton would do everything, and it would be so much
cheaper."
But Billy gathered her tenderly in his arms and laid down the
law.
"Listen to me, little wife. The Roberts family ain't on the
cheap. Never forget that. You've gotta have the baby. That's your
business, an' it's enough for you. My business is to get the
money an' take care of you. An' the best ain't none too good for
you. Why, I wouldn't run the chance of the teeniest accident
happenin' to you for a million dollars. It's you that counts. An'
dollars is dirt. Maybe you think I like that kid some. I do. Why,
I can't get him outa my head. I'm thinkin' about'm all day long.
If I get fired, it'll be his fault. I'm clean dotty over him. But
just the same, Saxon, honest to God, before I'd have anything
happen to you, break your little finger, even, I'd see him dead
an' buried first. That'll give you something of an idea what you
mean to me.
"Why, Saxon, I had the idea that when folks got married they just
settled down, and after a while their business was to get
along
with each other. Maybe it's the way it is with other people; but
it ain't that way with you an' me. I love you more 'n more every
day. Right now I love you more'n when I began talkin' to you five
minutes ago. An' you won't have to get a nurse. Doc Hentley'll
come every day, an' Mary'll come in an' do the housework, an'
take care of you an' all that, just as you'll do for her if she
ever needs it."
As the days and weeks pussed, Saxon was possessed by a conscious
feeling of proud motherhood in her swelling breasts. So
essentially a normal woman was she, that motherhood was a
satisfying and passionate happiness. It was true that she had her
moments of apprehension, but they were so momentary and faint
that they tended, if anything, to give zest to her happiness.
Only one thing troubled her, and that was the puzzling and
perilous situation of labor which no one seemed to understand,
her self least of all.
"They're always talking about how much more is made by machinery
than by the old ways," she told her brother Tom. "Then, with all
the machinery we've got now, why don't we get more?"
"Now you're talkin'," he answered. "It wouldn't take you long to
understand socialism."
But Saxon had a mind to the immediate need of things.
"Tom, how long have you been a socialist?"
"Eight years."
"And you haven't got anything by it?"
"But we will . . . in time."
"At that rate you'll be dead first," she challenged.
Tom sighed.
"I'm afraid so. Things move so slow."
Again he sighed. She noted the weary, patient look in his face,
the bent shoulders, the labor-gnarled hands, and it all seemed to
symbolize the futility of his social creed.
CHAPTER IX
It began quietly, as the fateful unexpected so often begins.
Children, of all ages and sizes, were playing in the street, and
Saxon, by the open front window, was watching them and dreaming
day dreams of her child soon to be. The sunshine mellowed
peacefully down, and a light wind from the bay cooled the air and
gave to it a tang of salt. One of the children pointed up Pine
Street toward Seventh. All the children ceased playing, and
stared and pointed. They formed into groups, the larger boys, of
from ten to twelve, by themselves, the older girls anxiously
clutching the small children by the hands or gathering them into
their arms.
Saxon could not see the cause of all this, but she could guess
when she saw the larger boys rush to the gutter, pick up stones,
and sneak into the alleys between the houses. Smaller boys tried
to imitate them. The girls, dragging the tots by the arms, banged
gates and clattered up the front steps of the small houses. The
doors slammed behind them, and the street was deserted, though
here and there front shades were drawn aside so that
anxious-faced women might peer forth. Saxon heard the uptown
train puffing and snorting as it pulled out from Center Street.
Then, from the direction of Seventh, came a hoarse, throaty
manroar. Still, she could see nothing, and she remembered
Mercedes Higgins' words "THEY ARE LIKE DOGS WRANGLING OVER BONES.
JOBS ARE BONES, YOU KNOW"
The roar came closer, and Saxon, leaning out, saw a dozen scabs,
conveyed by as many special police and Pinkertons, coming down
the sidewalk on her side of the street. They came compactly, as
if with discipline, while behind, disorderly, yelling confusedly,
stooping to pick up rocks, were seventy-five or a hundred of the
striking shopmen. Saxon discovered herself trembling with
apprehension, knew that she must not, and controlled herself. She
was helped in this by the conduct of Mercedes Higgins. The old
woman came out of her front door, dragging a chair, on which she
coolly seated herself on the tiny stoop at the top of the steps.
In the hands of the special police were clubs. The Pinkertons