“Everywhere. I was on the road off an’
on ten years—till I got married.”
“Well,” said the Candidate, still smiling,
“what do you say?”
“I say sure!” replied Jimmie.
He was almost beside himself with awe, at this unbelieveable
strange fortune, this real comradeship with the hero
of his dreams. To Jimmie this man had been a
disembodied intelligence, a dispenser of proletarian
inspiration, a supernatural being who went about the
country standing upon platforms and swaying the souls
of multitudes. It had never occurred to Jimmie
that he might have a bare body, and might enjoy splashing
about in cool water like a boy playing “hookey”
from school. The saying is that familiarity breeds
contempt, but for Jimmie it bred rapture.
They walked home again, more slowly. The Candidate
asked Jimmie about his life, and Jimmie told the story
of a Socialist—not one of the leaders,
the “intellectuals”, but of the “rank
and file”. Jimmie’s father was a
working man out of a job, who had left his family
before Jimmie had joined it; Jimmie’s mother
had died three years later, so he did not remember
her, nor could he recall a word of the foreign language
he had spoken at home, nor did he even know what the
language was. He had been taken in charge by the
city, and farmed out to a negro woman who had eight
miserable starvelings under her care, feeding them
on gruel and water, and not even giving them a blanket
in winter. You might not think that possible—
“I know America,” put in the Candidate.
Jimmie went on. At nine he had been boarded with
a woodsaw man, who worked him sixteen hours a day
and beat him in addition; so Jimmie had skipped out,
and for ten years had lived the life of a street waif
in the cities and a hobo on the road. He had learned
a bit about machinery, helping in a garage, and then,
in a rush-time, he had got a job in the Empire Machine
Shops. He had stayed in Leesville, because he
had got married; he had met his wife in a brothel,
and she had wanted to quit the life, and they had taken
a chance together.
“I don’t tell that to everybody,”
said Jimmie. “You know—they
mightn’t understand. But I don’t mind
you knowin’.”
“Thank you,” replied the Candidate, and
put his hand on Jimmie’s shoulder. “Tell
me how you became a Socialist.”
There was nothing special about that, was the answer.
There had been a fellow in the shop who was always
“chewing the rag”; Jimmie had laughed
at him—for his life had made him suspicious
of everybody, and if there was any sort of politician,
it was just another scheme of somebody to wear a white
collar and live off the workers. But the fellow
had kept pegging away; and once Jimmie had been laid
off for a couple of months, and the family had near
starved, and that had given him time to think, and
also the inclination. The fellow had come along
with some papers, and Jimmie had read them, and it
dawned upon him that here was a movement of his fellow-workers
to put an end to their torments.
