Jimmie thought it all over while he took a couple
more drinks, and finally settled it to himself:
“Aw, hell! What do I want with money?
I ain’t a-goin’ to live no more!”
JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD
Jimmie Higgins was wandering down the street, when
he ran into “Wild Bill”, who was, of course,
greatly surprised to see his friend in a drunken condition.
When he heard the reason, he revealed an unexpected
side of his nature. If you judged “Wild
Bill” by his oratory, you thought him a creature
poisoned through and through, a soul turned rancid
with envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness.
But now the tears came into his eyes, and he put his
arm over Jimmie’s shoulder. “Say,
old pal, that’s bum luck! By God, I’m
sorry!” And Jimmie, who wanted nothing so much
as somebody to be sorry with, clasped Bill in his
arms, and burst into tears, and told over and over
again how he had gone to what had been his home, and
found only a huge crater blown out by the explosion,
and how he had gone about calling his wife and babies,
until at last they had brought him one leg of his
wife.
“Wild Bill” listened, until he knew the
story through and then he said, “See here, old
pal, let’s you and me quit this town.”
“Quit?” said Jimmie, stupidly.
“Every time I open the front of my face now,
the police jump in it. Leesville’s a hell
of a town, I say. Let’s get out.”
“Where’ll we go?”
“Anywhere—what’s the diff?
It’s coming summer. Let’s slam the
gates.”
Jimmie was willing—why not? They went
back to the lodging-house where Bill lived, and he
tied up his worldly goods in a gunny-sack—the
greater part of the load consisting of a diary in
which he had recorded his adventures as leader of an
unemployed army which had started to march from California
to Washington, D.C., some four years previously.
They took the trolley, and getting off in the country,
walked along the banks of the river, Jimmie still sobbing,
and Bill in the grip of one of his fearful coughing
spells. They sat down beside the stream not so
far from where Jimmie had gone in swimming with the
Candidate; he gave a touching account of this adventure,
but fell asleep in the middle of it, and Bill wandered
off and begged some food at a farm-house, using his
cough as a convenient lever for moving the heart of
the housewife. When night came, they sought the
railroad and got on board a southward-moving freight;
so Jimmie Higgins went back to the tramps life, at
which he had spent a considerable part of his youth.
But there was a difference now; he was no longer a
blind and helpless victim of a false economic system,
but a revolutionist, fully class-conscious, trained
in a grim school. The country was going to war,
and Jimmie was going to war on the country. The
two agitators got off the train at a mining-village,
and got a job as “surface men”, and proceeded
to preach their gospel of revolt to the workers in
a lousy company boarding-house. When they were
found out, they “jumped” another freight,
and repeated the performance in another part of the
district.
