Jimmie Higgins eBook

But Jimmie was determined to go to meetings, and determined that Lizzie should go along.  It was one of the curses of the system, he said, that it deprived working-class women of all chance for self-improvement.  So he had paid a visit to the “Industrial Store”, a junk-shop maintained by the Salvation Army, and for fifteen cents he had obtained a marvellous broad baby-carriage for twins, all finished in shiny black enamel.  One side of it was busted, but Jimmie had fixed that with some wire, and by careful packing had shown that it was possible to stow the youngsters in it—­Jimmie and Pete side by side, and the new baby at the foot.

The one trouble was that Jimmie Junior couldn’t keep his feet still.  He could never keep any part of him still, the little jack-in-the-box.  Here he was now, tearing about the kitchen, pursuing the ever-receding tail of the newest addition to the family, a half-starved cur who had followed Jimmie in from the street, and had been fed into a semblance of reality.  From this treasure a bare, round tail hung out behind in tantalizing fashion; Jimmie Junior, always imagining he could catch it, was toddling round and round and round the kitchen-table, clutching out in front of him, laughing so that after a while he sat down from sheer exhaustion.

And Jimmie Senior watched enraptured.  Say, but he was a buster!  Did you ever see a twenty-seven months’ old kid that could get over the ground like that?  Or make a louder noise?  This last because Jimmie Junior had tried to take a short cut through the kitchen range and failed.  Lizzie swooped down, clasping him to her broad bosom, and pouring out words of comfort in Bohemian.  As Jimmie Senior did not understand any of these words, he took advantage of the confusion to get his coat and cap and hustle off to the Opera-house, full of fresh determination.  For, you see, whenever a Socialist looks at his son, or even thinks of his son, he is hotter for his job of propagandist.  Let the world be changed soon, so that the little fellows may be spared those sufferings and humiliations which have fallen to the lot of their parents!

II

“Comrade Higgins, have you got a hammer?” It was Comrade Schneider who spoke, and he did not take the trouble to come down from the ladder, where he was holding up a streamer of bunting, but waited comfortably for the hammer to be fetched to him.  And scarcely had the fetcher started to climb before there came the voice of a woman from across the stage:  “Comrade Higgins, has the Ypsel banner come?” And from the rear part of the hall came the rotund voice of fat Comrade Rapinsky:  “Comrade Higgins, will you bring up an extra table for the literature?” And from the second tier box Comrade Mary Allen spoke:  “While you’re downstairs, Comrade Higgins, would you mind telephoning and making sure the Reception Committee knows about the change in the train-time?”