It was finally decided that Comrade Mary should call
on Jerry Coleman in the morning, and satisfy herself
that he really meant business; if so, she would get
the full committee together on the following evening.
The committee had authority to go ahead, as soon as
the necessary fund was made up, so if Coleman was all
right, there was no reason why the first issue of
the paper should not appear next week. Comrade
Jack Smith, a reporter on the Herald, the capitalist
paper of Leesville, was to resign and become editor
of the Worker, and he already had his editorials written—had
been showing them about in the local for the past
month!
Jimmie and Meissner set out for home, happy in the
feeling that they had accomplished more for Socialism
on that one night than in all the rest of their lives.
But then, as they walked, there came suddenly a clamour
of bells on the night air; a fire! They knew the
signals, and counted the strokes, and made the discovery
that it was in the neighbourhood of their own home!
An engine went by on the gallop, with sparks streaming
out behind, and they broke into a run. Before
they had gone a couple of blocks, they saw a glare
in the sky, and their hearts were in their throats;
poor Meissner panted that he had neglected to pay
his last month’s insurance!
But as they ran, in the ever-growing throng of people,
they realized that the fire was too near for their
own home; also, it was a bigger blaze than could have
been made by any number of shacks. And presently
there were shouts in the crowd, “It’s the
Empire! The Old Shops!” There came a hook
and ladder truck, rushing by with shrieking siren,
and then the fire-chief in his automobile with a fiercely
clanging bell; they turned the corner, and far down
the street before them was the building in which for
four years Jimmie had tended the bolt-making machine.
They saw that one whole end of it was a towering,
leaping, sweeping pillar of flames!
CHAPTER V
JIMMIE HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISER
I
Jimmie Higgins regarded with the utmost resentment
the determination of the war to come to Leesville,
in spite of all his labours to keep it out. Take
the most preposterous thing you could imagine—the
most idiotic thing on the face of the earth—take
German spies! When Jimmie heard people talking
about German spies, he laughed in their faces, he
told them they were a bunch of fools, they belonged
in the nursery; for Jimmie classed German spies with
goblins, witches and sea-serpents. And here suddenly
the bewildered little man found himself in the midst
of a German spy mania, the like of which he could
never have dreamed!
Copyrights
Jimmie Higgins from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
