The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer
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CHAPTER III
CHICAGO, CHASING A WILL-O-THE-WISP
That was on Sunday morning three hundred miles south of Chicago, and atnine-forty that night I stepped off the New Orleans and Chicago fastmail into a different world. It was, I believe, the coldest night that Ihad ever experienced. The city was new and strange to me and I wanderedhere and there for hours before I finally found my brother's address onArmour Avenue. But the wandering and anxiety mattered little, for I wasin the great city where I intended beginning my career, and felt thatbigger things were in store for me.
The next day my brother's landlady appeared to take a good deal ofinterest in me and encouraged me so that I became quite confidential,and told her of my ambitions for the future and that it was my intentionto work, save my money and eventually become a property owner. I wasrather chagrined later, however, to find that she had repeated all thisto my brother and he gave me a good round scolding, accompanied by theunsolicited advice that if I would keep my mouth shut people wouldn'tknow I was so green. He had been traveling as a waiter on an easternrailroad dining car, but in a fit of independence--which had always beencharacteristic of him--had quit, and now in mid-winter, was out of ajob. He was not enthusiastic concerning my presence in the city and Ihad found him broke, but with a lot of fine clothes and a diamond ortwo. Most folks from the country don't value good clothes and diamondsin the way city folks do and I, for one, didn't think much of hisfinery.
I was greatly disappointed, for I had anticipated that my big brotherwould have accumulated some property or become master of a bank accountduring these five or six years he had been away from home. He seemed tosense this disappointment and became more irritated at my presence andfinally wrote home to my parents--who had recently moved toKansas--charging me with the crime of being a big, awkward, ignorantkid, unsophisticated in the ways of the world, and especially of thecity; that I was likely to end my "career" by running over a street carand permitting the city to irretrievably lose me, or something equallyas bad. When I heard from my mother she was worried and begged me tocome home. I knew the folks at home shared my brother's opinion of meand believed all he had told them, so I had a good laugh all to myselfin spite of the depressing effect it had on me. However, there was thereaction, and when it set in I became heartsick and discouraged and thenand there became personally acquainted with the "blues", who gave metheir undivided attention for some time after that.
The following Sunday I expected him to take me to church with him, buthe didn't. He went alone, wearing his five dollar hat, fifteen dollarmade-to-measure shoes, forty-five dollar coat and vest, eleven dollartrousers, fifty dollar tweed overcoat and his diamonds. I found my wayto church alone and when I saw him sitting reservedly in an oppositepew, I felt snubbed and my heart sank. However, only momentarily, for anew light dawned upon me and I saw the snobbery and folly of it all andresolved that some day I would rise head and shoulders above thatfoolish, four-flushing brother of mine in real and material success.
I finally secured irregular employment at the Union Stock Yards. Thewages at that time were not the best. Common labor a dollar-fifty perday and the hours very irregular. Some days I was called for duty atfive in the morning and laid off at three in the afternoon or calledagain at eight in the evening to work until nine the same evening. Isoon found the mere getting of jobs to be quite easy. It was getting adesirable one that gave me trouble. However, when I first went to theyards and looked at the crowds waiting before the office in quest ofemployment, I must confess I felt rather discouraged, but my newsurroundings and that indefinable interesting feature about these crowdswith their diversity of nationalities and ambitions, made me forget myown little disappointments. Most all new arrivals, whether skilled orunskilled workmen, seeking "jobs" in the city find their way to theyards. Thousands of unskilled laborers are employed here and it seems tobe the Mecca for the down-and-out who wander thither in a last effort toobtain employment.
The people with whom I stopped belonged to the servant class and livedneatly in their Armour Avenue flat. The different classes of people whomake up the population of a great city are segregated more by theiroccupations than anything else. The laborers usually live in a laborer'sneighborhood. Tradesmen find it more agreeable among their fellowworkmen and the same is true of the servants and others. I found thatemployment which soiled the clothes and face and hands was out ofkeeping among the people with whom I lived, so after trying first onejob, then another, I went to Joliet, Illinois, to work out my fortune inthe steel mills of that town. I was told that at that place was anexcellent opportunity to learn a trade, but after getting only the veryroughest kind of work to do around the mills, such as wrecking andcarrying all kinds of broken iron and digging in a canal along with alot of jabbering foreigners whose English vocabulary consisted of butone word--their laborer's number. It is needless to say that I sawlittle chance of learning a trade at any very early date.
Pay day "happened" every two weeks with two weeks held back. If I quitit would be three weeks before I could get my wages, but was informed ofa scheme by which I could get my money, by telling the foreman that Iwas going to leave the state. Accordingly, I approached the renownedimbecile and told him that I was going to California and would have toquit and would like to get my pay. "Pay day is every two weeks, so besure to get back in time," he answered in that officious manner sopeculiar to foremen. I had only four dollars coming, so I quit anyway.
That evening I became the recipient of the illuminating informationthat if I would apply at the coal chutes I would find better employmentas well as receive better wages. I sought out the fellow in charge, abig colored man weighing about two hundred pounds, who gave me workcracking and heaving coal into the chute at a dollar-fifty pertwenty-five tons.
"Gracious", I expostulated. "A man can't do all of that in a day".
"Pooh", and he waved his big hands depreciatingly, "I have heaved fortytons with small effort".
I decided to go to work that day, but with many misgivings as tocracking and shoveling twenty-five tons of coal. The first day Imanaged, by dint of hard labor, to crack and heave eighteen tons out ofa box car, for which I received the munificent sum of one dollar, andthe next day I fell to sixteen tons and likewise to eighty-nine cents.The contractor who superintended the coal business bought me a drink ina nearby saloon, and as I drank it with a gulp he patted me on theshoulder, saying, "Now, after the third day, son, you begin to improveand at the end of a week you can heave thirty tons a day as easily as aclock ticking the time". I thought he was going to add that I would beshoveling forty tons like Big Jim, the fellow who gave me the job, but Icut him off by telling him that I'd resign before I became soproficient.
I had to send for more money to pay my board. My brother, being mybanker, sent a statement of my account, showing that I had to date justtwenty-five dollars, and the statement seemed to read coldly between thelines that I would soon be broke, out of a job, and what then? I feltvery serious about the matter and when I returned to Chicago I had lostsome of my confidence regarding my future. Mrs. Nelson, the landlady,boasted that her husband made twenty dollars per week; showed me herdiamonds and spoke so very highly of my brother, that I suspicioned thatshe admired him a great deal, and that he was in no immediate danger oflosing his room even when he was out of work and unable to meet hisobligations.
My next step was to let an employment agency swindle me out of twodollars. Their system was quite unique, and, I presume, legitimate. Theypersuaded the applicant to deposit three dollars as a guarantee of goodfaith, after which they were to find a position for him. A givenpercentage was also to be taken from the wages for a certain length oftime. Some of these agencies may have been all right, but my old friend,the hoodoo, led me to one that was an open fraud. After the personseeking employment has been sent to several places for imaginarypositions that prove to be only myths, the agency offers to give back adollar and the disgusted applicant is usually glad to get it. I, myself,being one of many o
f these unfortunates.
I then tried the newspaper ads. There is usually some particular paperin any large city that makes a specialty of want advertisements. I wastold, as was necessary, to stand at the door when the paper came fromthe press, grab a copy, choose an ad that seemed promising and run likewild for the address given. I had no trade, so turned to themiscellaneous column, and as I had no references I looked for a placewhere none were required. If the address was near I would run as fast asthe crowded street and the speed laws would permit, but always foundupon arrival that someone had just either been accepted ahead of me, orhad been there a week. I having run down an old ad that had beenpermitted to run for that time. About the only difference I foundbetween the newspapers and the employment agencies was that I didn'thave to pay three dollars for the experience.
I now realized the disadvantages of being an unskilled laborer, and hadgrown weary of chasing a "will-o-the-wisp" and one day while talking toa small Indian-looking negro I remarked that I wished I could find a jobin some suburb shining shoes in a barber shop or something that wouldtake me away from Chicago and its dilly-dally jobs for awhile.
"I know where you can get a job like that", he answered, thoughtfully.
"Where?" I asked eagerly.
"Why, out at Eaton", he went on, "a suburb about twenty-five miles west.A fellow wanted me to go but I don't want to leave Chicago".
I found that most of the colored people with whom I had becomeacquainted who lived in Chicago very long were similarly reluctant aboutleaving, but I was ready to go anywhere. So my new friend took me overto a barber supply house on Clark street, where a man gave me the nameof the barber at Eaton and told me to come by in the morning and he'dgive me a ticket to the place. When I got on the street again I felt sohappy and grateful to my friend for the information, that I gave thelittle mulatto a half dollar, all the money I had with me, and had towalk the forty blocks to my room. Here I filled my old grip and the nextmorning "beat it" for Eaton, arriving there on the first of May, and acold, bleak, spring morning it was. I found the shop without anytrouble--a dingy little place with two chairs. The proprietor, a drawn,unhappy looking creature, and a hawkish looking German assistantwelcomed me cordially. They seemed to need company. The proprietor ledme upstairs to a room that I could have free with an oil stove and tablewhere I could cook--so I made arrangements to "bach".
I received no wages, but was allowed to retain all I made "shining". Ihad acquired some experience shining shoes on the streets of M--pls witha home-made box--getting on my knees whenever I got a customer. "Shiningshoes" is not usually considered an advanced or technical occupationrequiring skill. However, if properly conducted it can be the making ofa good solicitor. While Eaton was a suburb it was also a country townand this shop was never patronized by any of the metropolitan class whomade their homes there, but principally by the country class who do notevidence their city pride by the polish of their shoes. Few city peopleallow their shoes to go unpolished and I wasn't long in finding it out,and when I did I had something to say to the men who went by, welldressed but with dirty shoes. If I could argue them into stopping, ifonly for a moment, I could nearly always succeed in getting them intothe chair.
Business, however, was dull and I began taking jobs in the country fromthe farmers, working through the day and getting back to the shop forthe evening. This, however, was short lived, for I was unaccustomed tofarm work since leaving home and found it extremely difficult. My firstwork in the country was pitching timothy hay side-by-side with a girl ofsixteen, who knew how to pitch hay. I thought it would be quite romanticbefore I started, but before night came I had changed my mind. The manon the wagon would drive alongside a big cock of sweet smelling hay andthe girl would stick her fork partly to one side of the hay cock andshow me how to put my fork into the other. I was left-handed while shewas right, and with our backs to the wagon we could make a heavy liftand when the hay was directly overhead we'd turn and face each other andover the load would go onto the wagon. Toward evening the loads thusbalanced seemed to me as heavy as the load of Atlas bearing the earth. Iam sure my face disclosed the fatigue and strain under which I labored,for it was clearly reflected in the knowing grin of my companion. I drewmy pay that night on the excuse of having to get an overall suit,promising to be back at a quarter to seven the next morning.
Then I tried shocking oats along with a boy of about twelve, a girl offourteen and the farmer's wife. The way those two children didwork,--Whew! I was so glad when a shower came up about noon that Irefrained from shouting with difficulty. I drew my pay this time to getsome gloves, and promised to be back as soon as it dried. The nextmorning I felt so sore and stiff as the result of my two days'experience in the harvest fields, that I forgot all about my promise toreturn and decided to stay in Eaton.
It was in Eaton that I started my first bank account. The littletwenty-dollar certificate of deposit opened my mind to different thingsentirely. I would look at it until I had day dreams. During the threemonths I spent in Eaton I laid the foundation of a future. Simple as itwas, it led me into channels which carried me away from my race and intoa life fraught with excitement; a life that gave experiences and otherthings I had never dreamed of. I had started a bank account of twentydollars and I found myself wanting one of thirty, and to my surprise thedesire seemed to increase. This desire fathered my plans to become aporter on a P----n car. A position I diligently sought and applied forbetween such odd jobs about town as mowing lawns, washing windows,scrubbing floors and a variety of others that kept me quite busy. Takingthe work, if I could, by contract, thus permitting me to use my own timeand to work as hard as I desired to finish. I found that by this plan Icould make money faster and easier than by working in the country.
I was finally rewarded by being given a run on a parlor car by a roadthat reached many summer resorts in southern Wisconsin. Here I skimpedalong on a run that went out every Friday and Saturday, returning onMonday morning. The regular salary was forty dollars per month, but as Inever put in more than half the time I barely made twenty dollars, andaltho' I made a little "on the side" in the way of tips I had to draw onthe money I had saved in Eaton.