Still Jim

by Honoré Morrow

  Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  STILL JIM

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  "AND THE FLAG FLUTTERED LIGHTLY BEHIND THEM AND THEDESERT WHISPERED ABOVE THEIR HEADS."--_Page 369_]

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  STILL JIM

  By HONORE WILLSIE

  AUTHOR OF"The Heart of the Desert," Etc.

  A. L. BURT COMPANYPUBLISHERS . NEW YORK

  PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

  Copyright, 1915, byFREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

  Copyright, 1914, 1915, byTHE RIDGWAY COMPANY

  All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages

  Printed in the United States of America

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. QUARRY 1

  II. THE OLD SWIMMING HOLE 14

  III. THE BROWNSTONE FRONT 27

  IV. JIM FINDS SARA AND PEN 38

  V. THE SIGN AND SEAL 52

  VI. THE MARATHON 65

  VII. THE CUB ENGINEER 75

  VIII. THE BROKEN SEAL 93

  IX. THE MAKON ROAD 103

  X. THE STRENGTH OF THE PACK 118

  XI. OLD JEZEBEL ON THE RAMPAGE 133

  XII. THE TENT HOUSE 147

  XIII. THE END OF IRON SKULL'S ROAD 158

  XIV. THE ELEPHANT'S BACK 173

  XV. THE HEART OF A DESERT WIFE 181

  XVI. THE ELEPHANT'S LOVE STORY 196

  XVII. TOO LATE FOR LOVE 210

  XVIII. JIM MAKES A SPEECH 224

  XIX. THE MASK BALL 235

  XX. THE DAY'S WORK 249

  XXI. JIM GETS A BLOW 267

  XXII. JIM PLANS A LAST FIGHT 277

  XXIII. THE SILENT CAMPAIGN 294

  XXIV. UNCLE DENNY GETS BUSY 308

  XXV. SARA GOES ON A JOURNEY 326

  XXVI. THE END OF A SILENT CAMPAIGN 338

  XXVII. THE THUMB PRINT 353

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  STILL JIM

  CHAPTER I

  THE QUARRY

  "An Elephant of Rock, I have lain here in the desert for countless ages, watching, waiting. I wonder for what!"

  MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

  Little Jim sat at the quarry edge and dangled his legs over the derrickpit. The derrick was out of commission because once more the lift cablehad parted. Big Jim Manning, Little Jim's father, was down in the pitwith Tomasso, his Italian helper, disentangling the cables, workingsilently, efficiently, as was his custom.

  Little Jim bit his fingers and watched and scowled in a worried way. Heand his mother hated to have Big Jim work in the quarry. It seemed tothem that Big Jim was too good for such work. Little Jim wanted to leaveschool and be a water boy and his father's helper. Big Jim never seemedto hear the boy's request and Little Jim kept on at school.

  The noon whistle blew just as the cable was once more in running order.Little Jim slid down into the pit with his father's dinner bucket andsat by while his father ate.

  Big Jim Manning was big only in height. He was six feet tall, but lean.He was sallow and given to long silences that he broke with a slow,sarcastic drawl that Little Jim had inherited. Big Jim was forty-fiveyears old. Little Jim was fourteen; tall and lean, like his father, hisface a composite of father and mother. His eyes were large and a cleargray. Even at fourteen he had the half sweet, half gay, wholly wistfulsmile that people watched for, when he grew up. His hair was a warm leafbrown, peculiarly soft and thick. Little Jim's forehead was the foreheadof a dreamer. His mouth and chin were dogged, persistent, energetic.

  When he was not in school, Jim never missed the noon hour at the quarry.He had his father's love for mechanics. He had his father's love for lawand order making, the gift to both of their unmixed Anglo-Saxonancestry. When Big Jim did talk at the noon hour, it was usually to tryto educate his Italian and Polish fellow workmen to his New Englandviewpoint. Little Jim never missed a word. He adored his father. He wasprofoundly influenced by the dimly felt, not understood tragedy of hisfather's life and of the old New England town in which he lived.

  Big Jim spread a white napkin over his knee and poured a cup of steamingsoup from the thermos bottle. Tomasso broke off a chunk of bread andtook an onion from one pocket and a piece of cheese from another. BigJim and 'Masso, as he was called, working shoulder to shoulder, day byday, had developed a sort of liking for each other in spite of the factthat Big Jim held foreigners in utter contempt.

  "Why did you come to America, anyhow, 'Masso?" drawled Big Jim, waitingfor his soup to cool.

  'Masso gnawed his onion and bread thoughtfully. "Maka da mon' quick,here; go backa da old countra rich."

  "What else?" urged Big Jim.

  'Masso looked blank. "I mean," said Big Jim, "did you like our lawsbetter'n yours? Did you like our ways better?"

  'Masso shrugged his shoulders. "Don' care 'bout countra if maka da mon'.Why you come desa countra?"

  Big Jim's drawl seemed to bite like the slow gouge of a stone chisel.

  "I was born here, you Wop! This very dirt made the food that made me,understand? I'm a part of this country, same as the trees are. Myforefathers left comfort and friends behind them and came to thiscountry when it was full of Indians to be free. Free! Can you get that?And what good did it do them? They larded the soil with their good sweatto make a place for fellows like you. And what do you care?"

  'Masso, who was quick and eager, shook his head. "I work all da time. Imaka da mon. I go home to old countra. That 'nough. Work alla da time."

  Big Jim ate his beef sandwich slowly. Little Jim, chin in palm, satlistening, turning the matter over in his mind. His father tried anotherangle.

  "What started you over here, 'Masso? How'd you happen to think ofcoming?"

  'Masso understood this. "Homa, mucha talk 'bout desa landa. However'boda getta da mon over here. I heara da talk but it like a dream,see? I lika da talk but I lika my own Italia, see? But in olda countramany men work for steamship compana. Steamship compana, they needa damon', too, see? They talk to us mucha, fixa her easy, come here easy,getta da job easy, see? Steamship men, they keepa right after me, so Icome, see?"

  Big Jim lighted his pipe. "Tell Mama that was a good dinner, Jimmy," hesaid. "I haven't got anything personal against you, 'Masso," he went on."You're a human being like me, trying to take care of your family. Isuppose you can't help it that Italians as a class are a lawless lot ofcut-throats. You certainly are willing workers. But I'd like to bet thatif we'd shut the doors after the Civil War and let those that was inthis country have their chance, this country would have a wholesomergrowth than it has now. I'll bet if they had fifty men in this quarrylike me instead of a hundred like you, it would turn out twice the workit does now."

  "But Dad, they
say you can't get real Americans to do this kind ofwork," said Little Jim.

  "Deal with facts, Jimmy; deal with facts," drawled his father. "I'mworking here. Will Endicott, John Allen, Phil Chadwick are all daylaborers. Our forefathers founded this government and this town. What'shappened to it and to us? It's too late for us older men to do much. Butyou kids have got to think about it. What's happened to us? What'shappened to this old town? I want you to think about it."

  Little Jim took the dinner bucket and started for home. His father hadnot been talking on a topic new to the Mannings or to the Mannings'friends. Little Jim had been brought up to wonder what was the matterwith his breed, what had happened to Exham. Little Jim's forefathers hadonce held in grant from an English king the land on which the quarrylay. His grandfather had given it up. Farm labor was hard to get. Themortgage had grown heavier and heavier. The land all about was beingbought up by Polish and Italian hucksters who lived on what they couldnot sell and whose wives and children were their farm hands. GrandfatherManning could not compete with this condition.

  Big Jim had gone to New York City in his early twenties. He had had agood high school education and was a first-class mechanic. But somehow,he could not compete. He was slow and thoroughgoing and honest. He couldnot compete with the new type of workman, the man bred to do part work.When Little Jim was five, the Mannings had come back to Exham, with thehope of somehow, sometime, buying back the old farm.

  Little Jim passed the old farmhouse slowly. It was used for a storehousefor quarry supplies now. Yet it still was beautiful. Two great elmsstill shaded the wide portico. The great eaves still sheltered manypaned windows. The delicate balustrade still guarded the curvingstaircase. The dream of Little Jim's life was to live in that great,hospitable mansion.

  He passed with a boy's deliberation down the long street that led towardthe cottage where the Mannings now lived. The street was heavily shadedby gigantic elms. It was lined on either side by fine Colonial houses,set in gardens, some of which still held dials and bricked walks; wide,deep gardens some of which still were ghostly sweet. But the majority ofthe mansions had been turned into Italian tenement houses. The gardenswere garbage heaps. The houses were filthy and disheveled. The look ofthem clutched one's heart with horror and despair, as if one looked on aonce lovely mother turned to a street drabble.

  Little Jim looked and thought with a sense of helpless melancholy thatshould not have belonged to fourteen. When he reached the cottage, hismother, taking the bucket from him, caught the look in the clear grayeyes that were like her own. She had no words for the look. Neverthelessshe understood it immediately. Mrs. Manning was nervous and energetic,with the half-worried, half-wistful face of so many New England women.

  "Jimmy," she said, "Phil Chadwick just whistled for you. He went to theswimming hole."

  The words were magic. They swept that intangible look from Jim's faceand left it flushed and boyish.

  "Gee!" he exclaimed, "he's early today. Can I have my dinner right off?"

  "Yes," replied his mother, "but remember not to go in until threeo'clock. I'm sure I don't see what keeps all you boys from dying! Andhow you can stand the blood suckers and turtles up there in that mudhole! Goodness! Come, dear, I've cooled off your soup so you can hurry.I knew you'd want to."

  Will Endicott dropped in at the Mannings' that evening. Will was ashort, florid man, younger than Big Jim. Little Jim, his hair still dampand his fingers wrinkled from water soak, laid down his _Youth'sCompanion_. Usually when Will Endicott came there were some livelydiscussions on the immigration question and the tariff. Even had LittleJim wanted to talk, he would not have been allowed to do so. Among theNew Englanders in Exham the old maxim still obtained, "Children are tobe seen and not heard." But Little Jim always listened eagerly.

  Endicott looked excited tonight. But he had no news about the tariff.

  "There's a boy at my house!" he exclaimed. "He just came. Nine pounds!Annie is doing fine."

  "Oh!" cried Mrs. Manning, while Big Jim shook Will's hand solemnly. "Oh,goodness! I didn't know--Why I thought tomorrow--Well, I guess I'll goright over now. Goodness----" and still exclaiming, she hurried out intothe summer dusk.

  "That's great, Will!" said Big Jim. "I wish I could afford to have adozen. But they cost money, these kids. I suppose you'll be like me,never be able to afford but the one."

  "He's awful strong," said Will, abstractedly. "To hear him yell, you'dthink he was twins. Looks like me, too. Red as a beet and fat."

  "Must be a beauty," said Big Jim. "That Wop that works with me has sevenchildren about a year apart. Doesn't worry him at all. He just movesinto a cheaper place, cuts down on food and clothes and takes anotherone out of school and sets him to work. They're growing up like Indians,lawless little devils. A fine addition to the country! I was reading theother day that by the law of averages a man has got to have fourchildren to be pretty sure of his line surviving. And it said that weNew Englanders have the smallest birth rate in the civilized worldexcept France, which is the same as ours. And we've got the biggestproportion of foreigners of any part of America now, up here."

  Will came out of the clouds for a moment. "I've been telling you thatfor years. What's the matter with us, anyhow?"

  Big Jim shrugged his shoulders. "All like you and me, I suppose. If wecan't give a child a decent chance, we won't have 'em. And theseforeigners have cut down wages so's we can hardly support one, let alonetwo."

  Endicott rose. "I just happened to think. I'm going to borrow Chadwick'sscales and weigh him again. They're better than mine."

  Big Jim chuckled and filled his pipe. Then he sighed. "We've got to go,Jimmy. The old New Englander is as dead as the Indian. We arehas-beens."

  "But why?" urged Little Jim. "I don't feel like a has-been. What's madeus this way? Why don't you and the rest do something?"

  "You'd have to change our skins," replied his father, "to make us fightthese foreigners on their own level. I'm going to bed. No use waitingfor Mama. There's a hard day ahead in the quarry tomorrow. That breakset us back on a rush order. The boss was crazy. I told him as I toldhim forty times before that he'd have to get a new derrick, but hewon't. Not so long as he's got me to piece and contrive and make thingsdo.

  "I tried to talk 'Masso and the rest into striking for it today, butthey don't care anything about the equipment. It's something bigger thanI can get at. It isn't only this quarry. It's everywhere I work. Alwaysthese foreigners are willing to work in such conditions as we Americanscan't stand. Everywhere twenty of 'em waiting to undercut our pay. Andthe big men bank on this very thing to make themselves rich. You'dbetter go after your mother, Jimmy. This village ain't safe for a womanafter dark the way it was before the Italians came. I'm going to bed."

  The next night at supper Big Jim was very silent. When he had eaten hisslice of cake he said in his slow way, "No more cake for a while, Iguess, Mama."

  Mrs. Manning looked up in her nervous, startled manner.

  "What's the matter, Jim?"

  "Well, I went with my usual kick to the boss about the derrick and hetold me to take it or leave it. That work was slacking up so he'ddecided on a ten per cent. cut in wages. I don't know but what I'dbetter quit and look for something else."

  "Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Mrs. Manning. She had been through many, manyperiods of job hunting since her marriage. "Keep your job, Jim. Nextweek is September and winter will be here before we know it. We'llmanage somehow."

  "I'll not go to school," cried Little Jim. "I'll get a job. Please, Dad,let me!"

  "You'll stay in school," replied Big Jim in his best stone chisel drawl,"as long as I have strength to work. And if I can send you throughcollege, you'll go. Don't you ever think of anything, Jimmy, but thatyou are to have a thorough education? If anything happens to me you areto get an education if you have to sweep the streets to do it. That'sthe New England idea. Educate the children at whatever cost. I had ahigh school education and you'll have a college course if I live. And ifI don't liv
e, get it for yourself. I'll have another cup of tea, please,Mama."

  "Well, it makes me sick!" exclaimed Little Jim with one of his rareoutbursts of feeling, "to have you and mama working so hard and me donothing but feed the chickens and chop wood. I'll give up the _Youth'sCompanion_, anyhow."

  Mrs. Manning looked horrified. The _Companion_ was as much a familyinstitution as the dictionary. "How do you think you are going to bereally educated, Jimmy, unless you read good things? Your father and Iwere brought up on the _Companion_ and you'll keep right on with it.I'll get cheaper coffee, Papa, and we can give up cream. Ten per cent.That will make a difference of twenty cents a day. I'll turn my wintersuit."

  "I'll give up tobacco for a while," said Big Jim. "I was thinking aboutit, anyhow. It's got so it bites my tongue. I don't need any new winterthings, but Jimmy's got to look decent. My father would turn over in hisgrave if he thought I couldn't keep the last Manning dressed decent.Maybe we ought to give up this cottage, Mama. The Higgins cottage ispretty good but it hasn't got any bathroom."

  "If you think I'm going to let Jimmy grow up without a bathroom, you'remistaken," replied Mrs. Manning. "I've got a chance to send jelly andpreserves to Boston and I'm going to do it. Don't worry, Papa. We'llmake it."

  When Little Jim took his father's dinner to him the next day, 'Masso'sboy Tony was sharing 'Masso's lunch. His face was dust smeared.

  "I gotta job," announced Tony.

  'Masso nodded. "He bigga kid now. Not go da school any more. Boss, hegiva da cut. I bringa da Tony, getta da job as tool boy. Boss, he fireda Yankee boy. Tony, he work cheaper."

  "He's too small to work," said Big Jim. "You'd ought to keep him inschool and give him a chance."

  "Chance for what?" asked 'Masso.

  "Chance to grow into a decent American citizen," snarled Big Jim withthe feeling he had had so often of late, the sense of having his back tothe wall while the pack worried him in front.

  Tony looked up quickly. He was a brilliant faced little chap. "I am anAmerican!" he cried. "I'll be rich some day."

  Big Jim looked from 'Masso's child to his own. Then he looked off overthe browning summer fields, beyond the quarry. There lay the land thathis fathers had held in grant from an English king. But the fields thathad built Big Jim's flesh and blood were dotted with Italian huts. Thelane in which Big Jim's mother had met his father, returning crippledfrom Antietam, was blocked by a Polish road house.

  Little Jim didn't like the look on his father's face. He spoke his firstthought to break the silence.

  "Can't I stay for a while, Dad, and watch you load the big stones?"

  "If your mother won't worry and you'll keep out of the way," answeredBig Jim, rising as the whistle blew.

  To industry, the cheapest portion of its equipment is its inexhaustiblehuman labor supply. It was Big Jim who was sufficiently intelligent tokeep demanding a new derrick. It was Big Jim who was adept in managingthe decrepit machinery and so it was he who was sent to the dangerspots, he having the keenest wits and the best knowledge of the dangerspots.

  Little Jim, sitting with his long legs dangling over the derrick pit,watched his father and 'Masso tease the derrick into swinging the greatblocks to the flat car for the rush order.

  The thing happened very quickly, so quickly that Little Jim could notjump to his feet and start madly down into the pit before it was allover. The great derrick broke clean from its moorings and dropped acrossthe flat car, throwing Big Jim and 'Masso and the swinging blocktogether in a ghastly heap.

  It took some time to rig the other derrick to bear on the situation.Little Jim dropped to the ground and managed to grip his father's hand,protruding from under the debris. But the boy could not speak. He onlysobbed dryly and clung desperately to the inert hand.

  At last Big Jim and 'Masso were laid side by side upon the brown grassat the quarry edge. 'Masso's chest was broken. The priest got to himbefore the doctor. Had 'Masso known enough, before he choked, he mighthave said:

  "It doesn't matter. I have done a real man's part. I have worked to thelimit of my strength and I shall survive for America through myfertility. What I have done to America, no one knows."

  But 'Masso was no thinker. Before he slipped away, he only said somefutile word to the priest who knelt beside him. 'Masso never had gottenvery far from the thought of his Maker.

  Big Jim, lying on the border of the fields where his fathers had dreamedand hoped and worked, looked hazily at Little Jim, and tried to saysomething, but couldn't. Once more the sense of having his back to thewall, the pack suffocating him, closed in on him, blinded him, andmerged with him into the darkness into which none of us has seen.

  Had Big Jim been able to clarify the chaos of thoughts in his mind andhad he had a longer time for dying, he might have done the thing farmore dramatically. He merely rasped out his life, a bloody, voiceless,broken thing on the golden August fields, with his chaos of thoughtsunspoken.

  He might, had things been otherwise, have seen the long, sad glory ofhumanity's migrations; might have caught for an unspeakable second avision of that never ceasing, never long deflected on-moving of humanlife that must continue, regardless of race tragedy, as long as humanscrave food either for the body or the soul. He might have seen himselfas symbolizing one of those races that slip over the horizon intooblivion, unprotesting, only vaguely knowing. And seeing this thing, BigJim might have paused and looking into the face of the horde that waspressing him over the brim, he might have said:

  "We who are about to die, salute thee!"

  But Big Jim was not dramatic. Little Jim never knew what his fathermight have said. Instinct told the boy when the end had come. His drysobs changed to the abandoned tears of childhood as he ran down thestreet of elms and besotted mansions to tell his mother.