by Jack London
that she was asleep, that it was all a nightmare, and that soon
the alarm would go off and she would get up and cook Billy's
breakfast so that he could go to work.
She did not leave the bed that day. Nor did she sleep. Her brain
whirled on and on, now dwelling at insistent length upon her
misfortunes, now pursuing the most fantastic ramifications of
what she considered her disgrace, and, again, going back to her
childhood and wandering through endless trivial detail. She
worked at all the tasks she had ever done, performing, in fancy,
the myriads of mechanical movements peculiar to each
occupation--shaping and pasting in the paper box factory, ironing
in the laundry, weaving in the jute mill, peeling fruit in the
cannery and countless boxes of scalded tomatoes. She attended all
her dances and all her picnics over again; went through her
school days, recalling the face and name and seat of every
schoolmate; endured the gray bleakness of the years in the orphan
asylum; revisioned every memory of her mother, every tale; and
relived all her life with Billy. But ever--and here the torment
lay--she was drawn back from these far-wanderings to her present
trouble, with its parch in the throat, its ache in the breast,
and its gnawing, vacant goneness.
CHAPTER XV
All that night Saxon lay, unsleeping, without taking off her
clothes, and when she arose in the morning and washed her face
and dressed her hair she was aware of a strange numbness, of a
feeling of constriction about her head as if it were bound by a
heavy band of iron. It seemed like a dull pressure upon her
brain. It was the beginning of an illness that she did not know
as illness. All she knew was that she felt queer. It was not
fever. It was not cold. Her bodily health was as it should be,
and, when she thought about it, she put her condition down to
nerves--nerves, according to her ideas and the ideas of her
class, being unconnected with disease.
She had a strange feeling of loss of self, of being a stranger to
herself, and the world in which she moved seemed a vague and
shrouded world. It lacked sharpness of definition. Its customary
vividness was gone. She had lapses of memory, and was continually
finding herself doing unplanned things. Thus, to her
astonishment, she came to in the back yard hanging up the week's
wash. She had no recollection of having done it, yet it had been
done precisely as it should have been done. She had boiled the
sheets and pillow-slips and the table linen. Billy's woolens had
been washed in warm water only, with the home-made soap, the
recipe of which Mercedes had given her. On investigation, she
found she had eaten a mutton chop for breakfast. This meant that
she had been to the butcher shop, yet she had no memory of having
gone. Curiously, she went into the bedroom. The bed was made up
and everything in order.
At twilight she came upon herself in the front room, seated by
the window, crying in an ecstasy of joy. At first she did not
know what this joy was; then it came to her that it was because
she had lost her baby. "A blessing, a blessing," she was chanting
aloud, wringing her hands, but with joy, she knew it was with joy
that she wrung her hands.
The days came and went. She had little notion of time. Sometimes,
centuries agone, it seemed to her it was since Billy had gone to
jail. At other times it was no more than the night before. But
through it all two ideas persisted: she must not go to see Billy
in jail; it was a blessing she had lost her baby.
Once, Bud Strothers came to see her. She sat in the front room
and talked with him, noting with fascination that there were
fringes to the heels of his trousers. Another day, the business
agent of the union called. She told him, as she had told Bud
Strothers, that everything was all right, that she needed
nothing, that she could get along comfortably until Billy came
out.
A fear began to haunt her. WHEN HE CAME OUT. No; it must not be.
There must not be another baby. It might LIVE. No, no, a thousand
times no. It must not be. She would run away first. She would
never see Billy again. Anything but that. Anything but that.
This fear persisted. In her nightmare-ridden sleep it became an
accomplished fact, so that she would awake, trembling, in a cold
sweat, crying out. Her sleep had become wretched. Sometimes she
was convinced that she did not sleep at all, and she knew that
she had insomnia, and remembered that it was of insomnia her
mother had died.
She came to herself one day, sitting in Doctor Hentley's office.
He was looking at her in a puzzled way.
"Got plenty to eat?" he was asking.
She nodded.
"Any serious trouble?"
She shook her head.
"Everything's all right, doctor . . . except . . ."
"Yes, yes," he encouraged.
And then she knew why she had come. Simply, explicitly, she told
him. He shook his head slowly.
"It can't be done, little woman," he said
"Oh, but it can!" she cried. "I know it can."
"I don't mean that," he answered. "I mean I can't tell you. I
dare not. It is against the law. There is a doctor in Leavenworth
prison right now for that."
In vain she pleaded with him. He instanced his own wife and
children whose existence forbade his imperiling.
"Besides, there is no likelihood now," he told her.
"But there will be, there is sure to be," she urged.
But he could only shake his head sadly.
"Why do you want to know?" he questioned finally.
Saxon poured her heart out to him. She told of her first year of
happiness with Billy, of the hard times caused by the labor
troubles, of the change in Billy so that there was no love-life
left, of her own deep horror. Not if it died, she concluded. She
could go through that again. But if it should live. Billy would
soon be out of jail, and then the danger would begin. It was only
a few words. She would never tell any one. Wild horses could not
drag it out of her.
But Doctor Hentley continued to shake his head. "I can't tell
you, little woman. It's a shame, but I can't take the risk. My
hands are tied. Our laws are all wrong. I have to consider those
who are dear to me."
It was when she got up to go that he faltered. "Come here," he
said. "Sit closer."
He prepared to whisper in her ear, then, with a sudden excess of
caution, crossed the room swiftly, opened the door, and looked
out. When he sat down again he drew his chair so close to hers
that the arms touched, and when he whispered his beard tickled
her ear.
"No, no," he shut her off when she tried to voice her gratitude.
"I have told you nothing. You were here to consult me about your
general health. You are run down, out of condition--"
As he talked he moved her toward the door. When he opened it, a
patient for the dentist in the adjoining office was standing i
n
the hall. Doctor Hentley lifted his voice.
"What you need is that tonic I prescribed. Remember that. And
don't pamper your appetite when it comes back. Eat strong,
nourishing food, and beefsteak, plenty of beefsteak. And don't
cook it to a cinder. Good day."
At times the silent cottage became unendurable, and Saxon would
throw a shawl about her head and walk out the Oakland Mole, or
cross the railroad yards and the marshes to Sandy Beach where
Billy had said he used to swim. Also, by going out the Transit
slip, by climbing down the piles on a precarious ladder of iron
spikes, and by crossing a boom of logs, she won access to the
Rock Wall that extended far out into the bay and that served as a
barrier between the mudflats and the tide-scoured channel of
Oakland Estuary. Here the fresh sea breezes blew and Oakland sank
down to a smudge of smoke behind her, while across the bay she
could see the smudge that represented San Francisco. Ocean
steamships passed up and down the estuary, and lofty-masted
ships, towed by red-stacked tugs.
She gazed at the sailors on the ships, wondered on what far
voyages and to what far lands they went, wondered what freedoms
were theirs. Or were they girt in by as remorseless and cruel a
world as the dwellers in Oakland were? Were they as unfair, as
unjust, as brutal, in their dealings with their fellows as were
the city dwellers? It did not seem so, and sometimes she wished
herself on board, out-bound, going anywhere, she cared not where,
so long as it was away from the world to which she had given her
best and which had trampled her in return.
She did not know always when she left the house, nor where her
feet took her. Once, she came to herself in a strange part of
Oakland. The street was wide and lined with rows of shade trees.
Velvet lawns, broken only by cement sidewalks, ran down to the
gutters. The houses stood apart and were large. In her vocabulary
they were mansions. What had shocked her to consciousness of
herself was a young man in the driver's seat of a touring car
standing at the curb. He was looking at her curiously and she
recognized him as Roy Blanchard, whom, in front of the Forum,
Billy had threatened to whip. Beside the car, bareheaded, stood
another young man. He, too, she remembered. He it was, at the
Sunday picnic where she first met Billy, who had thrust his cane
between the legs of the flying foot-racer and precipitated the
free-for-all fight. Like Blanchard, he was looking at her
curiously, and she became aware that she had been talking to
herself. The babble of her lips still beat in her ears. She
blushed, a rising tide of shame heating her face, and quickened
her pace. Blanchard sprang out of the car and came to her with
lifted hat. "Is anything the matter?" he asked.
She shook her head, and, though she had stopped, she evinced her
desire to go on.
"I know you," he said, studying her face. "You were with the
striker who promised me a licking."
"He is my husband," she said.
"Oh! Good for him." He regarded her pleasantly and frankly. "But
about yourself? Isn't there anything I can do for you? Something
IS the matter."
"No, I'm all right," she answered. "I have been sick," she lied;
for she never dreamed of connecting her queerness with sickness.
"You look tired," he pressed her. "I can take you in the machine
and run you anywhere you want. It won't be any trouble. I've
plenty of time."
Saxon shook her head.
"If . . . if you would tell me where I can catch the Eighth street
cars. I don't often come to this part of town."
He told her where to find an electric car and what transfers to
make, and she was surprised at the distance she had wandered.
"Thank you," she said. "And good bye."
"Sure I can't do anything now?"
"Sure."
"Well, good bye," he smiled good humoredly. "And tell that
husband of yours to keep in good condition. I'm likely to make
him need it all when he tangles up with me."
"Oh, but you can't fight with him," she warned. "You mustn't. You
haven't got a show."
"Good for you," he admired. "That's the way for a woman to stand
up for her man. Now the average woman would be so afraid he was
going to get licked--"
"But I'm not afraid . . . for him. It's for you. He's a terrible
fighter. You wouldn't have any chance. It would be like . . .
like . . ."
"Like taking candy from a baby?" Blanchard finished for her.
"Yes," she nodded. "That's just what he would call it. And
whenever he tells you you are standing on your foot watch out for
him. Now I must go. Good bye, and thank you again."
She went on down the sidewalk, his cheery good bye ringing in her
ears. He was kind--she admitted it honestly; yet he was one of
the clever ones, one of the masters, who, according to Billy,
were responsible for all the cruelty to labor, for the hardships
of the women, for the punishment of the labor men who were
wearing stripes in San Quentin or were in the death cells
awaiting the scaffold. Yet he was kind, sweet natured, clean,
good. She could read his character in his face. But how could
this be, if he were responsible for so much evil? She shook her
head wearily. There was no explanation, no understanding of this
world which destroyed little babes and bruised women's breasts.
As for her having strayed into that neighborhood of fine
residences, she was unsurprised. It was in line with her
queerness. She did so many things without knowing that she did
them. But she must be careful. It was better to wander on the
marshes and the Rock Wall.
Especially she liked the Rock Wall. There was a freedom about it,
a wide spaciousness that she found herself instinctively trying
to breathe, holding her arms out to embrace and make part of
herself. It was a more natural world, a more rational world. She
could understand it--understand the green crabs with white-
bleached claws that scuttled before her and which she could see
pasturing on green-weeded rocks when the tide was low. Here,
hopelessly man-made as the great wall was, nothing seemed
artificial. There were no men here, no laws nor conflicts of men.
The tide flowed and ebbed; the sun rose and set; regularly each
afternoon the brave west wind came romping in through the Golden
Gate, darkening the water, cresting tiny wavelets, making the
sailboats fly. Everything ran with frictionless order. Everything
was free. Firewood lay about for the taking. No man sold it by
the sack. Small boys fished with poles from the rocks, with no
one to drive them away for trespass, catching fish as Billy had
caught fish, as Cal Hutchins had caught fish. Billy had told her
of the great perch Cal Hutchins caught on the day of the eclipse,
when he had little dreamed the heart of his manhood would be
spent in convict's garb.
And here was food, food th
at was free. She watched the small boys
on a day when she had eaten nothing, and emulated them, gathering
mussels from the rocks at low water, cooking them by placing them
among the coals of a fire she built on top of the wall. They
tasted particularly good. She learned to knock the small oysters
from the rocks, and once she found a string of fresh-caught fish
some small boy had forgotten to take home with him.
Here drifted evidences of man's sinister handiwork--from a
distance, from the cities. One flood tide she found the water
covered with muskmelons. They bobbed and bumped along up the
estuary in countless thousands. Where they stranded against the
rocks she was able to get them. But each and every melon--and she
patiently tried scores of them--had been spoiled by a sharp gash
that let in the salt water. She could not understand. She asked
an old Portuguese woman gathering driftwood.
"They do it, the people who have too much," the old woman
explained, straightening her labor-stiffened back with such an
effort that almost Saxon could hear it creak. The old woman's
black eyes flashed angrily, and her wrinkled lips, drawn tightly
across toothless gums, wry with bitterness. "The people that have
too much. It is to keep up the price. They throw them overboard
in San Francisco."
"But why don't they give them away to the poor people?" Saxon
asked.
"They must keep up the price."
"But the poor people cannot buy them anyway," Saxon objected. "It
would not hurt the price."
The old woman shrugged her shoulders.
"I do not know. It is their way. They chop each melon so that the
poor people cannot fish them out and eat anyway. They do the same
with the oranges, with the apples. Ah, the fishermen! There is a
trust. When the boats catch too much fish, the trust throws them
overboard from Fisherman Wharf, boat-loads, and boat-loads, and
boatloads of the beautiful fish. And the beautiful good fish sink
and are gone. And no one gets them. Yet they are dead and only
good to eat. Fish are very good to eat."
And Saxon could not understand a world that did such things--a
world in which some men possessed so much food that they threw it
away, paying men for their labor of spoiling it before they threw
it away; and in the same world so many people who did not have
enough food, whose babies died because their mothers' milk was
not nourishing, whose young men fought and killed one another for
the chance to work, whose old men and women went to the poorhouse
because there was no food for them in the little shacks they wept
at leaving. She wondered if all the world were that way, and
remembered Mercedes' tales. Yes; all the world was that way. Had
not Mercedes seen ten thousand families starve to death in that
far away India, when, as she had said, her own jewels that she
wore would have fed and saved them all? It was the poorhouse and
the salt vats for the stupid, jewels and automobiles for the
clever ones.
She was one of the stupid. She must be. The evidence all pointed
that way. Yet Saxon refused to accept it. She was not stupid. Her
mother had not been stupid, nor had the pioneer stock before her.
Still it must be so. Here she sat, nothing to eat at home, her
love-husband changed to a brute beast and lying in jail, her arms
and heart empty of the babe that would have been there if only
the stupid ones had not made a shambles of her front yard in
their wrangling over jobs.
She sat there, racking her brain, the smudge of Oakland at her
back, staring across the bay at the smudge of Ban Francisco. Yet
the sun was good; the wind was good, as was the keen salt air in
her nostrils; the blue sky, flecked with clouds, was good. All
the natural world was right, and sensible, and beneficent. It was
the man-world that was wrong, and mad, and horrible. Why were the
stupid stupid? Was it a law of God? No; it could not be. God had