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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:28 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:28 -0700 |
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diff --git a/1075-h/1075-h.htm b/1075-h/1075-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32113da --- /dev/null +++ b/1075-h/1075-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5505 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Strength of the Strong, by Jack London</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Strength of the Strong, by Jack London + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Strength of the Strong + + +Author: Jack London + + + +Release Date: February 21, 2013 [eBook #1075] +[This file was first posted on October 17, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>THE STRENGTH<br /> +OF THE STRONG</h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +<b>JACK LONDON</b></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">AUTHOR OF +“THE VALLEY OF THE MOON”</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">“JERRY OF THE ISLANDS,” +ETC.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">MILLS & BOON, LIMITED<br /> +49 RUPERT STREET<br /> +LONDON, W.1</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Published 1919</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Copyright in the United States +of America by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Macmillan Company</span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Strength of the Strong</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">South of the Slot</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page34">34</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Unparalleled Invasion</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page60">60</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Enemy of All the World</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page81">81</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Dream of Debs</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Sea-Farmer</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page134">134</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Samuel</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page161">161</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>THE +STRENGTH OF THE STRONG</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>Parables don’t lie</i>, <i>but liars will +parable</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">—<i>Lip-King</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><span class="smcap">Old</span> Long-Beard paused in his +narrative, licked his greasy fingers, and wiped them on his naked +sides where his one piece of ragged bearskin failed to cover +him. Crouched around him, on their hams, were three young +men, his grandsons, Deer-Runner, Yellow-Head, and +Afraid-of-the-Dark. In appearance they were much the +same. Skins of wild animals partly covered them. They +were lean and meagre of build, narrow-hipped and crooked-legged, +and at the same time deep-chested, with heavy arms and enormous +hands. There was much hair on their chests and shoulders, +and on the outsides of their arms and legs. Their heads +were matted with uncut hair, long locks of which often strayed +before their eyes, beady and black and glittering like the eyes +of birds. They were narrow between the eyes and broad +between the cheeks, while their lower jaws were projecting and +massive.</p> +<p>It was a night of clear starlight, and below them, stretching +away remotely, lay range on range of forest-covered hills. +In the distance the heavens were red from the glow of a +volcano. At their backs yawned the black mouth of a cave, +out of which, from time to time, blew draughty gusts of +wind. Immediately in front of them blazed a fire. At +one side, partly devoured, lay the carcass of a bear, with about +it, at a respectable distance, several large dogs, shaggy and +wolf-like. Beside each man lay his bow and arrows and a +huge club. In the cave-mouth a number of rude spears leaned +against the rock.</p> +<p>“So that was how we moved from the cave to the +tree,” old Long-Beard spoke up.</p> +<p>They laughed boisterously, like big children, at recollection +of a previous story his words called up. Long-Beard +laughed, too, the five-inch bodkin of bone, thrust midway through +the cartilage of his nose, leaping and dancing and adding to his +ferocious appearance. He did not exactly say the words +recorded, but he made animal-like sounds with his mouth that +meant the same thing.</p> +<p>“And that is the first I remember of the Sea +Valley,” Long-Beard went on. “We were a very +foolish crowd. We did not know the secret of +strength. For, behold, each family lived by itself, and +took care of itself. There were thirty families, but we got +no strength from one another. We were in fear of each other +all the time. No one ever paid visits. In the top of +our tree we built a grass house, and on the platform outside was +a pile of rocks, which were for the heads of any that might +chance to try to visit us. Also, we had our spears and +arrows. We never walked under the trees of the other +families, either. My brother did, once, under old +Boo-oogh’s tree, and he got his head broken and that was +the end of him.</p> +<p>“Old Boo-oogh was very strong. It was said he +could pull a grown man’s head right off. I never +heard of him doing it, because no man would give him a +chance. Father wouldn’t. One day, when father +was down on the beach, Boo-oogh took after mother. She +couldn’t run fast, for the day before she had got her leg +clawed by a bear when she was up on the mountain gathering +berries. So Boo-oogh caught her and carried her up into his +tree. Father never got her back. He was afraid. +Old Boo-oogh made faces at him.</p> +<p>“But father did not mind. Strong-Arm was another +strong man. He was one of the best fishermen. But one +day, climbing after sea-gull eggs, he had a fall from the +cliff. He was never strong after that. He coughed a +great deal, and his shoulders drew near to each other. So +father took Strong-Arm’s wife. When he came around +and coughed under our tree, father laughed at him and threw rocks +at him. It was our way in those days. We did not know +how to add strength together and become strong.”</p> +<p>“Would a brother take a brother’s wife?” +Deer-Runner demanded.</p> +<p>“Yes, if he had gone to live in another tree by +himself.”</p> +<p>“But we do not do such things now,” +Afraid-of-the-Dark objected.</p> +<p>“It is because I have taught your fathers +better.” Long-Beard thrust his hairy paw into the +bear meat and drew out a handful of suet, which he sucked with a +meditative air. Again he wiped his hands on his naked sides +and went on. “What I am telling you happened in the +long ago, before we knew any better.”</p> +<p>“You must have been fools not to know better,” was +Deer-Runner’s comment, Yellow-Head grunting approval.</p> +<p>“So we were, but we became bigger fools, as you shall +see. Still, we did learn better, and this was the way of +it. We Fish-Eaters had not learned to add our strength +until our strength was the strength of all of us. But the +Meat-Eaters, who lived across the divide in the Big Valley, stood +together, hunted together, fished together, and fought +together. One day they came into our valley. Each +family of us got into its own cave and tree. There were +only ten Meat-Eaters, but they fought together, and we fought, +each family by itself.”</p> +<p>Long-Beard counted long and perplexedly on his fingers.</p> +<p>“There were sixty men of us,” was what he managed +to say with fingers and lips combined. “And we were +very strong, only we did not know it. So we watched the ten +men attack Boo-oogh’s tree. He made a good fight, but +he had no chance. We looked on. When some of the +Meat-Eaters tried to climb the tree, Boo-oogh had to show himself +in order to drop stones on their heads, whereupon the other +Meat-Eaters, who were waiting for that very thing, shot him full +of arrows. And that was the end of Boo-oogh.</p> +<p>“Next, the Meat-Eaters got One-Eye and his family in his +cave. They built a fire in the mouth and smoked him out, +like we smoked out the bear there to-day. Then they went +after Six-Fingers, up his tree, and, while they were killing him +and his grown son, the rest of us ran away. They caught +some of our women, and killed two old men who could not run fast +and several children. The women they carried away with them +to the Big Valley.</p> +<p>“After that the rest of us crept back, and, somehow, +perhaps because we were in fear and felt the need for one +another, we talked the thing over. It was our first +council—our first real council. And in that council +we formed our first tribe. For we had learned the +lesson. Of the ten Meat-Eaters, each man had had the +strength of ten, for the ten had fought as one man. They +had added their strength together. But of the thirty +families and the sixty men of us, we had had the strength of but +one man, for each had fought alone.</p> +<p>“It was a great talk we had, and it was hard talk, for +we did not have the words then as now with which to talk. +The Bug made some of the words long afterward, and so did others +of us make words from time to time. But in the end we +agreed to add our strength together and to be as one man when the +Meat-Eaters came over the divide to steal our women. And +that was the tribe.</p> +<p>“We set two men on the divide, one for the day and one +for the night, to watch if the Meat-Eaters came. These were +the eyes of the tribe. Then, also, day and night, there +were to be ten men awake with their clubs and spears and arrows +in their hands, ready to fight. Before, when a man went +after fish, or clams, or gull-eggs, he carried his weapons with +him, and half the time he was getting food and half the time +watching for fear some other man would get him. Now that +was all changed. The men went out without their weapons and +spent all their time getting food. Likewise, when the women +went into the mountains after roots and berries, five of the ten +men went with them to guard them. While all the time, day +and night, the eyes of the tribe watched from the top of the +divide.</p> +<p>“But troubles came. As usual, it was about the +women. Men without wives wanted other men’s wives, +and there was much fighting between men, and now and again one +got his head smashed or a spear through his body. While one +of the watchers was on top of the divide, another man stole his +wife, and he came down to fight. Then the other watcher was +in fear that some one would take his wife, and he came down +likewise. Also, there was trouble among the ten men who +carried always their weapons, and they fought five against five, +till some ran away down the coast and the others ran after +them.</p> +<p>“So it was that the tribe was left without eyes or +guards. We had not the strength of sixty. We had no +strength at all. So we held a council and made our first +laws. I was but a cub at the time, but I remember. We +said that, in order to be strong, we must not fight one another, +and we made a law that when a man killed another him would the +tribe kill. We made another law that whoso stole another +man’s wife him would the tribe kill. We said that +whatever man had too great strength, and by that strength hurt +his brothers in the tribe, him would we kill that his strength +might hurt no more. For, if we let his strength hurt, the +brothers would become afraid and the tribe would fall apart, and +we would be as weak as when the Meat-Eaters first came upon us +and killed Boo-oogh.</p> +<p>“Knuckle-Bone was a strong man, a very strong man, and +he knew not law. He knew only his own strength, and in the +fullness thereof he went forth and took the wife of +Three-Clams. Three-Clams tried to fight, but Knuckle-Bone +clubbed out his brains. Yet had Knuckle-Bone forgotten that +all the men of us had added our strength to keep the law among +us, and him we killed, at the foot of his tree, and hung his body +on a branch as a warning that the law was stronger than any +man. For we were the law, all of us, and no man was greater +than the law.</p> +<p>“Then there were other troubles, for know, O +Deer-Runner, and Yellow-Head, and Afraid-of-the-Dark, that it is +not easy to make a tribe. There were many things, little +things, that it was a great trouble to call all the men together +to have a council about. We were having councils morning, +noon, and night, and in the middle of the night. We could +find little time to go out and get food, because of the councils, +for there was always some little thing to be settled, such as +naming two new watchers to take the place of the old ones on the +hill, or naming how much food should fall to the share of the men +who kept their weapons always in their hands and got no food for +themselves.</p> +<p>“We stood in need of a chief man to do these things, who +would be the voice of the council, and who would account to the +council for the things he did. So we named Fith-Fith the +chief man. He was a strong man, too, and very cunning, and +when he was angry he made noises just like that, +<i>fith-fith</i>, like a wild-cat.</p> +<p>“The ten men who guarded the tribe were set to work +making a wall of stones across the narrow part of the +valley. The women and large children helped, as did other +men, until the wall was strong. After that, all the +families came down out of their caves and trees and built grass +houses behind the shelter of the wall. These houses were +large and much better than the caves and trees, and everybody had +a better time of it because the men had added their strength +together and become a tribe. Because of the wall and the +guards and the watchers, there was more time to hunt and fish and +pick roots and berries; there was more food, and better food, and +no one went hungry. And Three-Legs, so named because his +legs had been smashed when a boy and who walked with a +stick—Three-Legs got the seed of the wild corn and planted +it in the ground in the valley near his house. Also, he +tried planting fat roots and other things he found in the +mountain valleys.</p> +<p>“Because of the safety in the Sea Valley, which was +because of the wall and the watchers and the guards, and because +there was food in plenty for all without having to fight for it, +many families came in from the coast valleys on both sides and +from the high back mountains where they had lived more like wild +animals than men. And it was not long before the Sea Valley +filled up, and in it were countless families. But, before +this happened, the land, which had been free to all and belonged +to all, was divided up. Three-Legs began it when he planted +corn. But most of us did not care about the land. We +thought the marking of the boundaries with fences of stone was a +foolishness. We had plenty to eat, and what more did we +want? I remember that my father and I built stone fences +for Three-Legs and were given corn in return.</p> +<p>“So only a few got all the land, and Three-Legs got most +of it. Also, others that had taken land gave it to the few +that held on, being paid in return with corn and fat roots, and +bear-skins, and fishes which the farmers got from the fishermen +in exchange for corn. And, the first thing we knew, all the +land was gone.</p> +<p>“It was about this time that Fith-Fith died and +Dog-Tooth, his son, was made chief. He demanded to be made +chief anyway, because his father had been chief before him. +Also, he looked upon himself as a greater chief than his +father. He was a good chief at first, and worked hard, so +that the council had less and less to do. Then arose a new +voice in the Sea Valley. It was Twisted-Lip. We had +never thought much of him, until he began to talk with the +spirits of the dead. Later we called him Big-Fat, because +he ate over-much, and did no work, and grew round and +large. One day Big-Fat told us that the secrets of the dead +were his, and that he was the voice of God. He became great +friends with Dog-Tooth, who commanded that we should build +Big-Fat a grass house. And Big-Fat put taboos all around +this house and kept God inside.</p> +<p>“More and more Dog-Tooth became greater than the +council, and when the council grumbled and said it would name a +new chief, Big-Fat spoke with the voice of God and said no. +Also, Three-Legs and the others who held the land stood behind +Dog-Tooth. Moreover, the strongest man in the council was +Sea-Lion, and him the land-owners gave land to secretly, along +with many bearskins and baskets of corn. So Sea-Lion said +that Big-Fat’s voice was truly the voice of God and must be +obeyed. And soon afterward Sea-Lion was named the voice of +Dog-Tooth and did most of his talking for him.</p> +<p>“Then there was Little-Belly, a little man, so thin in +the middle that he looked as if he had never had enough to +eat. Inside the mouth of the river, after the sand-bar had +combed the strength of the breakers, he built a big +fish-trap. No man had ever seen or dreamed a fish-trap +before. He worked weeks on it, with his son and his wife, +while the rest of us laughed at their labours. But, when it +was done, the first day he caught more fish in it than could the +whole tribe in a week, whereat there was great rejoicing. +There was only one other place in the river for a fish-trap, but, +when my father and I and a dozen other men started to make a very +large trap, the guards came from the big grass-house we had built +for Dog-Tooth. And the guards poked us with their spears +and told us begone, because Little-Belly was going to build a +trap there himself on the word of Sea-Lion, who was the voice of +Dog-Tooth.</p> +<p>“There was much grumbling, and my father called a +council. But, when he rose to speak, him the Sea-Lion +thrust through the throat with a spear and he died. And +Dog-Tooth and Little-Belly, and Three-Legs and all that held land +said it was good. And Big-Fat said it was the will of +God. And after that all men were afraid to stand up in the +council, and there was no more council.</p> +<p>“Another man, Pig-Jaw, began to keep goats. He had +heard about it as among the Meat-Eaters, and it was not long +before he had many flocks. Other men, who had no land and +no fish-traps, and who else would have gone hungry, were glad to +work for Pig-Jaw, caring for his goats, guarding them from wild +dogs and tigers, and driving them to the feeding pastures in the +mountains. In return, Pig-Jaw gave them goat-meat to eat +and goat-skins to wear, and sometimes they traded the goat-meat +for fish and corn and fat roots.</p> +<p>“It was this time that money came to be. Sea-Lion +was the man who first thought of it, and he talked it over with +Dog-Tooth and Big-Fat. You see, these three were the ones +that got a share of everything in the Sea Valley. One +basket out of every three of corn was theirs, one fish out of +every three, one goat out of every three. In return, they +fed the guards and the watchers, and kept the rest for +themselves. Sometimes, when a big haul of fish was made +they did not know what to do with all their share. So +Sea-Lion set the women to making money out of shell—little +round pieces, with a hole in each one, and all made smooth and +fine. These were strung on strings, and the strings were +called money.</p> +<p>“Each string was of the value of thirty fish, or forty +fish, but the women, who made a string a day, were given two fish +each. The fish came out of the shares of Dog-Tooth, +Big-Fat, and Sea-Lion, which they three did not eat. So all +the money belonged to them. Then they told Three-Legs and +the other land-owners that they would take their share of corn +and roots in money, Little-Belly that they would take their share +of fish in money, Pig-Jaw that they would take their share of +goats and cheese in money. Thus, a man who had nothing, +worked for one who had, and was paid in money. With this +money he bought corn, and fish, and meat, and cheese. And +Three-Legs and all owners of things paid Dog-Tooth and Sea-Lion +and Big-Fat their share in money. And they paid the guards +and watchers in money, and the guards and watchers bought their +food with the money. And, because money was cheap, +Dog-Tooth made many more men into guards. And, because +money was cheap to make, a number of men began to make money out +of shell themselves. But the guards stuck spears in them +and shot them full of arrows, because they were trying to break +up the tribe. It was bad to break up the tribe, for then +the Meat-Eaters would come over the divide and kill them all.</p> +<p>“Big-Fat was the voice of God, but he took Broken-Rib +and made him into a priest, so that he became the voice of +Big-Fat and did most of his talking for him. And both had +other men to be servants to them. So, also, did +Little-Belly and Three-Legs and Pig-Jaw have other men to lie in +the sun about their grass houses and carry messages for them and +give commands. And more and more were men taken away from +work, so that those that were left worked harder than ever +before. It seemed that men desired to do no work and strove +to seek out other ways whereby men should work for them. +Crooked-Eyes found such a way. He made the first fire-brew +out of corn. And thereafter he worked no more, for he +talked secretly with Dog-Tooth and Big-Fat and the other masters, +and it was agreed that he should be the only one to make +fire-brew. But Crooked-Eyes did no work himself. Men +made the brew for him, and he paid them in money. Then he +sold the fire-brew for money, and all men bought. And many +strings of money did he give Dog-Tooth and Sea-Lion and all of +them.</p> +<p>“Big-Fat and Broken-Rib stood by Dog-Tooth when he took +his second wife, and his third wife. They said Dog-Tooth +was different from other men and second only to God that Big-Fat +kept in his taboo house, and Dog-Tooth said so, too, and wanted +to know who were they to grumble about how many wives he +took. Dog-Tooth had a big canoe made, and, many more men he +took from work, who did nothing and lay in the sun, save only +when Dog-Tooth went in the canoe, when they paddled for +him. And he made Tiger-Face head man over all the guards, +so that Tiger-Face became his right arm, and when he did not like +a man Tiger-Face killed that man for him. And Tiger-Face, +also, made another man to be his right arm, and to give commands, +and to kill for him.</p> +<p>“But this was the strange thing: as the days went by we +who were left worked harder and harder, and yet did we get less +and less to eat.”</p> +<p>“But what of the goats and the corn and the fat roots +and the fish-trap?” spoke up Afraid-of-the-Dark, +“what of all this? Was there not more food to be +gained by man’s work?”</p> +<p>“It is so,” Long-Beard agreed. “Three +men on the fish-trap got more fish than the whole tribe before +there was a fish-trap. But have I not said we were +fools? The more food we were able to get, the less food did +we have to eat.”</p> +<p>“But was it not plain that the many men who did not work +ate it all up?” Yellow-Head demanded.</p> +<p>Long-Beard nodded his head sadly.</p> +<p>“Dog-Tooth’s dogs were stuffed with meat, and the +men who lay in the sun and did no work were rolling in fat, and, +at the same time, there were little children crying themselves to +sleep with hunger biting them with every wail.”</p> +<p>Deer-Runner was spurred by the recital of famine to tear out a +chunk of bear-meat and broil it on a stick over the coals. +This he devoured with smacking lips, while Long-Beard went +on:</p> +<p>“When we grumbled Big-Fat arose, and with the voice of +God said that God had chosen the wise men to own the land and the +goats and the fish-trap, and the fire-brew, and that without +these wise men we would all be animals, as in the days when we +lived in trees.</p> +<p>“And there arose one who became a singer of songs for +the king. Him they called the Bug, because he was small and +ungainly of face and limb and excelled not in work or deed. +He loved the fattest marrow bones, the choicest fish, the milk +warm from the goats, the first corn that was ripe, and the snug +place by the fire. And thus, becoming singer of songs to +the king, he found a way to do nothing and be fat. And when +the people grumbled more and more, and some threw stones at the +king’s grass house, the Bug sang a song of how good it was +to be a Fish-Eater. In his song he told that the +Fish-Eaters were the chosen of God and the finest men God had +made. He sang of the Meat-Eaters as pigs and crows, and +sang how fine and good it was for the Fish-Eaters to fight and +die doing God’s work, which was the killing of +Meat-Eaters. The words of his song were like fire in us, +and we clamoured to be led against the Meat-Eaters. And we +forgot that we were hungry, and why we had grumbled, and were +glad to be led by Tiger-Face over the divide, where we killed +many Meat-Eaters and were content.</p> +<p>“But things were no better in the Sea Valley. The +only way to get food was to work for Three-Legs or Little-Belly +or Pig-Jaw; for there was no land that a man might plant with +corn for himself. And often there were more men than +Three-Legs and the others had work for. So these men went +hungry, and so did their wives and children and their old +mothers. Tiger-Face said they could become guards if they +wanted to, and many of them did, and thereafter they did no work +except to poke spears in the men who did work and who grumbled at +feeding so many idlers.</p> +<p>“And when we grumbled, ever the Bug sang new +songs. He said that Three-Legs and Pig-Jaw and the rest +were strong men, and that that was why they had so much. He +said that we should be glad to have strong men with us, else +would we perish of our own worthlessness and the +Meat-Eaters. Therefore, we should be glad to let such +strong men have all they could lay hands on. And Big-Fat +and Pig-Jaw and Tiger-Face and all the rest said it was true.</p> +<p>“‘All right,’ said Long-Fang, ‘then +will I, too, be a strong man.’ And he got himself +corn, and began to make fire-brew and sell it for strings of +money. And, when Crooked-Eyes complained, Long-Fang said +that he was himself a strong man, and that if Crooked-Eyes made +any more noise he would bash his brains out for him. +Whereat Crooked-Eyes was afraid and went and talked with +Three-Legs and Pig-Jaw. And all three went and talked to +Dog-Tooth. And Dog-Tooth spoke to Sea-Lion, and Sea-Lion +sent a runner with a message to Tiger-Face. And Tiger-Face +sent his guards, who burned Long-Fang’s house along with +the fire-brew he had made. Also, they killed him and all +his family. And Big-Fat said it was good, and the Bug sang +another song about how good it was to observe the law, and what a +fine land the Sea Valley was, and how every man who loved the Sea +Valley should go forth and kill the bad Meat-Eaters. And +again his song was as fire to us, and we forgot to grumble.</p> +<p>“It was very strange. When Little-Belly caught too +many fish, so that it took a great many to sell for a little +money, he threw many of the fish back into the sea, so that more +money would be paid for what was left. And Three-Legs often +let many large fields lie idle so as to get more money for his +corn. And the women, making so much money out of shell that +much money was needed to buy with, Dog-Tooth stopped the making +of money. And the women had no work, so they took the +places of the men. I worked on the fish-trap, getting a +string of money every five days. But my sister now did my +work, getting a string of money for every ten days. The +women worked cheaper, and there was less food, and Tiger-Face +said we should become guards. Only I could not become a +guard because I was lame of one leg and Tiger-Face would not have +me. And there were many like me. We were broken men +and only fit to beg for work or to take care of the babies while +the women worked.”</p> +<p>Yellow-Head, too, was made hungry by the recital and broiled a +piece of bear-meat on the coals.</p> +<p>“But why didn’t you rise up, all of you, and kill +Three-Legs and Pig-Jaw and Big-Fat and the rest and get enough to +eat?” Afraid-in-the-Dark demanded.</p> +<p>“Because we could not understand,” Long-Beard +answered. “There was too much to think about, and, +also, there were the guards sticking spears into us, and Big-Fat +talking about God, and the Bug singing new songs. And when +any man did think right, and said so, Tiger-Face and the guards +got him, and he was tied out to the rocks at low tide so that the +rising waters drowned him.</p> +<p>“It was a strange thing—the money. It was +like the Bug’s songs. It seemed all right, but it +wasn’t, and we were slow to understand. Dog-Tooth +began to gather the money in. He put it in a big pile, in a +grass house, with guards to watch it day and night. And the +more money he piled in the house the dearer money became, so that +a man worked a longer time for a string of money than +before. Then, too, there was always talk of war with the +Meat-Eaters, and Dog-Tooth and Tiger-Face filled many houses with +corn, and dried fish, and smoked goat-meat, and cheese. And +with the food, piled there in mountains the people had not enough +to eat. But what did it matter? Whenever the people +grumbled too loudly the Bug sang a new song, and Big-Fat said it +was God’s word that we should kill Meat-Eaters, and +Tiger-Face led us over the divide to kill and be killed. I +was not good enough to be a guard and lie fat in the sun, but, +when we made war, Tiger-Face was glad to take me along. And +when we had eaten, all the food stored in the houses we stopped +fighting and went back to work to pile up more food.”</p> +<p>“Then were you all crazy,” commented +Deer-Runner.</p> +<p>“Then were we indeed all crazy,” Long-Beard +agreed. “It was strange, all of it. There was +Split-Nose. He said everything was wrong. He said it +was true that we grew strong by adding our strength +together. And he said that, when we first formed the tribe, +it was right that the men whose strength hurt the tribe should be +shorn of their strength—men who bashed their +brothers’ heads and stole their brothers’ +wives. And now, he said, the tribe was not getting +stronger, but was getting weaker, because there were men with +another kind of strength that were hurting the tribe—men +who had the strength of the land, like Three-Legs; who had the +strength of the fish-trap, like Little-Belly; who had the +strength of all the goat-meat, like Pig-Jaw. The thing to +do, Split-Nose said, was to shear these men of their evil +strength; to make them go to work, all of them, and to let no man +eat who did not work.</p> +<p>“And the Bug sang another song about men like +Split-Nose, who wanted to go back, and live in trees.</p> +<p>“Yet Split-Nose said no; that he did not want to go +back, but ahead; that they grew strong only as they added their +strength together; and that, if the Fish-Eaters would add their +strength to the Meat-Eaters, there would be no more fighting and +no more watchers and no more guards, and that, with all men +working, there would be so much food that each man would have to +work not more than two hours a day.</p> +<p>“Then the Bug sang again, and he sang that Split-Nose +was lazy, and he sang also the ‘Song of the +Bees.’ It was a strange song, and those who listened +were made mad, as from the drinking of strong fire-brew. +The song was of a swarm of bees, and of a robber wasp who had +come in to live with the bees and who was stealing all their +honey. The wasp was lazy and told them there was no need to +work; also, he told them to make friends with the bears, who were +not honey-stealers but only very good friends. And the Bug +sang in crooked words, so that those who listened knew that the +swarm was the Sea Valley tribe, that the bears were the +Meat-Eaters, and that the lazy wasp was Split-Nose. And +when the Bug sang that the bees listened to the wasp till the +swarm was near to perishing, the people growled and snarled, and +when the Bug sang that at last the good bees arose and stung the +wasp to death, the people picked up stones from the ground and +stoned Split-Nose to death till there was naught to be seen of +him but the heap of stones they had flung on top of him. +And there were many poor people who worked long and hard and had +not enough to eat that helped throw the stones on Split-Nose.</p> +<p>“And, after the death of Split-Nose, there was but one +other man that dared rise up and speak his mind, and that man was +Hair-Face. ‘Where is the strength of the +strong?’ he asked. ‘We are the strong, all of +us, and we are stronger than Dog-Tooth and Tiger-Face and +Three-Legs and Pig-Jaw and all the rest who do nothing and eat +much and weaken us by the hurt of their strength which is bad +strength. Men who are slaves are not strong. If the +man who first found the virtue and use of fire had used his +strength we would have been his slaves, as we are the slaves +to-day of Little-Belly, who found the virtue and use of the +fish-trap; and of the men who found the virtue and use of the +land, and the goats, and the fire-brew. Before, we lived in +trees, my brothers, and no man was safe. But we fight no +more with one another. We have added our strength +together. Then let us fight no more with the +Meat-Eaters. Let us add our strength and their strength +together. Then will we be indeed strong. And then we +will go out together, the Fish-Eaters and the Meat-Eaters, and we +will kill the tigers and the lions and the wolves and the wild +dogs, and we will pasture our goats on all the hill-sides and +plant our corn and fat roots in all the high mountain +valleys. In that day we will be so strong that all the wild +animals will flee before us and perish. And nothing will +withstand us, for the strength of each man will be the strength +of all men in the world.’</p> +<p>“So said Hair-Face, and they killed him, because, they +said, he was a wild man and wanted to go back and live in a +tree. It was very strange. Whenever a man arose and +wanted to go forward all those that stood still said he went +backward and should be killed. And the poor people helped +stone him, and were fools. We were all fools, except those +who were fat and did no work. The fools were called wise, +and the wise were stoned. Men who worked did not get enough +to eat, and the men who did not work ate too much.</p> +<p>“And the tribe went on losing strength. The +children were weak and sickly. And, because we ate not +enough, strange sicknesses came among us and we died like +flies. And then the Meat-Eaters came upon us. We had +followed Tiger-Face too often over the divide and killed +them. And now they came to repay in blood. We were +too weak and sick to man the big wall. And they killed us, +all of us, except some of the women, which they took away with +them. The Bug and I escaped, and I hid in the wildest +places, and became a hunter of meat and went hungry no +more. I stole a wife from the Meat-Eaters, and went to live +in the caves of the high mountains where they could not find +me. And we had three sons, and each son stole a wife from +the Meat-Eaters. And the rest you know, for are you not the +sons of my sons?”</p> +<p>“But the Bug?” queried Deer-Runner. +“What became of him?”</p> +<p>“He went to live with the Meat-Eaters and to be a singer +of songs to the king. He is an old man now, but he sings +the same old songs; and, when a man rises up to go forward, he +sings that that man is walking backward to live in a +tree.”</p> +<p>Long-Beard dipped into the bear-carcass and sucked with +toothless gums at a fist of suet.</p> +<p>“Some day,” he said, wiping his hands on his +sides, “all the fools will be dead and then all live men +will go forward. The strength of the strong will be theirs, +and they will add their strength together, so that, of all the +men in the world, not one will fight with another. There +will be no guards nor watchers on the walls. And all the +hunting animals will be killed, and, as Hair-Face said, all the +hill-sides will be pastured with goats and all the high mountain +valleys will be planted with corn and fat roots. And all +men will be brothers, and no man will lie idle in the sun and be +fed by his fellows. And all that will come to pass in the +time when the fools are dead, and when there will be no more +singers to stand still and sing the ‘Song of the +Bees.’ Bees are not men.”</p> +<h2><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>SOUTH +OF THE SLOT</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Old</span> San Francisco, which is the San +Francisco of only the other day, the day before the Earthquake, +was divided midway by the Slot. The Slot was an iron crack +that ran along the centre of Market Street, and from the Slot +arose the burr of the ceaseless, endless cable that was hitched +at will to the cars it dragged up and down. In truth, there +were two slots, but in the quick grammar of the West time was +saved by calling them, and much more that they stood for, +“The Slot.” North of the Slot were the +theatres, hotels, and shopping district, the banks and the staid, +respectable business houses. South of the Slot were the +factories, slums, laundries, machine-shops, boiler works, and the +abodes of the working class.</p> +<p>The Slot was the metaphor that expressed the class cleavage of +Society, and no man crossed this metaphor, back and forth, more +successfully than Freddie Drummond. He made a practice of +living in both worlds, and in both worlds he lived signally +well. Freddie Drummond was a professor in the Sociology +Department of the University of California, and it was as a +professor of sociology that he first crossed over the Slot, lived +for six mouths in the great labour-ghetto, and wrote <i>The +Unskilled Labourer</i>—a book that was hailed everywhere as +an able contribution to the literature of progress, and as a +splendid reply to the literature of discontent. Politically +and economically it was nothing if not orthodox. Presidents +of great railway systems bought whole editions of it to give to +their employees. The Manufacturers’ Association alone +distributed fifty thousand copies of it. In a way, it was +almost as immoral as the far-famed and notorious <i>Message to +Garcia</i>, while in its pernicious preachment of thrift and +content it ran <i>Mr. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch</i> a close +second.</p> +<p>At first, Freddie Drummond found it monstrously difficult to +get along among the working people. He was not used to +their ways, and they certainly were not used to his. They +were suspicious. He had no antecedents. He could talk +of no previous jobs. His hands were soft. His +extraordinary politeness was ominous. His first idea of the +rôle he would play was that of a free and independent +American who chose to work with his hands and no explanations +given. But it wouldn’t do, as he quickly +discovered. At the beginning they accepted him, very +provisionally, as a freak. A little later, as he began to +know his way about better, he insensibly drifted into the +rôle that would work—namely, he was a man who had +seen better days, very much better days, but who was down on his +luck, though, to be sure, only temporarily.</p> +<p>He learned many things, and generalized much and often +erroneously, all of which can be found in the pages of <i>The +Unskilled Labourer</i>. He saved himself, however, after +the sane and conservative manner of his kind, by labelling his +generalizations as “tentative.” One of his +first experiences was in the great Wilmax Cannery, where he was +put on piece-work making small packing cases. A box factory +supplied the parts, and all Freddie Drummond had to do was to fit +the parts into a form and drive in the wire nails with a light +hammer.</p> +<p>It was not skilled labour, but it was piece-work. The +ordinary labourers in the cannery got a dollar and a half per +day. Freddie Drummond found the other men on the same job +with him jogging along and earning a dollar and seventy-five +cents a day. By the third day he was able to earn the +same. But he was ambitious. He did not care to jog +along and, being unusually able and fit, on the fourth day earned +two dollars.</p> +<p>The next day, having keyed himself up to an exhausting +high-tension, he earned two dollars and a half. His fellow +workers favoured him with scowls and black looks, and made +remarks, slangily witty and which he did not understand, about +sucking up to the boss and pace-making and holding her down, when +the rains set in. He was astonished at their malingering on +piece-work, generalized about the inherent laziness of the +unskilled labourer, and proceeded next day to hammer out three +dollars’ worth of boxes.</p> +<p>And that night, coming out of the cannery, he was interviewed +by his fellow workmen, who were very angry and incoherently +slangy. He failed to comprehend the motive behind their +action. The action itself was strenuous. When he +refused to ease down his pace and bleated about freedom of +contract, independent Americanism, and the dignity of toil, they +proceeded to spoil his pace-making ability. It was a fierce +battle, for Drummond was a large man and an athlete, but the +crowd finally jumped on his ribs, walked on his face, and stamped +on his fingers, so that it was only after lying in bed for a week +that he was able to get up and look for another job. All of +which is duly narrated in that first book of his, in the chapter +entitled “The Tyranny of Labour.”</p> +<p>A little later, in another department of the Wilmax Cannery, +lumping as a fruit-distributor among the women, he essayed to +carry two boxes of fruit at a time, and was promptly reproached +by the other fruit-lumpers. It was palpable malingering; +but he was there, he decided, not to change conditions, but to +observe. So he lumped one box thereafter, and so well did +he study the art of shirking that he wrote a special chapter on +it, with the last several paragraphs devoted to tentative +generalizations.</p> +<p>In those six months he worked at many jobs and developed into +a very good imitation of a genuine worker. He was a natural +linguist, and he kept notebooks, making a scientific study of the +workers’ slang or argot, until he could talk quite +intelligibly. This language also enabled him more +intimately to follow their mental processes, and thereby to +gather much data for a projected chapter in some future book +which he planned to entitle <i>Synthesis of Working-Class +Psychology</i>.</p> +<p>Before he arose to the surface from that first plunge into the +underworld he discovered that he was a good actor and +demonstrated the plasticity of his nature. He was himself +astonished at his own fluidity. Once having mastered the +language and conquered numerous fastidious qualms, he found that +he could flow into any nook of working-class life and fit it so +snugly as to feel comfortably at home. As he said, in the +preface to his second book, <i>The Toiler</i>, he endeavoured +really to know the working people, and the only possible way to +achieve this was to work beside them, eat their food, sleep in +their beds, be amused with their amusements, think their +thoughts, and feel their feeling.</p> +<p>He was not a deep thinker. He had no faith in new +theories. All his norms and criteria were +conventional. His Thesis on the French Revolution was +noteworthy in college annals, not merely for its painstaking and +voluminous accuracy, but for the fact that it was the dryest, +deadest, most formal, and most orthodox screed ever written on +the subject. He was a very reserved man, and his natural +inhibition was large in quantity and steel-like in quality. +He had but few friends. He was too undemonstrative, too +frigid. He had no vices, nor had any one ever discovered +any temptations. Tobacco he detested, beer he abhorred, and +he was never known to drink anything stronger than an occasional +light wine at dinner.</p> +<p>When a freshman he had been baptized “Ice-Box” by +his warmer-blooded fellows. As a member of the faculty he +was known as “Cold-Storage.” He had but one +grief, and that was “Freddie.” He had earned it +when he played full-back in the ‘Varsity eleven, and his +formal soul had never succeeded in living it down. +“Freddie” he would ever be, except officially, and +through nightmare vistas he looked into a future when his world +would speak of him as “Old Freddie.”</p> +<p>For he was very young to be a doctor of sociology, only +twenty-seven, and he looked younger. In appearance and +atmosphere he was a strapping big college man, smooth-faced and +easy-mannered, clean and simple and wholesome, with a known +record of being a splendid athlete and an implied vast possession +of cold culture of the inhibited sort. He never talked shop +out of class and committee rooms, except later on, when his books +showered him with distasteful public notice and he yielded to the +extent of reading occasional papers before certain literary and +economic societies.</p> +<p>He did everything right—too right; and in dress and +comportment was inevitably correct. Not that he was a +dandy. Far from it. He was a college man, in dress +and carriage as like as a pea to the type that of late years is +being so generously turned out of our institutions of higher +learning. His handshake was satisfyingly strong and +stiff. His blue eyes were coldly blue and convincingly +sincere. His voice, firm and masculine, clean and crisp of +enunciation, was pleasant to the ear. The one drawback to +Freddie Drummond was his inhibition. He never unbent. +In his football days, the higher the tension of the game, the +cooler he grew. He was noted as a boxer, but he was +regarded as an automaton, with the inhuman precision of a machine +judging distance and timing blows, guarding, blocking, and +stalling. He was rarely punished himself, while he rarely +punished an opponent. He was too clever and too controlled +to permit himself to put a pound more weight into a punch than he +intended. With him it was a matter of exercise. It +kept him fit.</p> +<p>As time went by, Freddie Drummond found himself more +frequently crossing the Slot and losing himself in South of +Market. His summer and winter holidays were spent there, +and, whether it was a week or a week-end, he found the time spent +there to be valuable and enjoyable. And there was so much +material to be gathered. His third book, <i>Mass and +Master</i>, became a text-book in the American universities; and +almost before he knew it, he was at work on a fourth one, <i>The +Fallacy of the Inefficient</i>.</p> +<p>Somewhere in his make-up there was a strange twist or +quirk. Perhaps it was a recoil from his environment and +training, or from the tempered seed of his ancestors, who had +been book-men generation preceding generation; but at any rate, +he found enjoyment in being down in the working-class +world. In his own world he was “Cold-Storage,” +but down below he was “Big” Bill Totts, who could +drink and smoke, and slang and fight, and be an all-round +favourite. Everybody liked Bill, and more than one working +girl made love to him. At first he had been merely a good +actor, but as time went on, simulation became second +nature. He no longer played a part, and he loved sausages, +sausages and bacon, than which, in his own proper sphere, there +was nothing more loathsome in the way of food.</p> +<p>From doing the thing for the need’s sake, he came to +doing the thing for the thing’s sake. He found +himself regretting as the time drew near for him to go back to +his lecture-room and his inhibition. And he often found +himself waiting with anticipation for the dreamy time to pass +when he could cross the Slot and cut loose and play the +devil. He was not wicked, but as “Big” Bill +Totts he did a myriad things that Freddie Drummond would never +have been permitted to do. Moreover, Freddie Drummond never +would have wanted to do them. That was the strangest part +of his discovery. Freddie Drummond and Bill Totts were two +totally different creatures. The desires and tastes and +impulses of each ran counter to the other’s. Bill +Totts could shirk at a job with clear conscience, while Freddie +Drummond condemned shirking as vicious, criminal, and +un-American, and devoted whole chapters to condemnation of the +vice. Freddie Drummond did not care for dancing, but Bill +Totts never missed the nights at the various dancing clubs, such +as The Magnolia, The Western Star, and The Elite; while he won a +massive silver cup, standing thirty inches high, for being the +best-sustained character at the Butchers and Meat Workers’ +annual grand masked ball. And Bill Totts liked the girls +and the girls liked him, while Freddie Drummond enjoyed playing +the ascetic in this particular, was open in his opposition to +equal suffrage, and cynically bitter in his secret condemnation +of coeducation.</p> +<p>Freddie Drummond changed his manners with his dress, and +without effort. When he entered the obscure little room +used for his transformation scenes, he carried himself just a bit +too stiffly. He was too erect, his shoulders were an inch +too far back, while his face was grave, almost harsh, and +practically expressionless. But when he emerged in Bill +Totts’ clothes he was another creature. Bill Totts +did not slouch, but somehow his whole form limbered up and became +graceful. The very sound of the voice was changed, and the +laugh was loud and hearty, while loose speech and an occasional +oath were as a matter of course on his lips. Also, Bill +Totts was a trifle inclined to late hours, and at times, in +saloons, to be good-naturedly bellicose with other workmen. +Then, too, at Sunday picnics or when coming home from the show, +either arm betrayed a practised familiarity in stealing around +girls’ waists, while he displayed a wit keen and delightful +in the flirtatious badinage that was expected of a good fellow in +his class.</p> +<p>So thoroughly was Bill Totts himself, so thoroughly a workman, +a genuine denizen of South of the Slot, that he was as +class-conscious as the average of his kind, and his hatred for a +scab even exceeded that of the average loyal union man. +During the Water Front Strike, Freddie Drummond was somehow able +to stand apart from the unique combination, and, coldly critical, +watch Bill Totts hilariously slug scab longshoremen. For +Bill Totts was a dues-paying member of the Longshoremen Union and +had a right to be indignant with the usurpers of his job. +“Big” Bill Totts was so very big, and so very able, +that it was “Big” Bill to the front when trouble was +brewing. From acting outraged feelings, Freddie Drummond, +in the rôle of his other self, came to experience genuine +outrage, and it was only when he returned to the classic +atmosphere of the university that he was able, sanely and +conservatively, to generalize upon his underworld experiences and +put them down on paper as a trained sociologist should. +That Bill Totts lacked the perspective to raise him above +class-consciousness Freddie Drummond clearly saw. But Bill +Totts could not see it. When he saw a scab taking his job +away, he saw red at the same time, and little else did he +see. It was Freddie Drummond, irreproachably clothed and +comported, seated at his study desk or facing his class in +<i>Sociology</i> 17, who saw Bill Totts, and all around Bill +Totts, and all around the whole scab and union-labour problem and +its relation to the economic welfare of the United States in the +struggle for the world market. Bill Totts really +wasn’t able to see beyond the next meal and the prize-fight +the following night at the Gaiety Athletic Club.</p> +<p>It was while gathering material for <i>Women and Work</i> that +Freddie received his first warning of the danger he was in. +He was too successful at living in both worlds. This +strange dualism he had developed was after all very unstable, +and, as he sat in his study and meditated, he saw that it could +not endure. It was really a transition stage, and if he +persisted he saw that he would inevitably have to drop one world +or the other. He could not continue in both. And as +he looked at the row of volumes that graced the upper shelf of +his revolving book-case, his volumes, beginning with his Thesis +and ending with <i>Women and Work</i>, he decided that that was +the world he would hold to and stick by. Bill Totts had +served his purpose, but he had become a too dangerous +accomplice. Bill Totts would have to cease.</p> +<p>Freddie Drummond’s fright was due to Mary Condon, +President of the International Glove Workers’ Union No. +974. He had seen her, first, from the spectators’ +gallery, at the annual convention of the Northwest Federation of +Labour, and he had seen her through Bill Totts’ eyes, and +that individual had been most favourably impressed by her. +She was not Freddie Drummond’s sort at all. What if +she were a royal-bodied woman, graceful and sinewy as a panther, +with amazing black eyes that could fill with fire or +laughter-love, as the mood might dictate? He detested women +with a too exuberant vitality and a lack of . . . well, of +inhibition. Freddie Drummond accepted the doctrine of +evolution because it was quite universally accepted by college +men, and he flatly believed that man had climbed up the ladder of +life out of the weltering muck and mess of lower and monstrous +organic things. But he was a trifle ashamed of this +genealogy, and preferred not to think of it. Wherefore, +probably, he practised his iron inhibition and preached it to +others, and preferred women of his own type, who could shake free +of this bestial and regrettable ancestral line and by discipline +and control emphasize the wideness of the gulf that separated +them from what their dim forbears had been.</p> +<p>Bill Totts had none of these considerations. He had +liked Mary Condon from the moment his eyes first rested on her in +the convention hall, and he had made it a point, then and there, +to find out who she was. The next time he met her, and +quite by accident, was when he was driving an express waggon for +Pat Morrissey. It was in a lodging-house in Mission Street, +where he had been called to take a trunk into storage. The +landlady’s daughter had called him and led him to the +little bedroom, the occupant of which, a glove-maker, had just +been removed to hospital. But Bill did not know this. +He stooped, up-ended the trunk, which was a large one, got it on +his shoulder, and struggled to his feet with his back toward the +open door. At that moment he heard a woman’s +voice.</p> +<p>“Belong to the union?” was the question asked.</p> +<p>“Aw, what’s it to you?” he retorted. +“Run along now, an’ git outa my way. I wanta +turn round.”</p> +<p>The next he know, big as he was, he was whirled half around +and sent reeling backward, the trunk overbalancing him, till he +fetched up with a crash against the wall. He started to +swear, but at the same instant found himself looking into Mary +Condon’s flashing, angry eyes.</p> +<p>“Of course I b’long to the union,” he +said. “I was only kiddin’ you.”</p> +<p>“Where’s your card?” she demanded in +businesslike tones.</p> +<p>“In my pocket. But I can’t git it out +now. This trunk’s too damn heavy. Come on down +to the waggon an’ I’ll show it to you.”</p> +<p>“Put that trunk down,” was the command.</p> +<p>“What for? I got a card, I’m tellin’ +you.”</p> +<p>“Put it down, that’s all. No scab’s +going to handle that trunk. You ought to be ashamed of +yourself, you big coward, scabbing on honest men. Why +don’t you join the union and be a man?”</p> +<p>Mary Condon’s colour had left her face, and it was +apparent that she was in a rage.</p> +<p>“To think of a big man like you turning traitor to his +class. I suppose you’re aching to join the militia +for a chance to shoot down union drivers the next strike. +You may belong to the militia already, for that matter. +You’re the sort—”</p> +<p>“Hold on, now, that’s too much!” Bill +dropped the trunk to the floor with a bang, straightened up, and +thrust his hand into his inside coat pocket. “I told +you I was only kiddin’. There, look at +that.”</p> +<p>It was a union card properly enough.</p> +<p>“All right, take it along,” Mary Condon +said. “And the next time don’t kid.”</p> +<p>Her face relaxed as she noticed the ease with which he got the +big trunk to his shoulder, and her eyes glowed as they glanced +over the graceful massiveness of the man. But Bill did not +see that. He was too busy with the trunk.</p> +<p>The next time he saw Mary Condon was during the Laundry +Strike. The Laundry Workers, but recently organized, were +green at the business, and had petitioned Mary Condon to engineer +the strike. Freddie Drummond had had an inkling of what was +coming, and had sent Bill Totts to join the union and +investigate. Bill’s job was in the wash-room, and the +men had been called out first, that morning, in order to stiffen +the courage of the girls; and Bill chanced to be near the door to +the mangle-room when Mary Condon started to enter. The +superintendent, who was both large and stout, barred her +way. He wasn’t going to have his girls called out, +and he’d teach her a lesson to mind her own business. +And as Mary tried to squeeze past him he thrust her back with a +fat hand on her shoulder. She glanced around and saw +Bill.</p> +<p>“Here you, Mr. Totts,” she called. +“Lend a hand. I want to get in.”</p> +<p>Bill experienced a startle of warm surprise. She had +remembered his name from his union card. The next moment +the superintendent had been plucked from the doorway raving about +rights under the law, and the girls were deserting their +machines. During the rest of that short and successful +strike, Bill constituted himself Mary Condon’s henchman and +messenger, and when it was over returned to the University to be +Freddie Drummond and to wonder what Bill Totts could see in such +a woman.</p> +<p>Freddie Drummond was entirely safe, but Bill had fallen in +love. There was no getting away from the fact of it, and it +was this fact that had given Freddie Drummond his warning. +Well, he had done his work, and his adventures could cease. +There was no need for him to cross the Slot again. All but +the last three chapters of his latest, <i>Labour Tactics and +Strategy</i>, was finished, and he had sufficient material on +hand adequately to supply those chapters.</p> +<p>Another conclusion he arrived at, was that in order to +sheet-anchor himself as Freddie Drummond, closer ties and +relations in his own social nook were necessary. It was +time that he was married, anyway, and he was fully aware that if +Freddie Drummond didn’t get married, Bill Totts assuredly +would, and the complications were too awful to contemplate. +And so, enters Catherine Van Vorst. She was a college woman +herself, and her father, the one wealthy member of the faculty, +was the head of the Philosophy Department as well. It would +be a wise marriage from every standpoint, Freddie Drummond +concluded when the engagement was consummated and +announced. In appearance cold and reserved, aristocratic +and wholesomely conservative, Catherine Van Vorst, though warm in +her way, possessed an inhibition equal to Drummond’s.</p> +<p>All seemed well with him, but Freddie Drummond could not quite +shake off the call of the underworld, the lure of the free and +open, of the unhampered, irresponsible life South of the +Slot. As the time of his marriage approached, he felt that +he had indeed sowed wild oats, and he felt, moreover, what a good +thing it would be if he could have but one wild fling more, play +the good fellow and the wastrel one last time, ere he settled +down to grey lecture-rooms and sober matrimony. And, +further to tempt him, the very last chapter of <i>Labour Tactics +and Strategy</i> remained unwritten for lack of a trifle more of +essential data which he had neglected to gather.</p> +<p>So Freddie Drummond went down for the last time as Bill Totts, +got his data, and, unfortunately, encountered Mary Condon. +Once more installed in his study, it was not a pleasant thing to +look back upon. It made his warning doubly +imperative. Bill Totts had behaved abominably. Not +only had he met Mary Condon at the Central Labour Council, but he +had stopped at a chop-house with her, on the way home, and +treated her to oysters. And before they parted at her door, +his arms had been about her, and he had kissed her on the lips +and kissed her repeatedly. And her last words in his ear, +words uttered softly with a catchy sob in the throat that was +nothing more nor less than a love cry, were “Bill . . . +dear, dear Bill.”</p> +<p>Freddie Drummond shuddered at the recollection. He saw +the pit yawning for him. He was not by nature a polygamist, +and he was appalled at the possibilities of the situation. +It would have to be put an end to, and it would end in one only +of two ways: either he must become wholly Bill Totts and be +married to Mary Condon, or he must remain wholly Freddie Drummond +and be married to Catherine Van Vorst. Otherwise, his +conduct would be beneath contempt and horrible.</p> +<p>In the several months that followed, San Francisco was torn +with labour strife. The unions and the employers’ +associations had locked horns with a determination that looked as +if they intended to settle the matter, one way or the other, for +all time. But Freddie Drummond corrected proofs, lectured +classes, and did not budge. He devoted himself to Catherine +Van Vorst, and day by day found more to respect and admire in +her—nay, even to love in her. The Street Car Strike +tempted him, but not so severely as he would have expected; and +the great Meat Strike came on and left him cold. The ghost +of Bill Totts had been successfully laid, and Freddie Drummond +with rejuvenescent zeal tackled a brochure, long-planned, on the +topic of “diminishing returns.”</p> +<p>The wedding was two weeks off, when, one afternoon, in San +Francisco, Catherine Van Vorst picked him up and whisked him away +to see a Boys’ Club, recently instituted by the settlement +workers in whom she was interested. It was her +brother’s machine, but they were alone with the exception +of the chauffeur. At the junction with Kearny Street, +Market and Geary Streets intersect like the sides of a +sharp-angled letter “V.” They, in the auto, +were coming down Market with the intention of negotiating the +sharp apex and going up Geary. But they did not know what +was coming down Geary, timed by fate to meet them at the +apex. While aware from the papers that the Meat Strike was +on and that it was an exceedingly bitter one, all thought of it +at that moment was farthest from Freddie Drummond’s +mind. Was he not seated beside Catherine? And +besides, he was carefully expositing to her his views on +settlement work—views that Bill Totts’ adventures had +played a part in formulating.</p> +<p>Coming down Geary Street were six meat waggons. Beside +each scab driver sat a policeman. Front and rear, and along +each side of this procession, marched a protecting escort of one +hundred police. Behind the police rearguard, at a +respectful distance, was an orderly but vociferous mob, several +blocks in length, that congested the street from sidewalk to +sidewalk. The Beef Trust was making an effort to supply the +hotels, and, incidentally, to begin the breaking of the +strike. The St. Francis had already been supplied, at a +cost of many broken windows and broken heads, and the expedition +was marching to the relief of the Palace Hotel.</p> +<p>All unwitting, Drummond sat beside Catherine, talking +settlement work, as the auto, honking methodically and dodging +traffic, swung in a wide curve to get around the apex. A +big coal waggon, loaded with lump coal and drawn by four huge +horses, just debouching from Kearny Street as though to turn down +Market, blocked their way. The driver of the waggon seemed +undecided, and the chauffeur, running slow but disregarding some +shouted warning from the crossing policemen, swerved the auto to +the left, violating the traffic rules, in order to pass in front +of the waggon.</p> +<p>At that moment Freddie Drummond discontinued his +conversation. Nor did he resume it again, for the situation +was developing with the rapidity of a transformation scene. +He heard the roar of the mob at the rear, and caught a glimpse of +the helmeted police and the lurching meat waggons. At the +same moment, laying on his whip, and standing up to his task, the +coal driver rushed horses and waggon squarely in front of the +advancing procession, pulled the horses up sharply, and put on +the big brake. Then he made his lines fast to the +brake-handle and sat down with the air of one who had stopped to +stay. The auto had been brought to a stop, too, by his big +panting leaders which had jammed against it.</p> +<p>Before the chauffeur could back clear, an old Irishman, +driving a rickety express waggon and lashing his one horse to a +gallop, had locked wheels with the auto. Drummond +recognized both horse and waggon, for he had driven them often +himself. The Irishman was Pat Morrissey. On the other +side a brewery waggon was locking with the coal waggon, and an +east-bound Kearny Street car, wildly clanging its gong, the +motorman shouting defiance at the crossing policeman, was dashing +forward to complete the blockade. And waggon after waggon +was locking and blocking and adding to the confusion. The +meat waggons halted. The police were trapped. The +roar at the rear increased as the mob came on to the attack, +while the vanguard of the police charged the obstructing +waggons.</p> +<p>“We’re in for it,” Drummond remarked coolly +to Catherine.</p> +<p>“Yes,” she nodded, with equal coolness. +“What savages they are.”</p> +<p>His admiration for her doubled on itself. She was indeed +his sort. He would have been satisfied with her even if she +had screamed, and clung to him, but this—this was +magnificent. She sat in that storm centre as calmly as if +it had been no more than a block of carriages at the opera.</p> +<p>The police were struggling to clear a passage. The +driver of the coal waggon, a big man in shirt sleeves, lighted a +pipe and sat smoking. He glanced down complacently at a +captain of police who was raving and cursing at him, and his only +acknowledgment was a shrug of the shoulders. From the rear +arose the rat-rat-tat of clubs on heads and a pandemonium of +cursing, yelling, and shouting. A violent accession of +noise proclaimed that the mob had broken through and was dragging +a scab from a waggon. The police captain reinforced from +his vanguard, and the mob at the rear was repelled. +Meanwhile, window after window in the high office building on the +right had been opened, and the class-conscious clerks were +raining a shower of office furniture down on the heads of police +and scabs. Waste-baskets, ink-bottles, paper-weights, +type-writers—anything and everything that came to hand was +filling the air.</p> +<p>A policeman, under orders from his captain, clambered to the +lofty seat of the coal waggon to arrest the driver. And the +driver, rising leisurely and peacefully to meet him, suddenly +crumpled him in his arms and threw him down on top of the +captain. The driver was a young giant, and when he climbed +on his load and poised a lump of coal in both hands, a policeman, +who was just scaling the waggon from the side, let go and dropped +back to earth. The captain ordered half-a-dozen of his men +to take the waggon. The teamster, scrambling over the load +from side to side, beat them down with huge lumps of coal.</p> +<p>The crowd on the sidewalks and the teamsters on the locked +waggons roared encouragement and their own delight. The +motorman, smashing helmets with his controller bar, was beaten +into insensibility and dragged from his platform. The +captain of police, beside himself at the repulse of his men, led +the next assault on the coal waggon. A score of police were +swarming up the tall-sided fortress. But the teamster +multiplied himself. At times there were six or eight +policemen rolling on the pavement and under the waggon. +Engaged in repulsing an attack on the rear end of his fortress, +the teamster turned about to see the captain just in the act of +stepping on to the seat from the front end. He was still in +the air and in most unstable equilibrium, when the teamster +hurled a thirty-pound lump of coal. It caught the captain +fairly on the chest, and he went over backward, striking on a +wheeler’s back, tumbling on to the ground, and jamming +against the rear wheel of the auto.</p> +<p>Catherine thought he was dead, but he picked himself up and +charged back. She reached out her gloved hand and patted +the flank of the snorting, quivering horse. But Drummond +did not notice the action. He had eyes for nothing save the +battle of the coal waggon, while somewhere in his complicated +psychology, one Bill Totts was heaving and straining in an effort +to come to life. Drummond believed in law and order and the +maintenance of the established, but this riotous savage within +him would have none of it. Then, if ever, did Freddie +Drummond call upon his iron inhibition to save him. But it +is written that the house divided against itself must fall. +And Freddie Drummond found that he had divided all the will and +force of him with Bill Totts, and between them the entity that +constituted the pair of them was being wrenched in twain.</p> +<p>Freddie Drummond sat in the auto, quite composed, alongside +Catherine Van Vorst; but looking out of Freddie Drummond’s +eyes was Bill Totts, and somewhere behind those eyes, battling +for the control of their mutual body, were Freddie Drummond the +sane and conservative sociologist, and Bill Totts, the +class-conscious and bellicose union working man. It was +Bill Totts, looking out of those eyes, who saw the inevitable end +of the battle on the coal waggon. He saw a policeman gain +the top of the load, a second, and a third. They lurched +clumsily on the loose footing, but their long riot-clubs were out +and swinging. One blow caught the teamster on the +head. A second he dodged, receiving it on the +shoulder. For him the game was plainly up. He dashed +in suddenly, clutched two policemen in his arms, and hurled +himself a prisoner to the pavement, his hold never relaxing on +his two captors.</p> +<p>Catherine Van Vorst was sick and faint at sight of the blood +and brutal fighting. But her qualms were vanquished by the +sensational and most unexpected happening that followed. +The man beside her emitted an unearthly and uncultured yell and +rose to his feet. She saw him spring over the front seat, +leap to the broad rump of the wheeler, and from there gain the +waggon. His onslaught was like a whirlwind. Before +the bewildered officer on the load could guess the errand of this +conventionally clad but excited-seeming gentleman, he was the +recipient of a punch that arched him back through the air to the +pavement. A kick in the face led an ascending policeman to +follow his example. A rush of three more gained the top and +locked with Bill Totts in a gigantic clinch, during which his +scalp was opened up by a club, and coat, vest, and half his +starched shirt were torn from him. But the three policemen +were flung far and wide, and Bill Totts, raining down lumps of +coal, held the fort.</p> +<p>The captain led gallantly to the attack, but was bowled over +by a chunk of coal that burst on his head in black baptism. +The need of the police was to break the blockade in front before +the mob could break in at the rear, and Bill Totts’ need +was to hold the waggon till the mob did break through. So +the battle of the coal went on.</p> +<p>The crowd had recognized its champion. “Big” +Bill, as usual, had come to the front, and Catherine Van Vorst +was bewildered by the cries of “Bill! O you +Bill!” that arose on every hand. Pat Morrissey, on +his waggon seat, was jumping and screaming in an ecstasy, +“Eat ’em, Bill! Eat ’em! Eat +’em alive!” From the sidewalk she heard a +woman’s voice cry out, “Look out, Bill—front +end!” Bill took the warning and with well-directed +coal cleared the front end of the waggon of assailants. +Catherine Van Vorst turned her head and saw on the curb of the +sidewalk a woman with vivid colouring and flashing black eyes who +was staring with all her soul at the man who had been Freddie +Drummond a few minutes before.</p> +<p>The windows of the office building became vociferous with +applause. A fresh shower of office chairs and filing +cabinets descended. The mob had broken through on one side +the line of waggons, and was advancing, each segregated policeman +the centre of a fighting group. The scabs were torn from +their seats, the traces of the horses cut, and the frightened +animals put in flight. Many policemen crawled under the +coal waggon for safety, while the loose horses, with here and +there a policeman on their backs or struggling at their heads to +hold them, surged across the sidewalk opposite the jam and broke +into Market Street.</p> +<p>Catherine Van Vorst heard the woman’s voice calling in +warning. She was back on the curb again, and crying +out—</p> +<p>“Beat it, Bill! Now’s your time! Beat +it!”</p> +<p>The police for the moment had been swept away. Bill +Totts leaped to the pavement and made his way to the woman on the +sidewalk. Catherine Van Vorst saw her throw her arms around +him and kiss him on the lips; and Catherine Van Vorst watched him +curiously as he went on down the sidewalk, one arm around the +woman, both talking and laughing, and he with a volubility and +abandon she could never have dreamed possible.</p> +<p>The police were back again and clearing the jam while waiting +for reinforcements and new drivers and horses. The mob had +done its work and was scattering, and Catherine Van Vorst, still +watching, could see the man she had known as Freddie +Drummond. He towered a head above the crowd. His arm +was still about the woman. And she in the motor-car, +watching, saw the pair cross Market Street, cross the Slot, and +disappear down Third Street into the labour ghetto.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>In the years that followed no more lectures were given in the +University of California by one Freddie Drummond, and no more +books on economics and the labour question appeared over the name +of Frederick A. Drummond. On the other hand there arose a +new labour leader, William Totts by name. He it was who +married Mary Condon, President of the International Glove +Workers’ Union No. 974; and he it was who called the +notorious Cooks and Waiters’ Strike, which, before its +successful termination, brought out with it scores of other +unions, among which, of the more remotely allied, were the +Chicken Pickers and the Undertakers.</p> +<h2><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>THE +UNPARALLELED INVASION</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was in the year 1976 that the +trouble between the world and China reached its +culmination. It was because of this that the celebration of +the Second Centennial of American Liberty was deferred. +Many other plans of the nations of the earth were twisted and +tangled and postponed for the same reason. The world awoke +rather abruptly to its danger; but for over seventy years, +unperceived, affairs had been shaping toward this very end.</p> +<p>The year 1904 logically marks the beginning of the development +that, seventy years later, was to bring consternation to the +whole world. The Japanese-Russian War took place in 1904, +and the historians of the time gravely noted it down that that +event marked the entrance of Japan into the comity of +nations. What it really did mark was the awakening of +China. This awakening, long expected, had finally been +given up. The Western nations had tried to arouse China, +and they had failed. Out of their native optimism and +race-egotism they had therefore concluded that the task was +impossible, that China would never awaken.</p> +<p>What they had failed to take into account was this: <i>that +between them and China was no common psychological +speech</i>. Their thought-processes were radically +dissimilar. There was no intimate vocabulary. The +Western mind penetrated the Chinese mind but a short distance +when it found itself in a fathomless maze. The Chinese mind +penetrated the Western mind an equally short distance when it +fetched up against a blank, incomprehensible wall. It was +all a matter of language. There was no way to communicate +Western ideas to the Chinese mind. China remained +asleep. The material achievement and progress of the West +was a closed book to her; nor could the West open the book. +Back and deep down on the tie-ribs of consciousness, in the mind, +say, of the English-speaking race, was a capacity to thrill to +short, Saxon words; back and deep down on the tie-ribs of +consciousness of the Chinese mind was a capacity to thrill to its +own hieroglyphics; but the Chinese mind could not thrill to +short, Saxon words; nor could the English-speaking mind thrill to +hieroglyphics. The fabrics of their minds were woven from +totally different stuffs. They were mental aliens. +And so it was that Western material achievement and progress made +no dent on the rounded sleep of China.</p> +<p>Came Japan and her victory over Russia in 1904. Now the +Japanese race was the freak and paradox among Eastern +peoples. In some strange way Japan was receptive to all the +West had to offer. Japan swiftly assimilated the Western +ideas, and digested them, and so capably applied them that she +suddenly burst forth, full-panoplied, a world-power. There +is no explaining this peculiar openness of Japan to the alien +culture of the West. As well might be explained any +biological sport in the animal kingdom.</p> +<p>Having decisively thrashed the great Russian Empire, Japan +promptly set about dreaming a colossal dream of empire for +herself. Korea she had made into a granary and a colony; +treaty privileges and vulpine diplomacy gave her the monopoly of +Manchuria. But Japan was not satisfied. She turned +her eyes upon China. There lay a vast territory, and in +that territory were the hugest deposits in the world of iron and +coal—the backbone of industrial civilization. Given +natural resources, the other great factor in industry is +labour. In that territory was a population of 400,000,000 +souls—one quarter of the then total population of the +earth. Furthermore, the Chinese were excellent workers, +while their fatalistic philosophy (or religion) and their stolid +nervous organization constituted them splendid soldiers—if +they were properly managed. Needless to say, Japan was +prepared to furnish that management.</p> +<p>But best of all, from the standpoint of Japan, the Chinese was +a kindred race. The baffling enigma of the Chinese +character to the West was no baffling enigma to the +Japanese. The Japanese understood as we could never school +ourselves or hope to understand. Their mental processes +were the same. The Japanese thought with the same +thought-symbols as did the Chinese, and they thought in the same +peculiar grooves. Into the Chinese mind the Japanese went +on where we were balked by the obstacle of incomprehension. +They took the turning which we could not perceive, twisted around +the obstacle, and were out of sight in the ramifications of the +Chinese mind where we could not follow. They were +brothers. Long ago one had borrowed the other’s +written language, and, untold generations before that, they had +diverged from the common Mongol stock. There had been +changes, differentiations brought about by diverse conditions and +infusions of other blood; but down at the bottom of their beings, +twisted into the fibres of them, was a heritage in common, a +sameness in kind that time had not obliterated.</p> +<p>And so Japan took upon herself the management of China. +In the years immediately following the war with Russia, her +agents swarmed over the Chinese Empire. A thousand miles +beyond the last mission station toiled her engineers and spies, +clad as coolies, under the guise of itinerant merchants or +proselytizing Buddhist priests, noting down the horse-power of +every waterfall, the likely sites for factories, the heights of +mountains and passes, the strategic advantages and weaknesses, +the wealth of the farming valleys, the number of bullocks in a +district or the number of labourers that could be collected by +forced levies. Never was there such a census, and it could +have been taken by no other people than the dogged, patient, +patriotic Japanese.</p> +<p>But in a short time secrecy was thrown to the winds. +Japan’s officers reorganized the Chinese army; her drill +sergeants made the mediæval warriors over into twentieth +century soldiers, accustomed to all the modern machinery of war +and with a higher average of marksmanship than the soldiers of +any Western nation. The engineers of Japan deepened and +widened the intricate system of canals, built factories and +foundries, netted the empire with telegraphs and telephones, and +inaugurated the era of railroad-building. It was these same +protagonists of machine-civilization that discovered the great +oil deposits of Chunsan, the iron mountains of Whang-Sing, the +copper ranges of Chinchi, and they sank the gas wells of Wow-Wee, +that most marvellous reservoir of natural gas in all the +world.</p> +<p>In China’s councils of empire were the Japanese +emissaries. In the ears of the statesmen whispered the +Japanese statesmen. The political reconstruction of the +Empire was due to them. They evicted the scholar class, +which was violently reactionary, and put into office progressive +officials. And in every town and city of the Empire +newspapers were started. Of course, Japanese editors ran +the policy of these papers, which policy they got direct from +Tokio. It was these papers that educated and made +progressive the great mass of the population.</p> +<p>China was at last awake. Where the West had failed, +Japan succeeded. She had transmuted Western culture and +achievement into terms that were intelligible to the Chinese +understanding. Japan herself, when she so suddenly +awakened, had astounded the world. But at the time she was +only forty millions strong. China’s awakening, with +her four hundred millions and the scientific advance of the +world, was frightfully astounding. She was the colossus of +the nations, and swiftly her voice was heard in no uncertain +tones in the affairs and councils of the nations. Japan +egged her on, and the proud Western peoples listened with +respectful ears.</p> +<p>China’s swift and remarkable rise was due, perhaps more +than to anything else, to the superlative quality of her +labour. The Chinese was the perfect type of industry. +He had always been that. For sheer ability to work no +worker in the world could compare with him. Work was the +breath of his nostrils. It was to him what wandering and +fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure had been to other +peoples. Liberty, to him, epitomized itself in access to +the means of toil. To till the soil and labour interminably +was all he asked of life and the powers that be. And the +awakening of China had given its vast population not merely free +and unlimited access to the means of toil, but access to the +highest and most scientific machine-means of toil.</p> +<p>China rejuvenescent! It was but a step to China +rampant. She discovered a new pride in herself and a will +of her own. She began to chafe under the guidance of Japan, +but she did not chafe long. On Japan’s advice, in the +beginning, she had expelled from the Empire all Western +missionaries, engineers, drill sergeants, merchants, and +teachers. She now began to expel the similar +representatives of Japan. The latter’s advisory +statesmen were showered with honours and decorations, and sent +home. The West had awakened Japan, and, as Japan had then +requited the West, Japan was not requited by China. Japan +was thanked for her kindly aid and flung out bag and baggage by +her gigantic protégé. The Western nations +chuckled. Japan’s rainbow dream had gone +glimmering. She grew angry. China laughed at +her. The blood and the swords of the Samurai would out, and +Japan rashly went to war. This occurred in 1922, and in +seven bloody months Manchuria, Korea, and Formosa were taken away +from her and she was hurled back, bankrupt, to stifle in her +tiny, crowded islands. Exit Japan from the world +drama. Thereafter she devoted herself to art, and her task +became to please the world greatly with her creations of wonder +and beauty.</p> +<p>Contrary to expectation, China did not prove warlike. +She had no Napoleonic dream, and was content to devote herself to +the arts of peace. After a time of disquiet, the idea was +accepted that China was to be feared, not in war, but in +commerce. It will be seen that the real danger was not +apprehended. China went on consummating her +machine-civilization. Instead of a large standing army, she +developed an immensely larger and splendidly efficient +militia. Her navy was so small that it was the laughing +stock of the world; nor did she attempt to strengthen her +navy. The treaty ports of the world were never entered by +her visiting battleships.</p> +<p>The real danger lay in the fecundity of her loins, and it was +in 1970 that the first cry of alarm was raised. For some +time all territories adjacent to China had been grumbling at +Chinese immigration; but now it suddenly came home to the world +that China’s population was 500,000,000. She had +increased by a hundred millions since her awakening. +Burchaldter called attention to the fact that there were more +Chinese in existence than white-skinned people. He +performed a simple sum in arithmetic. He added together the +populations of the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, +South Africa, England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, European +Russia, and all Scandinavia. The result was +495,000,000. And the population of China overtopped this +tremendous total by 5,000,000. Burchaldter’s figures +went round the world, and the world shivered.</p> +<p>For many centuries China’s population had been +constant. Her territory had been saturated with population; +that is to say, her territory, with the primitive method of +production, had supported the maximum limit of population. +But when she awoke and inaugurated the machine-civilization, her +productive power had been enormously increased. Thus, on +the same territory, she was able to support a far larger +population. At once the birth rate began to rise and the +death rate to fall. Before, when population pressed against +the means of subsistence, the excess population had been swept +away by famine. But now, thanks to the +machine-civilization, China’s means of subsistence had been +enormously extended, and there were no famines; her population +followed on the heels of the increase in the means of +subsistence.</p> +<p>During this time of transition and development of power, China +had entertained no dreams of conquest. The Chinese was not +an imperial race. It was industrious, thrifty, and +peace-loving. War was looked upon as an unpleasant but +necessary task that at times must be performed. And so, +while the Western races had squabbled and fought, and +world-adventured against one another, China had calmly gone on +working at her machines and growing. Now she was spilling +over the boundaries of her Empire—that was all, just +spilling over into the adjacent territories with all the +certainty and terrifying slow momentum of a glacier.</p> +<p>Following upon the alarm raised by Burchaldter’s +figures, in 1970 France made a long-threatened stand. +French Indo-China had been overrun, filled up, by Chinese +immigrants. France called a halt. The Chinese wave +flowed on. France assembled a force of a hundred thousand +on the boundary between her unfortunate colony and China, and +China sent down an army of militia-soldiers a million +strong. Behind came the wives and sons and daughters and +relatives, with their personal household luggage, in a second +army. The French force was brushed aside like a fly. +The Chinese militia-soldiers, along with their families, over +five millions all told, coolly took possession of French +Indo-China and settled down to stay for a few thousand years.</p> +<p>Outraged France was in arms. She hurled fleet after +fleet against the coast of China, and nearly bankrupted herself +by the effort. China had no navy. She withdrew like a +turtle into her shell. For a year the French fleets +blockaded the coast and bombarded exposed towns and +villages. China did not mind. She did not depend upon +the rest of the world for anything. She calmly kept out of +range of the French guns and went on working. France wept +and wailed, wrung her impotent hands and appealed to the +dumfounded nations. Then she landed a punitive expedition +to march to Peking. It was two hundred and fifty thousand +strong, and it was the flower of France. It landed without +opposition and marched into the interior. And that was the +last ever seen of it. The line of communication was snapped +on the second day. Not a survivor came back to tell what +had happened. It had been swallowed up in China’s +cavernous maw, that was all.</p> +<p>In the five years that followed, China’s expansion, in +all land directions, went on apace. Siam was made part of +the Empire, and, in spite of all that England could do, Burma and +the Malay Peninsula were overrun; while all along the long south +boundary of Siberia, Russia was pressed severely by China’s +advancing hordes. The process was simple. First came +the Chinese immigration (or, rather, it was already there, having +come there slowly and insidiously during the previous +years). Next came the clash of arms and the brushing away +of all opposition by a monster army of militia-soldiers, followed +by their families and household baggage. And finally came +their settling down as colonists in the conquered +territory. Never was there so strange and effective a +method of world conquest.</p> +<p>Napal and Bhutan were overrun, and the whole northern boundary +of India pressed against by this fearful tide of life. To +the west, Bokhara, and, even to the south and west, Afghanistan, +were swallowed up. Persia, Turkestan, and all Central Asia +felt the pressure of the flood. It was at this time that +Burchaldter revised his figures. He had been +mistaken. China’s population must be seven hundred +millions, eight hundred millions, nobody knew how many millions, +but at any rate it would soon be a billion. There were two +Chinese for every white-skinned human in the world, Burchaldter +announced, and the world trembled. China’s increase +must have begun immediately, in 1904. It was remembered +that since that date there had not been a single famine. At +5,000,000 a year increase, her total increase in the intervening +seventy years must be 350,000,000. But who was to +know? It might be more. Who was to know anything of +this strange new menace of the twentieth century—China, old +China, rejuvenescent, fruitful, and militant!</p> +<p>The Convention of 1975 was called at Philadelphia. All +the Western nations, and some few of the Eastern, were +represented. Nothing was accomplished. There was talk +of all countries putting bounties on children to increase the +birth rate, but it was laughed to scorn by the arithmeticians, +who pointed out that China was too far in the lead in that +direction. No feasible way of coping with China was +suggested. China was appealed to and threatened by the +United Powers, and that was all the Convention of Philadelphia +came to; and the Convention and the Powers were laughed at by +China. Li Tang Fwung, the power behind the Dragon Throne, +deigned to reply.</p> +<p>“What does China care for the comity of nations?” +said Li Tang Fwung. “We are the most ancient, +honourable, and royal of races. We have our own destiny to +accomplish. It is unpleasant that our destiny does not +tally with the destiny of the rest of the world, but what would +you? You have talked windily about the royal races and the +heritage of the earth, and we can only reply that that remains to +be seen. You cannot invade us. Never mind about your +navies. Don’t shout. We know our navy is +small. You see we use it for police purposes. We do +not care for the sea. Our strength is in our population, +which will soon be a billion. Thanks to you, we are +equipped with all modern war-machinery. Send your +navies. We will not notice them. Send your punitive +expeditions, but first remember France. To land half a +million soldiers on our shores would strain the resources of any +of you. And our thousand millions would swallow them down +in a mouthful. Send a million; send five millions, and we +will swallow them down just as readily. Pouf! A mere +nothing, a meagre morsel. Destroy, as you have threatened, +you United States, the ten million coolies we have forced upon +your shores—why, the amount scarcely equals half of our +excess birth rate for a year.”</p> +<p>So spoke Li Tang Fwung. The world was nonplussed, +helpless, terrified. Truly had he spoken. There was +no combating China’s amazing birth rate. If her +population was a billion, and was increasing twenty millions a +year, in twenty-five years it would be a billion and a +half—equal to the total population of the world in +1904. And nothing could be done. There was no way to +dam up the over-spilling monstrous flood of life. War was +futile. China laughed at a blockade of her coasts. +She welcomed invasion. In her capacious maw was room for +all the hosts of earth that could be hurled at her. And in +the meantime her flood of yellow life poured out and on over +Asia. China laughed and read in their magazines the learned +lucubrations of the distracted Western scholars.</p> +<p>But there was one scholar China failed to reckon +on—Jacobus Laningdale. Not that he was a scholar, +except in the widest sense. Primarily, Jacobus Laningdale +was a scientist, and, up to that time, a very obscure scientist, +a professor employed in the laboratories of the Health Office of +New York City. Jacobus Laningdale’s head was very +like any other head, but in that head was evolved an idea. +Also, in that head was the wisdom to keep that idea secret. +He did not write an article for the magazines. Instead, he +asked for a vacation. On September 19, 1975, he arrived in +Washington. It was evening, but he proceeded straight to +the White House, for he had already arranged an audience with the +President. He was closeted with President Moyer for three +hours. What passed between them was not learned by the rest +of the world until long after; in fact, at that time the world +was not interested in Jacobus Laningdale. Next day the +President called in his Cabinet. Jacobus Laningdale was +present. The proceedings were kept secret. But that +very afternoon Rufus Cowdery, Secretary of State, left +Washington, and early the following morning sailed for +England. The secret that he carried began to spread, but it +spread only among the heads of Governments. Possibly +half-a-dozen men in a nation were entrusted with the idea that +had formed in Jacobus Laningdale’s head. Following +the spread of the secret, sprang up great activity in all the +dockyards, arsenals, and navy-yards. The people of France +and Austria became suspicious, but so sincere were their +Governments’ calls for confidence that they acquiesced in +the unknown project that was afoot.</p> +<p>This was the time of the Great Truce. All countries +pledged themselves solemnly not to go to war with any other +country. The first definite action was the gradual +mobilization of the armies of Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, +Greece, and Turkey. Then began the eastward movement. +All railroads into Asia were glutted with troop trains. +China was the objective, that was all that was known. A +little later began the great sea movement. Expeditions of +warships were launched from all countries. Fleet followed +fleet, and all proceeded to the coast of China. The nations +cleaned out their navy-yards. They sent their revenue +cutters and dispatch boats and lighthouse tenders, and they sent +their last antiquated cruisers and battleships. Not content +with this, they impressed the merchant marine. The +statistics show that 58,640 merchant steamers, equipped with +searchlights and rapid-fire guns, were despatched by the various +nations to China.</p> +<p>And China smiled and waited. On her land side, along her +boundaries, were millions of the warriors of Europe. She +mobilized five times as many millions of her militia and awaited +the invasion. On her sea coasts she did the same. But +China was puzzled. After all this enormous preparation, +there was no invasion. She could not understand. +Along the great Siberian frontier all was quiet. Along her +coasts the towns and villages were not even shelled. Never, +in the history of the world, had there been so mighty a gathering +of war fleets. The fleets of all the world were there, and +day and night millions of tons of battleships ploughed the brine +of her coasts, and nothing happened. Nothing was +attempted. Did they think to make her emerge from her +shell? China smiled. Did they think to tire her out, +or starve her out? China smiled again.</p> +<p>But on May 1, 1976, had the reader been in the imperial city +of Peking, with its then population of eleven millions, he would +have witnessed a curious sight. He would have seen the +streets filled with the chattering yellow populace, every queued +head tilted back, every slant eye turned skyward. And high +up in the blue he would have beheld a tiny dot of black, which, +because of its orderly evolutions, he would have identified as an +airship. From this airship, as it curved its flight back +and forth over the city, fell missiles—strange, harmless +missiles, tubes of fragile glass that shattered into thousands of +fragments on the streets and house-tops. But there was +nothing deadly about these tubes of glass. Nothing +happened. There were no explosions. It is true, three +Chinese were killed by the tubes dropping on their heads from so +enormous a height; but what were three Chinese against an excess +birth rate of twenty millions? One tube struck +perpendicularly in a fish-pond in a garden and was not +broken. It was dragged ashore by the master of the +house. He did not dare to open it, but, accompanied by his +friends, and surrounded by an ever-increasing crowd, he carried +the mysterious tube to the magistrate of the district. The +latter was a brave man. With all eyes upon him, he +shattered the tube with a blow from his brass-bowled pipe. +Nothing happened. Of those who were very near, one or two +thought they saw some mosquitoes fly out. That was +all. The crowd set up a great laugh and dispersed.</p> +<p>As Peking was bombarded by glass tubes, so was all +China. The tiny airships, dispatched from the warships, +contained but two men each, and over all cities, towns, and +villages they wheeled and curved, one man directing the ship, the +other man throwing over the glass tubes.</p> +<p>Had the reader again been in Peking, six weeks later, he would +have looked in vain for the eleven million inhabitants. +Some few of them he would have found, a few hundred thousand, +perhaps, their carcasses festering in the houses and in the +deserted streets, and piled high on the abandoned +death-waggons. But for the rest he would have had to seek +along the highways and byways of the Empire. And not all +would he have found fleeing from plague-stricken Peking, for +behind them, by hundreds of thousands of unburied corpses by the +wayside, he could have marked their flight. And as it was +with Peking, so it was with all the cities, towns, and villages +of the Empire. The plague smote them all. Nor was it +one plague, nor two plagues; it was a score of plagues. +Every virulent form of infectious death stalked through the +land. Too late the Chinese government apprehended the +meaning of the colossal preparations, the marshalling of the +world-hosts, the flights of the tin airships, and the rain of the +tubes of glass. The proclamations of the government were +vain. They could not stop the eleven million +plague-stricken wretches, fleeing from the one city of Peking to +spread disease through all the land. The physicians and +health officers died at their posts; and death, the +all-conqueror, rode over the decrees of the Emperor and Li Tang +Fwung. It rode over them as well, for Li Tang Fwung died in +the second week, and the Emperor, hidden away in the Summer +Palace, died in the fourth week.</p> +<p>Had there been one plague, China might have coped with +it. But from a score of plagues no creature was +immune. The man who escaped smallpox went down before +scarlet fever. The man who was immune to yellow fever was +carried away by cholera; and if he were immune to that, too, the +Black Death, which was the bubonic plague, swept him away. +For it was these bacteria, and germs, and microbes, and bacilli, +cultured in the laboratories of the West, that had come down upon +China in the rain of glass.</p> +<p>All organization vanished. The government crumbled +away. Decrees and proclamations were useless when the men +who made them and signed them one moment were dead the +next. Nor could the maddened millions, spurred on to flight +by death, pause to heed anything. They fled from the cities +to infect the country, and wherever they fled they carried the +plagues with them. The hot summer was on—Jacobus +Laningdale had selected the time shrewdly—and the plague +festered everywhere. Much is conjectured of what occurred, +and much has been learned from the stories of the few +survivors. The wretched creatures stormed across the Empire +in many-millioned flight. The vast armies China had +collected on her frontiers melted away. The farms were +ravaged for food, and no more crops were planted, while the crops +already in were left unattended and never came to harvest. +The most remarkable thing, perhaps, was the flights. Many +millions engaged in them, charging to the bounds of the Empire to +be met and turned back by the gigantic armies of the West. +The slaughter of the mad hosts on the boundaries was +stupendous. Time and again the guarding line was drawn back +twenty or thirty miles to escape the contagion of the +multitudinous dead.</p> +<p>Once the plague broke through and seized upon the German and +Austrian soldiers who were guarding the borders of +Turkestan. Preparations had been made for such a happening, +and though sixty thousand soldiers of Europe were carried off, +the international corps of physicians isolated the contagion and +dammed it back. It was during this struggle that it was +suggested that a new plague-germ had originated, that in some way +or other a sort of hybridization between plague-germs had taken +place, producing a new and frightfully virulent germ. First +suspected by Vomberg, who became infected with it and died, it +was later isolated and studied by Stevens, Hazenfelt, Norman, and +Landers.</p> +<p>Such was the unparalleled invasion of China. For that +billion of people there was no hope. Pent in their vast and +festering charnel-house, all organization and cohesion lost, they +could do naught but die. They could not escape. As +they were flung back from their land frontiers, so were they +flung back from the sea. Seventy-five thousand vessels +patrolled the coasts. By day their smoking funnels dimmed +the sea-rim, and by night their flashing searchlights ploughed +the dark and harrowed it for the tiniest escaping junk. The +attempts of the immense fleets of junks were pitiful. Not +one ever got by the guarding sea-hounds. Modern +war-machinery held back the disorganized mass of China, while the +plagues did the work.</p> +<p>But old War was made a thing of laughter. Naught +remained to him but patrol duty. China had laughed at war, +and war she was getting, but it was ultra-modern war, twentieth +century war, the war of the scientist and the laboratory, the war +of Jacobus Laningdale. Hundred-ton guns were toys compared +with the micro-organic projectiles hurled from the laboratories, +the messengers of death, the destroying angels that stalked +through the empire of a billion souls.</p> +<p>During all the summer and fall of 1976 China was an +inferno. There was no eluding the microscopic projectiles +that sought out the remotest hiding-places. The hundreds of +millions of dead remained unburied and the germs multiplied +themselves, and, toward the last, millions died daily of +starvation. Besides, starvation weakened the victims and +destroyed their natural defences against the plagues. +Cannibalism, murder, and madness reigned. And so perished +China.</p> +<p>Not until the following February, in the coldest weather, were +the first expeditions made. These expeditions were small, +composed of scientists and bodies of troops; but they entered +China from every side. In spite of the most elaborate +precautions against infection, numbers of soldiers and a few of +the physicians were stricken. But the exploration went +bravely on. They found China devastated, a howling +wilderness through which wandered bands of wild dogs and +desperate bandits who had survived. All survivors were put +to death wherever found. And then began the great task, the +sanitation of China. Five years and hundreds of millions of +treasure were consumed, and then the world moved in—not in +zones, as was the idea of Baron Albrecht, but heterogeneously, +according to the democratic American programme. It was a +vast and happy intermingling of nationalities that settled down +in China in 1982 and the years that followed—a tremendous +and successful experiment in cross-fertilization. We know +to-day the splendid mechanical, intellectual, and art output that +followed.</p> +<p>It was in 1987, the Great Truce having been dissolved, that +the ancient quarrel between France and Germany over +Alsace-Lorraine recrudesced. The war-cloud grew dark and +threatening in April, and on April 17 the Convention of +Copenhagen was called. The representatives of the nations +of the world, being present, all nations solemnly pledged +themselves never to use against one another the laboratory +methods of warfare they had employed in the invasion of +China.</p> +<p>—Excerpt from Walt Mervin’s “<i>Certain +Essays in History</i>.”</p> +<h2><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>THE +ENEMY OF ALL THE WORLD</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was Silas Bannerman who finally +ran down that scientific wizard and arch-enemy of mankind, Emil +Gluck. Gluck’s confession, before he went to the +electric chair, threw much light upon the series of mysterious +events, many apparently unrelated, that so perturbed the world +between the years 1933 and 1941. It was not until that +remarkable document was made public that the world dreamed of +there being any connection between the assassination of the King +and Queen of Portugal and the murders of the New York City police +officers. While the deeds of Emil Gluck were all that was +abominable, we cannot but feel, to a certain extent, pity for the +unfortunate, malformed, and maltreated genius. This side of +his story has never been told before, and from his confession and +from the great mass of evidence and the documents and records of +the time we are able to construct a fairly accurate portrait of +him, and to discern the factors and pressures that moulded him +into the human monster he became and that drove him onward and +downward along the fearful path he trod.</p> +<p>Emil Gluck was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1895. His +father, Josephus Gluck, was a special policeman and night +watchman, who, in the year 1900, died suddenly of +pneumonia. The mother, a pretty, fragile creature, who, +before her marriage, had been a milliner, grieved herself to +death over the loss of her husband. This sensitiveness of +the mother was the heritage that in the boy became morbid and +horrible.</p> +<p>In 1901, the boy, Emil, then six years of age, went to live +with his aunt, Mrs. Ann Bartell. She was his mother’s +sister, but in her breast was no kindly feeling for the +sensitive, shrinking boy. Ann Bartell was a vain, shallow, +and heartless woman. Also, she was cursed with poverty and +burdened with a husband who was a lazy, erratic +ne’er-do-well. Young Emil Gluck was not wanted, and +Ann Bartell could be trusted to impress this fact sufficiently +upon him. As an illustration of the treatment he received +in that early, formative period, the following instance is +given.</p> +<p>When he had been living in the Bartell home a little more than +a year, he broke his leg. He sustained the injury through +playing on the forbidden roof—as all boys have done and +will continue to do to the end of time. The leg was broken +in two places between the knee and thigh. Emil, helped by +his frightened playmates, managed to drag himself to the front +sidewalk, where he fainted. The children of the +neighbourhood were afraid of the hard-featured shrew who presided +over the Bartell house; but, summoning their resolution, they +rang the bell and told Ann Bartell of the accident. She did +not even look at the little lad who lay stricken on the sidewalk, +but slammed the door and went back to her wash-tub. The +time passed. A drizzle came on, and Emil Gluck, out of his +faint, lay sobbing in the rain. The leg should have been +set immediately. As it was, the inflammation rose rapidly +and made a nasty case of it. At the end of two hours, the +indignant women of the neighbourhood protested to Ann +Bartell. This time she came out and looked at the +lad. Also she kicked him in the side as he lay helpless at +her feet, and she hysterically disowned him. He was not her +child, she said, and recommended that the ambulance be called to +take him to the city receiving hospital. Then she went back +into the house.</p> +<p>It was a woman, Elizabeth Shepstone, who came along, learned +the situation, and had the boy placed on a shutter. It was +she who called the doctor, and who, brushing aside Ann Bartell, +had the boy carried into the house. When the doctor +arrived, Ann Bartell promptly warned him that she would not pay +him for his services. For two months the little Emil lay in +bed, the first month on his back without once being turned over; +and he lay neglected and alone, save for the occasional visits of +the unremunerated and over-worked physician. He had no +toys, nothing with which to beguile the long and tedious +hours. No kind word was spoken to him, no soothing hand +laid upon his brow, no single touch or act of loving +tenderness—naught but the reproaches and harshness of Ann +Bartell, and the continually reiterated information that he was +not wanted. And it can well be understood, in such +environment, how there was generated in the lonely, neglected boy +much of the bitterness and hostility for his kind that later was +to express itself in deeds so frightful as to terrify the +world.</p> +<p>It would seem strange that, from the hands of Ann Bartell, +Emil Gluck should have received a college education; but the +explanation is simple. Her ne’er-do-well husband, +deserting her, made a strike in the Nevada goldfields, and +returned to her a many-times millionaire. Ann Bartell hated +the boy, and immediately she sent him to the Farristown Academy, +a hundred miles away. Shy and sensitive, a lonely and +misunderstood little soul, he was more lonely than ever at +Farristown. He never came home, at vacation, and holidays, +as the other boys did. Instead, he wandered about the +deserted buildings and grounds, befriended and misunderstood by +the servants and gardeners, reading much, it is remembered, +spending his days in the fields or before the fire-place with his +nose poked always in the pages of some book. It was at this +time that he over-used his eyes and was compelled to take up the +wearing of glasses, which same were so prominent in the +photographs of him published in the newspapers in 1941.</p> +<p>He was a remarkable student. Application such as his +would have taken him far; but he did not need application. +A glance at a text meant mastery for him. The result was +that he did an immense amount of collateral reading and acquired +more in half a year than did the average student in half-a-dozen +years. In 1909, barely fourteen years of age, he was +ready—“more than ready” the headmaster of the +academy said—to enter Yale or Harvard. His juvenility +prevented him from entering those universities, and so, in 1909, +we find him a freshman at historic Bowdoin College. In 1913 +he graduated with highest honours, and immediately afterward +followed Professor Bradlough to Berkeley, California. The +one friend that Emil Gluck discovered in all his life was +Professor Bradlough. The latter’s weak lungs had led +him to exchange Maine for California, the removal being +facilitated by the offer of a professorship in the State +University. Throughout the year 1914, Emil Gluck resided in +Berkeley and took special scientific courses. Toward the +end of that year two deaths changed his prospects and his +relations with life. The death of Professor Bradlough took +from him the one friend he was ever to know, and the death of Ann +Bartell left him penniless. Hating the unfortunate lad to +the last, she cut him off with one hundred dollars.</p> +<p>The following year, at twenty years of age, Emil Gluck was +enrolled as an instructor of chemistry in the University of +California. Here the years passed quietly; he faithfully +performed the drudgery that brought him his salary, and, a +student always, he took half-a-dozen degrees. He was, among +other things, a Doctor of Sociology, of Philosophy, and of +Science, though he was known to the world, in later days, only as +Professor Gluck.</p> +<p>He was twenty-seven years old when he first sprang into +prominence in the newspapers through the publication of his book, +<i>Sex and Progress</i>. The book remains to-day a +milestone in the history and philosophy of marriage. It is +a heavy tome of over seven hundred pages, painfully careful and +accurate, and startlingly original. It was a book for +scientists, and not one calculated to make a stir. But +Gluck, in the last chapter, using barely three lines for it, +mentioned the hypothetical desirability of trial marriages. +At once the newspapers seized these three lines, “played +them up yellow,” as the slang was in those days, and set +the whole world laughing at Emil Gluck, the bespectacled young +professor of twenty-seven. Photographers snapped him, he +was besieged by reporters, women’s clubs throughout the +land passed resolutions condemning him and his immoral theories; +and on the floor of the California Assembly, while discussing the +state appropriation to the University, a motion demanding the +expulsion of Gluck was made under threat of withholding the +appropriation—of course, none of his persecutors had read +the book; the twisted newspaper version of only three lines of it +was enough for them. Here began Emil Gluck’s hatred +for newspaper men. By them his serious and intrinsically +valuable work of six years had been made a laughing-stock and a +notoriety. To his dying day, and to their everlasting +regret, he never forgave them.</p> +<p>It was the newspapers that were responsible for the next +disaster that befell him. For the five years following the +publication of his book he had remained silent, and silence for a +lonely man is not good. One can conjecture sympathetically +the awful solitude of Emil Gluck in that populous University; for +he was without friends and without sympathy. His only +recourse was books, and he went on reading and studying +enormously. But in 1927 he accepted an invitation to appear +before the Human Interest Society of Emeryville. He did not +trust himself to speak, and as we write we have before us a copy +of his learned paper. It is sober, scholarly, and +scientific, and, it must also be added, conservative. But +in one place he dealt with, and I quote his words, “the +industrial and social revolution that is taking place in +society.” A reporter present seized upon the word +“revolution,” divorced it from the text, and wrote a +garbled account that made Emil Gluck appear an anarchist. +At once, “Professor Gluck, anarchist,” flamed over +the wires and was appropriately “featured” in all the +newspapers in the land.</p> +<p>He had attempted to reply to the previous newspaper attack, +but now he remained silent. Bitterness had already corroded +his soul. The University faculty appealed to him to defend +himself, but he sullenly declined, even refusing to enter in +defence a copy of his paper to save himself from expulsion. +He refused to resign, and was discharged from the University +faculty. It must be added that political pressure had been +put upon the University Regents and the President.</p> +<p>Persecuted, maligned, and misunderstood, the forlorn and +lonely man made no attempt at retaliation. All his life he +had been sinned against, and all his life he had sinned against +no one. But his cup of bitterness was not yet full to +overflowing. Having lost his position, and being without +any income, he had to find work. His first place was at the +Union Iron Works, in San Francisco, where he proved a most able +draughtsman. It was here that he obtained his firsthand +knowledge of battleships and their construction. But the +reporters discovered him and featured him in his new +vocation. He immediately resigned and found another place; +but after the reporters had driven him away from half-a-dozen +positions, he steeled himself to brazen out the newspaper +persecution. This occurred when he started his +electroplating establishment—in Oakland, on Telegraph +Avenue. It was a small shop, employing three men and two +boys. Gluck himself worked long hours. Night after +night, as Policeman Carew testified on the stand, he did not +leave the shop till one and two in the morning. It was +during this period that he perfected the improved ignition device +for gas-engines, the royalties from which ultimately made him +wealthy.</p> +<p>He started his electroplating establishment early in the +spring of 1928, and it was in the same year that he formed the +disastrous love attachment for Irene Tackley. Now it is not +to be imagined that an extraordinary creature such as Emil Gluck +could be any other than an extraordinary lover. In addition +to his genius, his loneliness, and his morbidness, it must be +taken into consideration that he knew nothing about women. +Whatever tides of desire flooded his being, he was unschooled in +the conventional expression of them; while his excessive timidity +was bound to make his love-making unusual. Irene Tackley +was a rather pretty young woman, but shallow and +light-headed. At the time she worked in a small candy store +across the street from Gluck’s shop. He used to come +in and drink ice-cream sodas and lemon-squashes, and stare at +her. It seems the girl did not care for him, and merely +played with him. He was “queer,” she said; and +at another time she called him a crank when describing how he sat +at the counter and peered at her through his spectacles, blushing +and stammering when she took notice of him, and often leaving the +shop in precipitate confusion.</p> +<p>Gluck made her the most amazing presents—a silver +tea-service, a diamond ring, a set of furs, opera-glasses, a +ponderous <i>History of the World</i> in many volumes, and a +motor-cycle all silver-plated in his own shop. Enters now +the girl’s lover, putting his foot down, showing great +anger, compelling her to return Gluck’s strange assortment +of presents. This man, William Sherbourne, was a gross and +stolid creature, a heavy-jawed man of the working class who had +become a successful building-contractor in a small way. +Gluck did not understand. He tried to get an explanation, +attempting to speak with the girl when she went home from work in +the evening. She complained to Sherbourne, and one night he +gave Gluck a beating. It was a very severe beating, for it +is on the records of the Red Cross Emergency Hospital that Gluck +was treated there that night and was unable to leave the hospital +for a week.</p> +<p>Still Gluck did not understand. He continued to seek an +explanation from the girl. In fear of Sherbourne, he +applied to the Chief of Police for permission to carry a +revolver, which permission was refused, the newspapers as usual +playing it up sensationally. Then came the murder of Irene +Tackley, six days before her contemplated marriage with +Sherbourne. It was on a Saturday night. She had +worked late in the candy store, departing after eleven +o’clock with her week’s wages in her purse. She +rode on a San Pablo Avenue surface car to Thirty-fourth Street, +where she alighted and started to walk the three blocks to her +home. That was the last seen of her alive. Next +morning she was found, strangled, in a vacant lot.</p> +<p>Emil Gluck was immediately arrested. Nothing that he +could do could save him. He was convicted, not merely on +circumstantial evidence, but on evidence “cooked up” +by the Oakland police. There is no discussion but that a +large portion of the evidence was manufactured. The +testimony of Captain Shehan was the sheerest perjury, it being +proved long afterward that on the night in question he had not +only not been in the vicinity of the murder, but that he had been +out of the city in a resort on the San Leandro Road. The +unfortunate Gluck received life imprisonment in San Quentin, +while the newspapers and the public held that it was a +miscarriage of justice—that the death penalty should have +been visited upon him.</p> +<p>Gluck entered San Quentin prison on April 17, 1929. He +was then thirty-four years of age. And for three years and +a half, much of the time in solitary confinement, he was left to +meditate upon the injustice of man. It was during that +period that his bitterness corroded home and he became a hater of +all his kind. Three other things he did during the same +period: he wrote his famous treatise, <i>Human Morals</i>, his +remarkable brochure, <i>The Criminal Sane</i>, and he worked out +his awful and monstrous scheme of revenge. It was an +episode that had occurred in his electroplating establishment +that suggested to him his unique weapon of revenge. As +stated in his confession, he worked every detail out +theoretically during his imprisonment, and was able, on his +release, immediately to embark on his career of vengeance.</p> +<p>His release was sensational. Also it was miserably and +criminally delayed by the soulless legal red tape then in +vogue. On the night of February 1, 1932, Tim Haswell, a +hold-up man, was shot during an attempted robbery by a citizen of +Piedmont Heights. Tim Haswell lingered three days, during +which time he not only confessed to the murder of Irene Tackley, +but furnished conclusive proofs of the same. Bert Danniker, +a convict dying of consumption in Folsom Prison, was implicated +as accessory, and his confession followed. It is +inconceivable to us of to-day—the bungling, dilatory +processes of justice a generation ago. Emil Gluck was +proved in February to be an innocent man, yet he was not released +until the following October. For eight months, a greatly +wronged man, he was compelled to undergo his unmerited +punishment. This was not conducive to sweetness and light, +and we can well imagine how he ate his soul with bitterness +during those dreary eight months.</p> +<p>He came back to the world in the fall of 1932, as usual a +“feature” topic in all the newspapers. The +papers, instead of expressing heartfelt regret, continued their +old sensational persecution. One paper did more—the +<i>San Francisco Intelligencer</i>. John Hartwell, its +editor, elaborated an ingenious theory that got around the +confessions of the two criminals and went to show that Gluck was +responsible, after all, for the murder of Irene Tackley. +Hartwell died. And Sherbourne died too, while Policeman +Phillipps was shot in the leg and discharged from the Oakland +police force.</p> +<p>The murder of Hartwell was long a mystery. He was alone +in his editorial office at the time. The reports of the +revolver were heard by the office boy, who rushed in to find +Hartwell expiring in his chair. What puzzled the police was +the fact, not merely that he had been shot with his own revolver, +but that the revolver had been exploded in the drawer of his +desk. The bullets had torn through the front of the drawer +and entered his body. The police scouted the theory of +suicide, murder was dismissed as absurd, and the blame was thrown +upon the Eureka Smokeless Cartridge Company. Spontaneous +explosion was the police explanation, and the chemists of the +cartridge company were well bullied at the inquest. But +what the police did not know was that across the street, in the +Mercer Building, Room 633, rented by Emil Gluck, had been +occupied by Emil Gluck at the very moment Hartwell’s +revolver so mysteriously exploded.</p> +<p>At the time, no connection was made between Hartwell’s +death and the death of William Sherbourne. Sherbourne had +continued to live in the home he had built for Irene Tackley, and +one morning in January, 1933, he was found dead. Suicide +was the verdict of the coroner’s inquest, for he had been +shot by his own revolver. The curious thing that happened +that night was the shooting of Policeman Phillipps on the +sidewalk in front of Sherbourne’s house. The +policeman crawled to a police telephone on the corner and rang up +for an ambulance. He claimed that some one had shot him +from behind in the leg. The leg in question was so badly +shattered by three ’38 calibre bullets that amputation was +necessary. But when the police discovered that the damage +had been done by his own revolver, a great laugh went up, and he +was charged with having been drunk. In spite of his denial +of having touched a drop, and of his persistent assertion that +the revolver had been in his hip pocket and that he had not laid +a finger to it, he was discharged from the force. Emil +Gluck’s confession, six years later, cleared the +unfortunate policeman of disgrace, and he is alive to-day and in +good health, the recipient of a handsome pension from the +city.</p> +<p>Emil Gluck, having disposed of his immediate enemies, now +sought a wider field, though his enmity for newspaper men and for +the police remained always active. The royalties on his +ignition device for gasolene-engines had mounted up while he lay +in prison, and year by year the earning power of his invention +increased. He was independent, able to travel wherever he +willed over the earth and to glut his monstrous appetite for +revenge. He had become a monomaniac and an +anarchist—not a philosophic anarchist, merely, but a +violent anarchist. Perhaps the word is misused, and he is +better described as a nihilist, or an annihilist. It is +known that he affiliated with none of the groups of +terrorists. He operated wholly alone, but he created a +thousandfold more terror and achieved a thousandfold more +destruction than all the terrorist groups added together.</p> +<p>He signalized his departure from California by blowing up Fort +Mason. In his confession he spoke of it as a little +experiment—he was merely trying his hand. For eight +years he wandered over the earth, a mysterious terror, destroying +property to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, and +destroying countless lives. One good result of his awful +deeds was the destruction he wrought among the terrorists +themselves. Every time he did anything the terrorists in +the vicinity were gathered in by the police dragnet, and many of +them were executed. Seventeen were executed at Rome alone, +following the assassination of the Italian King.</p> +<p>Perhaps the most world-amazing achievement of his was the +assassination of the King and Queen of Portugal. It was +their wedding day. All possible precautions had been taken +against the terrorists, and the way from the cathedral, through +Lisbon’s streets, was double-banked with troops, while a +squad of two hundred mounted troopers surrounded the +carriage. Suddenly the amazing thing happened. The +automatic rifles of the troopers began to go off, as well as the +rifles, in the immediate vicinity, of the double-banked +infantry. In the excitement the muzzles of the exploding +rifles were turned in all directions. The slaughter was +terrible—horses, troops, spectators, and the King and +Queen, were riddled with bullets. To complicate the affair, +in different parts of the crowd behind the foot-soldiers, two +terrorists had bombs explode on their persons. These bombs +they had intended to throw if they got the opportunity. But +who was to know this? The frightful havoc wrought by the +bursting bombs but added to the confusion; it was considered part +of the general attack.</p> +<p>One puzzling thing that could not be explained away was the +conduct of the troopers with their exploding rifles. It +seemed impossible that they should be in the plot, yet there were +the hundreds their flying bullets had slain, including the King +and Queen. On the other hand, more baffling than ever was +the fact that seventy per cent. of the troopers themselves had +been killed or wounded. Some explained this on the ground +that the loyal foot-soldiers, witnessing the attack on the royal +carriage, had opened fire on the traitors. Yet not one bit +of evidence to verify this could be drawn from the survivors, +though many were put to the torture. They contended +stubbornly that they had not discharged their rifles at all, but +that their rifles had discharged themselves. They were +laughed at by the chemists, who held that, while it was just +barely probable that a single cartridge, charged with the new +smokeless powder, might spontaneously explode, it was beyond all +probability and possibility for all the cartridges in a given +area, so charged, spontaneously to explode. And so, in the +end, no explanation of the amazing occurrence was reached. +The general opinion of the rest of the world was that the whole +affair was a blind panic of the feverish Latins, precipitated, it +was true, by the bursting of two terrorist bombs; and in this +connection was recalled the laughable encounter of long years +before between the Russian fleet and the English fishing +boats.</p> +<p>And Emil Gluck chuckled and went his way. He knew. +But how was the world to know? He had stumbled upon the +secret in his old electroplating shop on Telegraph Avenue in the +city of Oakland. It happened, at that time, that a wireless +telegraph station was established by the Thurston Power Company +close to his shop. In a short time his electroplating vat +was put out of order. The vat-wiring had many bad joints, +and, on investigation, Gluck discovered minute welds at the +joints in the wiring. These, by lowering the resistance, +had caused an excessive current to pass through the solution, +“boiling” it and spoiling the work. But what +had caused the welds? was the question in Gluck’s +mind. His reasoning was simple. Before the +establishment of the wireless station, the vat had worked +well. Not until after the establishment of the wireless +station had the vat been ruined. Therefore the wireless +station had been the cause. But how? He quickly +answered the question. If an electric discharge was capable +of operating a coherer across three thousand miles of ocean, +then, certainly, the electric discharges from the wireless +station four hundred feet away could produce coherer effects on +the bad joints in the vat-wiring.</p> +<p>Gluck thought no more about it at the time. He merely +re-wired his vat and went on electroplating. But +afterwards, in prison, he remembered the incident, and like a +flash there came into his mind the full significance of it. +He saw in it the silent, secret weapon with which to revenge +himself on the world. His great discovery, which died with +him, was control over the direction and scope of the electric +discharge. At the time, this was the unsolved problem of +wireless telegraphy—as it still is to-day—but Emil +Gluck, in his prison cell, mastered it. And, when he was +released, he applied it. It was fairly simple, given the +directing power that was his, to introduce a spark into the +powder-magazines of a fort, a battleship, or a revolver. +And not alone could he thus explode powder at a distance, but he +could ignite conflagrations. The great Boston fire was +started by him—quite by accident, however, as he stated in +his confession, adding that it was a pleasing accident and that +he had never had any reason to regret it.</p> +<p>It was Emil Gluck that caused the terrible German-American +War, with the loss of 800,000 lives and the consumption of almost +incalculable treasure. It will be remembered that in 1939, +because of the Pickard incident, strained relations existed +between the two countries. Germany, though aggrieved, was +not anxious for war, and, as a peace token, sent the Crown Prince +and seven battleships on a friendly visit to the United +States. On the night of February 15, the seven warships lay +at anchor in the Hudson opposite New York City. And on that +night Emil Gluck, alone, with all his apparatus on board, was out +in a launch. This launch, it was afterwards proved, was +bought by him from the Ross Turner Company, while much of the +apparatus he used that night had been purchased from the Columbia +Electric Works. But this was not known at the time. +All that was known was that the seven battleships blew up, one +after another, at regular four-minute intervals. Ninety per +cent. of the crews and officers, along with the Crown Prince, +perished. Many years before, the American battleship +<i>Maine</i> had been blown up in the harbour of Havana, and war +with Spain had immediately followed—though there has always +existed a reasonable doubt as to whether the explosion was due to +conspiracy or accident. But accident could not explain the +blowing up of the seven battleships on the Hudson at four-minute +intervals. Germany believed that it had been done by a +submarine, and immediately declared war. It was six months +after Gluck’s confession that she returned the Philippines +and Hawaii to the United States.</p> +<p>In the meanwhile Emil Gluck, the malevolent wizard and +arch-hater, travelled his whirlwind path of destruction. He +left no traces. Scientifically thorough, he always cleaned +up after himself. His method was to rent a room or a house, +and secretly to install his apparatus—which apparatus, by +the way, he so perfected and simplified that it occupied little +space. After he had accomplished his purpose he carefully +removed the apparatus. He bade fair to live out a long life +of horrible crime.</p> +<p>The epidemic of shooting of New York City policemen was a +remarkable affair. It became one of the horror mysteries of +the time. In two short weeks over a hundred policemen were +shot in the legs by their own revolvers. Inspector Jones +did not solve the mystery, but it was his idea that finally +outwitted Gluck. On his recommendation the policemen ceased +carrying revolvers, and no more accidental shootings +occurred.</p> +<p>It was in the early spring of 1940 that Gluck destroyed the +Mare Island navy-yard. From a room in Vallejo he sent his +electric discharges across the Vallejo Straits to Mare +Island. He first played his flashes on the battleship +<i>Maryland</i>. She lay at the dock of one of the +mine-magazines. On her forward deck, on a huge temporary +platform of timbers, were disposed over a hundred mines. +These mines were for the defence of the Golden Gate. Any +one of these mines was capable of destroying a dozen battleships, +and there were over a hundred mines. The destruction was +terrific, but it was only Gluck’s overture. He played +his flashes down the Mare Island shore, blowing up five torpedo +boats, the torpedo station, and the great magazine at the eastern +end of the island. Returning westward again, and scooping +in occasional isolated magazines on the high ground back from the +shore, he blew up three cruisers and the battleships +<i>Oregon</i>, <i>Delaware</i>, <i>New Hampshire</i>, and +<i>Florida</i>—the latter had just gone into dry-dock, and +the magnificent dry-dock was destroyed along with her.</p> +<p>It was a frightful catastrophe, and a shiver of horror passed +through the land. But it was nothing to what was to +follow. In the late fall of that year Emil Gluck made a +clean sweep of the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Florida. +Nothing escaped. Forts, mines, coast defences of all sorts, +torpedo stations, magazines—everything went up. Three +months afterward, in midwinter, he smote the north shore of the +Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Greece in the same stupefying +manner. A wail went up from the nations. It was clear +that human agency was behind all this destruction, and it was +equally clear, through Emil Gluck’s impartiality, that the +destruction was not the work of any particular nation. One +thing was patent, namely, that whoever was the human behind it +all, that human was a menace to the world. No nation was +safe. There was no defence against this unknown and +all-powerful foe. Warfare was futile—nay, not merely +futile but itself the very essence of the peril. For a +twelve-month the manufacture of powder ceased, and all soldiers +and sailors were withdrawn from all fortifications and war +vessels. And even a world-disarmament was seriously +considered at the Convention of the Powers, held at The Hague at +that time.</p> +<p>And then Silas Bannerman, a secret service agent of the United +States, leaped into world-fame by arresting Emil Gluck. At +first Bannerman was laughed at, but he had prepared his case +well, and in a few weeks the most sceptical were convinced of +Emil Gluck’s guilt. The one thing, however, that +Silas Bannerman never succeeded in explaining, even to his own +satisfaction, was how first he came to connect Gluck with the +atrocious crimes. It is true, Bannerman was in Vallejo, on +secret government business, at the time of the destruction of +Mare Island; and it is true that on the streets of Vallejo Emil +Gluck was pointed out to him as a queer crank; but no impression +was made at the time. It was not until afterward, when on a +vacation in the Rocky Mountains and when reading the first +published reports of the destruction along the Atlantic Coast, +that suddenly Bannerman thought of Emil Gluck. And on the +instant there flashed into his mind the connection between Gluck +and the destruction. It was only an hypothesis, but it was +sufficient. The great thing was the conception of the +hypothesis, in itself an act of unconscious cerebration—a +thing as unaccountable as the flashing, for instance, into +Newton’s mind of the principle of gravitation.</p> +<p>The rest was easy. Where was Gluck at the time of the +destruction along the Atlantic sea-board? was the question that +formed in Bannerman’s mind. By his own request he was +put upon the case. In no time he ascertained that Gluck had +himself been up and down the Atlantic Coast in the late fall of +1940. Also he ascertained that Gluck had been in New York +City during the epidemic of the shooting of police +officers. Where was Gluck now? was Bannerman’s next +query. And, as if in answer, came the wholesale destruction +along the Mediterranean. Gluck had sailed for Europe a +month before—Bannerman knew that. It was not +necessary for Bannerman to go to Europe. By means of cable +messages and the co-operation of the European secret services, he +traced Gluck’s course along the Mediterranean and found +that in every instance it coincided with the blowing up of coast +defences and ships. Also, he learned that Gluck had just +sailed on the Green Star liner <i>Plutonic</i> for the United +States.</p> +<p>The case was complete in Bannerman’s mind, though in the +interval of waiting he worked up the details. In this he +was ably assisted by George Brown, an operator employed by the +Wood’s System of Wireless Telegraphy. When the +<i>Plutonic</i> arrived off Sandy Hook she was boarded by +Bannerman from a Government tug, and Emil Gluck was made a +prisoner. The trial and the confession followed. In +the confession Gluck professed regret only for one thing, namely, +that he had taken his time. As he said, had he dreamed that +he was ever to be discovered he would have worked more rapidly +and accomplished a thousand times the destruction he did. +His secret died with him, though it is now known that the French +Government managed to get access to him and offered him a billion +francs for his invention wherewith he was able to direct and +closely to confine electric discharges. “What!” +was Gluck’s reply—“to sell to you that which +would enable you to enslave and maltreat suffering +Humanity?” And though the war departments of the +nations have continued to experiment in their secret +laboratories, they have so far failed to light upon the slightest +trace of the secret. Emil Gluck was executed on December 4, +1941, and so died, at the age of forty-six, one of the +world’s most unfortunate geniuses, a man of tremendous +intellect, but whose mighty powers, instead of making toward +good, were so twisted and warped that he became the most amazing +of criminals.</p> +<p>—Culled from Mr. A. G. Burnside’s +“Eccentricitics of Crime,” by kind permission of the +publishers, Messrs. Holiday and Whitsund.</p> +<h2><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>THE +DREAM OF DEBS</h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">awoke</span> fully an hour before my +customary time. This in itself was remarkable, and I lay +very wide awake, pondering over it. Something was the +matter, something was wrong—I knew not what. I was +oppressed by a premonition of something terrible that had +happened or was about to happen. But what was it? I +strove to orient myself. I remembered that at the time of +the Great Earthquake of 1906 many claimed they awakened some +moments before the first shock and that during these moments they +experienced strange feelings of dread. Was San Francisco +again to be visited by earthquake?</p> +<p>I lay for a full minute, numbly expectant, but there occurred +no reeling of walls nor shock and grind of falling masonry. +All was quiet. That was it! The silence! No +wonder I had been perturbed. The hum of the great live city +was strangely absent. The surface cars passed along my +street, at that time of day, on an average of one every three +minutes; but in the ten succeeding minutes not a car +passed. Perhaps it was a street-railway strike, was my +thought; or perhaps there had been an accident and the power was +shut off. But no, the silence was too profound. I +heard no jar and rattle of waggon wheels, nor stamp of iron-shod +hoofs straining up the steep cobble-stones.</p> +<p>Pressing the push-button beside my bed, I strove to hear the +sound of the bell, though I well knew it was impossible for the +sound to rise three stories to me even if the bell did +ring. It rang all right, for a few minutes later Brown +entered with the tray and morning paper. Though his +features were impassive as ever, I noted a startled, apprehensive +light in his eyes. I noted, also, that there was no cream +on the tray.</p> +<p>“The Creamery did not deliver this morning,” he +explained; “nor did the bakery.”</p> +<p>I glanced again at the tray. There were no fresh French +rolls—only slices of stale graham bread from yesterday, the +most detestable of bread so far as I was concerned.</p> +<p>“Nothing was delivered this morning, sir,” Brown +started to explain apologetically; but I interrupted him.</p> +<p>“The paper?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir, it was delivered, but it was the only thing, +and it is the last time, too. There won’t be any +paper to-morrow. The paper says so. Can I send out +and get you some condensed milk?”</p> +<p>I shook my head, accepted the coffee black, and spread open +the paper. The headlines explained +everything—explained too much, in fact, for the lengths of +pessimism to which the journal went were ridiculous. A +general strike, it said, had been called all over the United +States; and most foreboding anxieties were expressed concerning +the provisioning of the great cities.</p> +<p>I read on hastily, skimming much and remembering much of +labour troubles in the past. For a generation the general +strike had been the dream of organized labour, which dream had +arisen originally in the mind of Debs, one of the great labour +leaders of thirty years before. I recollected that in my +young college-settlement days I had even written an article on +the subject for one of the magazines and that I had entitled it +“The Dream of Debs.” And I must confess that I +had treated the idea very cavalierly and academically as a dream +and nothing more. Time and the world had rolled on, Gompers +was gone, the American Federation of Labour was gone, and gone +was Debs with all his wild revolutionary ideas; but the dream had +persisted, and here it was at last realized in fact. But I +laughed, as I read, at the journal’s gloomy outlook. +I knew better. I had seen organized labour worsted in too +many conflicts. It would be a matter only of days when the +thing would be settled. This was a national strike, and it +wouldn’t take the Government long to break it.</p> +<p>I threw the paper down and proceeded to dress. It would +certainly be interesting to be out in the streets of San +Francisco when not a wheel was turning and the whole city was +taking an enforced vacation.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon, sir,” Brown said, as he handed +me my cigar-case, “but Mr. Harmmed has asked to see you +before you go out.”</p> +<p>“Send him in right away,” I answered.</p> +<p>Harmmed was the butler. When he entered I could see he +was labouring under controlled excitement. He came at once +to the point.</p> +<p>“What shall I do, sir? There will be needed +provisions, and the delivery drivers are on strike. And the +electricity is shut off—I guess they’re on strike, +too.”</p> +<p>“Are the shops open?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Only the small ones, sir. The retail clerks are +out, and the big ones can’t open; but the owners and their +families are running the little ones themselves.”</p> +<p>“Then take the machine,” I said, “and go the +rounds and make your purchases. Buy plenty of everything +you need or may need. Get a box of candles—no, get +half-a-dozen boxes. And, when you’re done, tell +Harrison to bring the machine around to the club for me—not +later than eleven.”</p> +<p>Harmmed shook his head gravely. “Mr. Harrison has +struck along with the Chauffeurs’ Union, and I don’t +know how to run the machine myself.”</p> +<p>“Oh, ho, he has, has he?” said I. “Well, +when next Mister Harrison happens around you tell him that he can +look elsewhere for a position.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“You don’t happen to belong to a Butlers’ +Union, do you, Harmmed?”</p> +<p>“No, sir,” was the answer. “And even +if I did I’d not desert my employer in a crisis like +this. No, sir, I would—”</p> +<p>“All right, thank you,” I said. “Now +you get ready to accompany me. I’ll run the machine +myself, and we’ll lay in a stock of provisions to stand a +siege.”</p> +<p>It was a beautiful first of May, even as May days go. +The sky was cloudless, there was no wind, and the air was +warm—almost balmy. Many autos were out, but the +owners were driving them themselves. The streets were +crowded but quiet. The working class, dressed in its Sunday +best, was out taking the air and observing the effects of the +strike. It was all so unusual, and withal so peaceful, that +I found myself enjoying it. My nerves were tingling with +mild excitement. It was a sort of placid adventure. I +passed Miss Chickering. She was at the helm of her little +runabout. She swung around and came after me, catching me +at the corner.</p> +<p>“Oh, Mr. Corf!”’ she hailed. “Do +you know where I can buy candles? I’ve been to a +dozen shops, and they’re all sold out. It’s +dreadfully awful, isn’t it?”</p> +<p>But her sparkling eyes gave the lie to her words. Like +the rest of us, she was enjoying it hugely. Quite an +adventure it was, getting those candles. It was not until +we went across the city and down into the working-class quarter +south of Market Street that we found small corner groceries that +had not yet sold out. Miss Chickering thought one box was +sufficient, but I persuaded her into taking four. My car +was large, and I laid in a dozen boxes. There was no +telling what delays might arise in the settlement of the +strike. Also, I filled the car with sacks of flour, +baking-powder, tinned goods, and all the ordinary necessaries of +life suggested by Harmmed, who fussed around and clucked over the +purchases like an anxious old hen.</p> +<p>The remarkable thing, that first day of the strike, was that +no one really apprehended anything serious. The +announcement of organized labour in the morning papers that it +was prepared to stay out a month or three months was laughed +at. And yet that very first day we might have guessed as +much from the fact that the working class took practically no +part in the great rush to buy provisions. Of course +not. For weeks and months, craftily and secretly, the whole +working class had been laying in private stocks of +provisions. That was why we were permitted to go down and +buy out the little groceries in the working-class +neighbourhoods.</p> +<p>It was not until I arrived at the club that afternoon that I +began to feel the first alarm. Everything was in +confusion. There were no olives for the cocktails, and the +service was by hitches and jerks. Most of the men were +angry, and all were worried. A babel of voices greeted me +as I entered. General Folsom, nursing his capacious paunch +in a window-seat in the smoking-room was defending himself +against half-a-dozen excited gentlemen who were demanding that he +should do something.</p> +<p>“What can I do more than I have done?” he was +saying. “There are no orders from Washington. +If you gentlemen will get a wire through I’ll do anything I +am commanded to do. But I don’t see what can be +done. The first thing I did this morning, as soon as I +learned of the strike, was to order in the troops from the +Presidio—three thousand of them. They’re +guarding the banks, the Mint, the post office, and all the public +buildings. There is no disorder whatever. The +strikers are keeping the peace perfectly. You can’t +expect me to shoot them down as they walk along the streets with +wives and children all in their best bib and tucker.”</p> +<p>“I’d like to know what’s happening on Wall +Street,” I heard Jimmy Wombold say as I passed along. +I could imagine his anxiety, for I knew that he was deep in the +big Consolidated-Western deal.</p> +<p>“Say, Corf,” Atkinson bustled up to me, “is +your machine running?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” I answered, “but what’s the +matter with your own?”</p> +<p>“Broken down, and the garages are all closed. And +my wife’s somewhere around Truckee, I think, stalled on the +overland. Can’t get a wire to her for love or +money. She should have arrived this evening. She may +be starving. Lend me your machine.”</p> +<p>“Can’t get it across the bay,” Halstead +spoke up. “The ferries aren’t running. +But I tell you what you can do. There’s +Rollinson—oh, Rollinson, come here a moment. Atkinson +wants to get a machine across the bay. His wife is stuck on +the overland at Truckee. Can’t you bring the +<i>Lurlette</i> across from Tiburon and carry the machine over +for him?”</p> +<p>The <i>Lurlette</i> was a two-hundred-ton, ocean-going +schooner-yacht.</p> +<p>Rollinson shook his head. “You couldn’t get +a longshoreman to land the machine on board, even if I could get +the <i>Lurlette</i> over, which I can’t, for the crew are +members of the Coast Seamen’s Union, and they’re on +strike along with the rest.”</p> +<p>“But my wife may be starving,” I could hear +Atkinson wailing as I moved on.</p> +<p>At the other end of the smoking-room I ran into a group of men +bunched excitedly and angrily around Bertie Messener. And +Bertie was stirring them up and prodding them in his cool, +cynical way. Bertie didn’t care about the +strike. He didn’t care much about anything. He +was blasé—at least in all the clean things of life; +the nasty things had no attraction for him. He was worth +twenty millions, all of it in safe investments, and he had never +done a tap of productive work in his life—inherited it all +from his father and two uncles. He had been everywhere, +seen everything, and done everything but get married, and this +last in the face of the grim and determined attack of a few +hundred ambitious mammas. For years he had been the +greatest catch, and as yet he had avoided being caught. He +was disgracefully eligible. On top of his wealth he was +young, handsome, and, as I said before, clean. He was a +great athlete, a young blond god that did everything perfectly +and admirably with the solitary exception of matrimony. And +he didn’t care about anything, had no ambitions, no +passions, no desire to do the very things he did so much better +than other men.</p> +<p>“This is sedition!” one man in the group was +crying. Another called it revolt and revolution, and +another called it anarchy.</p> +<p>“I can’t see it,” Bertie said. +“I have been out in the streets all morning. Perfect +order reigns. I never saw a more law-abiding +populace. There’s no use calling it names. +It’s not any of those things. It’s just what it +claims to be, a general strike, and it’s your turn to play, +gentlemen.”</p> +<p>“And we’ll play all right!” cried Garfield, +one of the traction millionaires. “We’ll show +this dirt where its place is—the beasts! Wait till +the Government takes a hand.”</p> +<p>“But where is the Government?” Bertie +interposed. “It might as well be at the bottom of the +sea so far as you’re concerned. You don’t know +what’s happening at Washington. You don’t know +whether you’ve got a Government or not.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you worry about that,” Garfield +blurted out.</p> +<p>“I assure you I’m not worrying,” Bertie +smiled languidly. “But it seems to me it’s what +you fellows are doing. Look in the glass, +Garfield.”</p> +<p>Garfield did not look, but had he looked he would have seen a +very excited gentleman with rumpled, iron-grey hair, a flushed +face, mouth sullen and vindictive, and eyes wildly gleaming.</p> +<p>“It’s not right, I tell you,” little Hanover +said; and from his tone I was sure that he had already said it a +number of times.</p> +<p>“Now that’s going too far, Hanover,” Bertie +replied. “You fellows make me tired. +You’re all open-shop men. You’ve eroded my +eardrums with your endless gabble for the open shop and the right +of a man to work. You’ve harangued along those lines +for years. Labour is doing nothing wrong in going out on +this general strike. It is violating no law of God nor +man. Don’t you talk, Hanover. You’ve been +ringing the changes too long on the God-given right to work . . . +or not to work; you can’t escape the corollary. +It’s a dirty little sordid scrap, that’s all the +whole thing is. You’ve got labour down and gouged it, +and now labour’s got you down and is gouging you, +that’s all, and you’re squealing.”</p> +<p>Every man in the group broke out in indignant denials that +labour had ever been gouged.</p> +<p>“No, sir!” Garfield was shouting. +“We’ve done the best for labour. Instead of +gouging it, we’ve given it a chance to live. +We’ve made work for it. Where would labour be if it +hadn’t been for us?”</p> +<p>“A whole lot better off,” Bertie sneered. +“You’ve got labour down and gouged it every time you +got a chance, and you went out of your way to make +chances.”</p> +<p>“No! No!” were the cries.</p> +<p>“There was the teamsters’ strike, right here in +San Francisco,” Bertie went on imperturbably. +“The Employers’ Association precipitated that +strike. You know that. And you know I know it, too, +for I’ve sat in these very rooms and heard the inside talk +and news of the fight. First you precipitated the strike, +then you bought the Mayor and the Chief of Police and broke the +strike. A pretty spectacle, you philanthropists getting the +teamsters down and gouging them.</p> +<p>“Hold on, I’m not through with you. +It’s only last year that the labour ticket of Colorado +elected a governor. He was never seated. You know +why. You know how your brother philanthropists and +capitalists of Colorado worked it. It was a case of getting +labour down and gouging it. You kept the president of the +South-western Amalgamated Association of Miners in jail for three +years on trumped-up murder charges, and with him out of the way +you broke up the association. That was gouging labour, +you’ll admit. The third time the graduated income tax +was declared unconstitutional was a gouge. So was the +eight-hour Bill you killed in the last Congress.</p> +<p>“And of all unmitigated immoral gouges, your destruction +of the closed-shop principle was the limit. You know how it +was done. You bought out Farburg, the last president of the old +American Federation of Labour. He was your +creature—or the creature of all the trusts and +employers’ associations, which is the same thing. You +precipitated the big closed-shop strike. Farburg betrayed +that strike. You won, and the old American Federation of +Labour crumbled to pieces. You fellows destroyed it, and by +so doing undid yourselves; for right on top of it began the +organization of the I.L.W.—the biggest and solidest +organization of labour the United States has ever seen, and you +are responsible for its existence and for the present general +strike. You smashed all the old federations and drove +labour into the I.L.W., and the I.L.W. called the general +strike—still fighting for the closed shop. And then +you have the effrontery to stand here face to face and tell me +that you never got labour down and gouged it. +Bah!”</p> +<p>This time there were no denials. Garfield broke out in +self-defence—</p> +<p>“We’ve done nothing we were not compelled to do, +if we were to win.”</p> +<p>“I’m not saying anything about that,” Bertie +answered. “What I am complaining about is your +squealing now that you’re getting a taste of your own +medicine. How many strikes have you won by starving labour +into submission? Well, labour’s worked out a scheme +whereby to starve you into submission. It wants the closed +shop, and, if it can get it by starving you, why, starve you +shall.”</p> +<p>“I notice that you have profited in the past by those +very labour gouges you mention,” insinuated Brentwood, one +of the wiliest and most astute of our corporation lawyers. +“The receiver is as bad as the thief,” he +sneered. “You had no hand in the gouging, but you +took your whack out of the gouge.”</p> +<p>“That is quite beside the question, Brentwood,” +Bertie drawled. “You’re as bad as Hanover, +intruding the moral element. I haven’t said that +anything is right or wrong. It’s all a rotten game, I +know; and my sole kick is that you fellows are squealing now that +you’re down and labour’s taking a gouge out of +you. Of course I’ve taken the profits from the +gouging and, thanks to you, gentlemen, without having personally +to do the dirty work. You did that for me—oh, believe +me, not because I am more virtuous than you, but because my good +father and his various brothers left me a lot of money with which +to pay for the dirty work.”</p> +<p>“If you mean to insinuate—” Brentwood began +hotly.</p> +<p>“Hold on, don’t get all-ruffled up,” Bertie +interposed insolently. “There’s no use in +playing hypocrites in this thieves’ den. The high and +lofty is all right for the newspapers, boys’ clubs, and +Sunday schools—that’s part of the game; but for +heaven’s sake don’t let’s play it on one +another. You know, and you know that I know just what +jobbery was done in the building trades’ strike last fall, +who put up the money, who did the work, and who profited by +it.” (Brentwood flushed darkly.) “But we +are all tarred with the same brush, and the best thing for us to +do is to leave morality out of it. Again I repeat, play the +game, play it to the last finish, but for goodness’ sake +don’t squeal when you get hurt.”</p> +<p>When I left the group Bertie was off on a new tack tormenting +them with the more serious aspects of the situation, pointing out +the shortage of supplies that was already making itself felt, and +asking them what they were going to do about it. A little +later I met him in the cloak-room, leaving, and gave him a lift +home in my machine.</p> +<p>“It’s a great stroke, this general strike,” +he said, as we bowled along through the crowded but orderly +streets. “It’s a smashing body-blow. +Labour caught us napping and struck at our weakest place, the +stomach. I’m going to get out of San Francisco, +Corf. Take my advice and get out, too. Head for the +country, anywhere. You’ll have more chance. Buy +up a stock of supplies and get into a tent or a cabin +somewhere. Soon there’ll be nothing but starvation in +this city for such as we.”</p> +<p>How correct Bertie Messener was I never dreamed. I +decided that he was an alarmist. As for myself, I was +content to remain and watch the fun. After I dropped him, +instead of going directly home, I went on in a hunt for more +food. To my surprise, I learned that the small groceries +where I had bought in the morning were sold out. I extended +my search to the Potrero, and by good luck managed to pick up +another box of candles, two sacks of wheat flour, ten pounds of +graham flour (which would do for the servants), a case of tinned +corn, and two cases of tinned tomatoes. It did look as +though there was going to be at least a temporary food shortage, +and I hugged myself over the goodly stock of provisions I had +laid in.</p> +<p>The next morning I had my coffee in bed as usual, and, more +than the cream, I missed the daily paper. It was this +absence of knowledge of what was going on in the world that I +found the chief hardship. Down at the club there was little +news. Rider had crossed from Oakland in his launch, and +Halstead had been down to San Jose and back in his machine. +They reported the same conditions in those places as in San +Francisco. Everything was tied up by the strike. All +grocery stocks had been bought out by the upper classes. +And perfect order reigned. But what was happening over the +rest of the country—in Chicago? New York? +Washington? Most probably the same things that were +happening with us, we concluded; but the fact that we did not +know with absolute surety was irritating.</p> +<p>General Folsom had a bit of news. An attempt had been +made to place army telegraphers in the telegraph offices, but the +wires had been cut in every direction. This was, so far, +the one unlawful act committed by labour, and that it was a +concerted act he was fully convinced. He had communicated +by wireless with the army post at Benicia, the telegraph lines +were even then being patrolled by soldiers all the way to +Sacramento. Once, for one short instant, they had got the +Sacramento call, then the wires, somewhere, were cut again. +General Folsom reasoned that similar attempts to open +communication were being made by the authorities all the way +across the continent, but he was non-committal as to whether or +not he thought the attempt would succeed. What worried him +was the wire-cutting; he could not but believe that it was an +important part of the deep-laid labour conspiracy. Also, he +regretted that the Government had not long since established its +projected chain of wireless stations.</p> +<p>The days came and went, and for a while it was a humdrum +time. Nothing happened. The edge of excitement had +become blunted. The streets were not so crowded. The +working class did not come uptown any more to see how we were +taking the strike. And there were not so many automobiles +running around. The repair-shops and garages were closed, +and whenever a machine broke down it went out of +commission. The clutch on mine broke, and neither love nor +money could get it repaired. Like the rest, I was now +walking. San Francisco lay dead, and we did not know what +was happening over the rest of the country. But from the +very fact that we did not know we could conclude only that the +rest of the country lay as dead as San Francisco. From time +to time the city was placarded with the proclamations of +organized labour—these had been printed months before, and +evidenced how thoroughly the I.L.W. had prepared for the +strike. Every detail had been worked out long in +advance. No violence had occurred as yet, with the +exception of the shooting of a few wire-cutters by the soldiers, +but the people of the slums were starving and growing ominously +restless.</p> +<p>The business men, the millionaires, and the professional class +held meetings and passed resolutions, but there was no way of +making the proclamations public. They could not even get +them printed. One result of these meetings, however, was +that General Folsom was persuaded into taking military possession +of the wholesale houses and of all the flour, grain, and food +warehouses. It was high time, for suffering was becoming +acute in the homes of the rich, and bread-lines were +necessary. I knew that my servants were beginning to draw +long faces, and it was amazing—the hole they made in my +stock of provisions. In fact, as I afterward surmised, each +servant was stealing from me and secreting a private stock of +provisions for himself.</p> +<p>But with the formation of the bread-lines came new +troubles. There was only so much of a food reserve in San +Francisco, and at the best it could not last long. +Organized labour, we knew, had its private supplies; +nevertheless, the whole working class joined the +bread-lines. As a result, the provisions General Folsom had +taken possession of diminished with perilous rapidity. How +were the soldiers to distinguish between a shabby middle-class +man, a member of the I.L.W., or a slum dweller? The first +and the last had to be fed, but the soldiers did not know all the +I.L.W. men in the city, much less the wives and sons and +daughters of the I.L.W. men. The employers helping, a few +of the known union men were flung out of the bread-lines; but +that amounted to nothing. To make matters worse, the +Government tugs that had been hauling food from the army depots +on Mare Island to Angel Island found no more food to haul. +The soldiers now received their rations from the confiscated +provisions, and they received them first.</p> +<p>The beginning of the end was in sight. Violence was +beginning to show its face. Law and order were passing +away, and passing away, I must confess, among the slum people and +the upper classes. Organized labour still maintained +perfect order. It could well afford to—it had plenty +to eat. I remember the afternoon at the club when I caught +Halstead and Brentwood whispering in a corner. They took me +in on the venture. Brentwood’s machine was still in +running order, and they were going out cow-stealing. +Halstead had a long butcher knife and a cleaver. We went +out to the outskirts of the city. Here and there were cows +grazing, but always they were guarded by their owners. We +pursued our quest, following along the fringe of the city to the +east, and on the hills near Hunter’s Point we came upon a +cow guarded by a little girl. There was also a young calf +with the cow. We wasted no time on preliminaries. The +little girl ran away screaming, while we slaughtered the +cow. I omit the details, for they are not nice—we +were unaccustomed to such work, and we bungled it.</p> +<p>But in the midst of it, working with the haste of fear, we +heard cries, and we saw a number of men running toward us. +We abandoned the spoils and took to our heels. To our +surprise we were not pursued. Looking back, we saw the men +hurriedly cutting up the cow. They had been on the same lay +as ourselves. We argued that there was plenty for all, and +ran back. The scene that followed beggars +description. We fought and squabbled over the division like +savages. Brentwood, I remember, was a perfect brute, +snarling and snapping and threatening that murder would be done +if we did not get our proper share.</p> +<p>And we were getting our share when there occurred a new +irruption on the scene. This time it was the dreaded peace +officers of the I.L.W. The little girl had brought +them. They were armed with whips and clubs, and there were +a score of them. The little girl danced up and down in +anger, the tears streaming down her cheeks, crying: “Give +it to ’em! Give it to ’em! That guy with +the specs—he did it! Mash his face for him! +Mash his face!” That guy with the specs was I, and I +got my face mashed, too, though I had the presence of mind to +take off my glasses at the first. My! but we did receive a +trouncing as we scattered in all directions. Brentwood, +Halstead, and I fled away for the machine. +Brentwood’s nose was bleeding, while Halstead’s cheek +was cut across with the scarlet slash of a black-snake whip.</p> +<p>And, lo, when the pursuit ceased and we had gained the +machine, there, hiding behind it, was the frightened calf. +Brentwood warned us to be cautious, and crept up on it like a +wolf or tiger. Knife and cleaver had been left behind, but +Brentwood still had his hands, and over and over on the ground he +rolled with the poor little calf as he throttled it. We +threw the carcass into the machine, covered it over with a robe, +and started for home. But our misfortunes had only +begun. We blew out a tyre. There was no way of fixing +it, and twilight was coming on. We abandoned the machine, +Brentwood pulling and staggering along in advance, the calf, +covered by the robe, slung across his shoulders. We took +turn about carrying that calf, and it nearly killed us. +Also, we lost our way. And then, after hours of wandering +and toil, we encountered a gang of hoodlums. They were not +I.L.W. men, and I guess they were as hungry as we. At any +rate, they got the calf and we got the thrashing. Brentwood +raged like a madman the rest of the way home, and he looked like +one, with his torn clothes, swollen nose, and blackened eyes.</p> +<p>There wasn’t any more cow-stealing after that. +General Folsom sent his troopers out and confiscated all the +cows, and his troopers, aided by the militia, ate most of the +meat. General Folsom was not to be blamed; it was his duty +to maintain law and order, and he maintained it by means of the +soldiers, wherefore he was compelled to feed them first of +all.</p> +<p>It was about this time that the great panic occurred. +The wealthy classes precipitated the flight, and then the slum +people caught the contagion and stampeded wildly out of the +city. General Folsom was pleased. It was estimated +that at least 200,000 had deserted San Francisco, and by that +much was his food problem solved. Well do I remember that +day. In the morning I had eaten a crust of bread. +Half of the afternoon I had stood in the bread-line; and after +dark I returned home, tired and miserable, carrying a quart of +rice and a slice of bacon. Brown met me at the door. +His face was worn and terrified. All the servants had fled, +he informed me. He alone remained. I was touched by +his faithfulness and, when I learned that he had eaten nothing +all day, I divided my food with him. We cooked half the +rice and half the bacon, sharing it equally and reserving the +other half for morning. I went to bed with my hunger, and +tossed restlessly all night. In the morning I found Brown +had deserted me, and, greater misfortune still, he had stolen +what remained of the rice and bacon.</p> +<p>It was a gloomy handful of men that came together at the club +that morning. There was no service at all. The last +servant was gone. I noticed, too, that the silver was gone, +and I learned where it had gone. The servants had not taken +it, for the reason, I presume, that the club members got to it +first. Their method of disposing of it was simple. +Down south of Market Street, in the dwellings of the I.L.W., the +housewives had given square meals in exchange for it. I +went back to my house. Yes, my silver was gone—all +but a massive pitcher. This I wrapped up and carried down +south of Market Street.</p> +<p>I felt better after the meal, and returned to the club to +learn if there was anything new in the situation. Hanover, +Collins, and Dakon were just leaving. There was no one +inside, they told me, and they invited me to come along with +them. They were leaving the city, they said, on +Dakon’s horses, and there was a spare one for me. Dakon had +four magnificent carriage horses that he wanted to save, and +General Folsom had given him the tip that next morning all the +horses that remained in the city were to be confiscated for +food. There were not many horses left, for tens of +thousands of them had been turned loose into the country when the +hay and grain gave out during the first days. Birdall, I +remember, who had great draying interests, had turned loose three +hundred dray horses. At an average value of five hundred +dollars, this had amounted to $150,000. He had hoped, at +first, to recover most of the horses after the strike was over, +but in the end he never recovered one of them. They were +all eaten by the people that fled from San Francisco. For +that matter, the killing of the army mules and horses for food +had already begun.</p> +<p>Fortunately for Dakon, he had had a plentiful supply of hay +and grain stored in his stable. We managed to raise four +saddles, and we found the animals in good condition and spirited, +withal unused to being ridden. I remembered the San +Francisco of the great earthquake as we rode through the streets, +but this San Francisco was vastly more pitiable. No +cataclysm of nature had caused this, but, rather, the tyranny of +the labour unions. We rode down past Union Square and +through the theatre, hotel, and shopping districts. The +streets were deserted. Here and there stood automobiles, +abandoned where they had broken down or when the gasolene had +given out. There was no sign of life, save for the +occasional policemen and the soldiers guarding the banks and +public buildings. Once we came upon an I.L.W. man pasting +up the latest proclamation. We stopped to read. +“We have maintained an orderly strike,” it ran; +“and we shall maintain order to the end. The end will +come when our demands are satisfied, and our demands will be +satisfied when we have starved our employers into submission, as +we ourselves in the past have often been starved into +submission.”</p> +<p>“Messener’s very words,” Collins said. +“And I, for one, am ready to submit, only they won’t +give me a chance to submit. I haven’t had a full meal +in an age. I wonder what horse-meat tastes like?”</p> +<p>We stopped to read another proclamation: “When we think +our employers are ready to submit we shall open up the telegraphs +and place the employers’ associations of the United States +in communication. But only messages relating to peace terms +shall be permitted over the wires.”</p> +<p>We rode on, crossed Market Street, and a little later were +passing through the working-class district. Here the +streets were not deserted. Leaning over the gates or +standing in groups were the I.L.W. men. Happy, well-fed +children were playing games, and stout housewives sat on the +front steps gossiping. One and all cast amused glances at +us. Little children ran after us, crying: “Hey, +mister, ain’t you hungry?” And one woman, +nursing a child at her breast, called to Dakon: “Say, +Fatty, I’ll give you a meal for your skate—ham and +potatoes, currant jelly, white bread, canned butter, and two cups +of coffee.”</p> +<p>“Have you noticed, the last few days,” Hanover +remarked to me, “that there’s not been a stray dog in +the streets?”</p> +<p>I had noticed, but I had not thought about it before. It +was high time to leave the unfortunate city. We at last +managed to connect with the San Bruno Road, along which we headed +south. I had a country place near Menlo, and it was our +objective. But soon we began to discover that the country +was worse off and far more dangerous than the city. There +the soldiers and the I.L.W. kept order; but the country had been +turned over to anarchy. Two hundred thousand people had +fled from San Francisco, and we had countless evidences that +their flight had been like that of an army of locusts.</p> +<p>They had swept everything clean. There had been robbery +and fighting. Here and there we passed bodies by the +roadside and saw the blackened ruins of farm-houses. The +fences were down, and the crops had been trampled by the feet of +a multitude. All the vegetable patches had been rooted up +by the famished hordes. All the chickens and farm animals +had been slaughtered. This was true of all the main roads +that led out of San Francisco. Here and there, away from +the roads, farmers had held their own with shotguns and +revolvers, and were still holding their own. They warned us +away and refused to parley with us. And all the destruction +and violence had been done by the slum-dwellers and the upper +classes. The I.L.W. men, with plentiful food supplies, +remained quietly in their homes in the cities.</p> +<p>Early in the ride we received concrete proof of how desperate +was the situation. To the right of us we heard cries and +rifle-shots. Bullets whistled dangerously near. There +was a crashing in the underbrush; then a magnificent black +truck-horse broke across the road in front of us and was +gone. We had barely time to notice that he was bleeding and +lame. He was followed by three soldiers. The chase +went on among the trees on the left. We could hear the +soldiers calling to one another. A fourth soldier limped +out upon the road from the right, sat down on a boulder, and +mopped the sweat from his face.</p> +<p>“Militia,” Dakon whispered. +“Deserters.”</p> +<p>The man grinned up at us and asked for a match. In reply +to Dakon’s “What’s the word?” he informed +us that the militiamen were deserting. “No +grub,” he explained. “They’re +feedin’ it all to the regulars.” We also +learned from him that the military prisoners had been released +from Alcatraz Island because they could no longer be fed.</p> +<p>I shall never forget the next sight we encountered. We +came upon it abruptly around a turn of the road. Overhead +arched the trees. The sunshine was filtering down through +the branches. Butterflies were fluttering by, and from the +fields came the song of larks. And there it stood, a +powerful touring car. About it and in it lay a number of +corpses. It told its own tale. Its occupants, fleeing +from the city, had been attacked and dragged down by a gang of +slum dwellers—hoodlums. The thing had occurred within +twenty-four hours. Freshly opened meat and fruit tins +explained the reason for the attack. Dakon examined the +bodies.</p> +<p>“I thought so,” he reported. +“I’ve ridden in that car. It was +Perriton—the whole family. We’ve got to watch +out for ourselves from now on.”</p> +<p>“But we have no food with which to invite attack,” +I objected.</p> +<p>Dakon pointed to the horse I rode, and I understood.</p> +<p>Early in the day Dakon’s horse had cast a shoe. +The delicate hoof had split, and by noon the animal was +limping. Dakon refused to ride it farther, and refused to +desert it. So, on his solicitation, we went on. He +would lead the horse and join us at my place. That was the +last we saw of him; nor did we ever learn his end.</p> +<p>By one o’clock we arrived at the town of Menlo, or, +rather, at the site of Menlo, for it was in ruins. Corpses +lay everywhere. The business part of the town, as well as +part of the residences, had been gutted by fire. Here and +there a residence still held out; but there was no getting near +them. When we approached too closely we were fired +upon. We met a woman who was poking about in the smoking +ruins of her cottage. The first attack, she told us had +been on the stores, and as she talked we could picture that +raging, roaring, hungry mob flinging itself on the handful of +townspeople. Millionaires and paupers had fought side by +side for the food, and then fought with one another after they +got it. The town of Palo Alto and Stanford University had +been sacked in similar fashion, we learned. Ahead of us lay +a desolate, wasted land; and we thought we were wise in turning +off to my place. It lay three miles to the west, snuggling +among the first rolling swells of the foothills.</p> +<p>But as we rode along we saw that the devastation was not +confined to the main roads. The van of the flight had kept +to the roads, sacking the small towns as it went; while those +that followed had scattered out and swept the whole countryside +like a great broom. My place was built of concrete, +masonry, and tiles, and so had escaped being burned, but it was +gutted clean. We found the gardener’s body in the +windmill, littered around with empty shot-gun shells. He +had put up a good fight. But no trace could we find of the +two Italian labourers, nor of the house-keeper and her +husband. Not a live thing remained. The calves, the +colts, all the fancy poultry and thoroughbred stock, everything, +was gone. The kitchen and the fireplaces, where the mob had +cooked, were a mess, while many camp-fires outside bore witness +to the large number that had fed and spent the night. What +they had not eaten they had carried away. There was not a +bite for us.</p> +<p>We spent the rest of the night vainly waiting for Dakon, and +in the morning, with our revolvers, fought off half-a-dozen +marauders. Then we killed one of Dakon’s horses, +hiding for the future what meat we did not immediately eat. +In the afternoon Collins went out for a walk, but failed to +return. This was the last straw to Hanover. He was +for flight there and then, and I had great difficulty in +persuading him to wait for daylight. As for myself, I was +convinced that the end of the general strike was near, and I was +resolved to return to San Francisco. So, in the morning, we +parted company, Hanover heading south, fifty pounds of horse-meat +strapped to his saddle, while I, similarly loaded, headed +north. Little Hanover pulled through all right, and to the +end of his life he will persist, I know, in boring everybody with +the narrative of his subsequent adventures.</p> +<p>I got as far as Belmont, on the main road back, when I was +robbed of my horse-meat by three militiamen. There was no +change in the situation, they said, except that it was going from +bad to worse. The I.L.W. had plenty of provisions hidden +away and could last out for months. I managed to get as far +as Baden, when my horse was taken away from me by a dozen +men. Two of them were San Francisco policemen, and the +remainder were regular soldiers. This was ominous. +The situation was certainly extreme when the regulars were +beginning to desert. When I continued my way on foot, they +already had the fire started, and the last of Dakon’s +horses lay slaughtered on the ground.</p> +<p>As luck would have it, I sprained my ankle, and succeeded in +getting no farther than South San Francisco. I lay there +that night in an out-house, shivering with the cold and at the +same time burning with fever. Two days I lay there, too +sick to move, and on the third, reeling and giddy, supporting +myself on an extemporized crutch, I tottered on toward San +Francisco. I was weak as well, for it was the third day +since food had passed my lips. It was a day of nightmare +and torment. As in a dream I passed hundreds of regular +soldiers drifting along in the opposite direction, and many +policemen, with their families, organized in large groups for +mutual protection.</p> +<p>As I entered the city I remembered the workman’s house +at which I had traded the silver pitcher, and in that direction +my hunger drove me. Twilight was falling when I came to the +place. I passed around by the alleyway and crawled up the +black steps, on which I collapsed. I managed to reach out +with the crutch and knock on the door. Then I must have +fainted, for I came to in the kitchen, my face wet with water, +and whisky being poured down my throat. I choked and +spluttered and tried to talk. I began saying something +about not having any more silver pitchers, but that I would make +it up to them afterward if they would only give me something to +eat. But the housewife interrupted me.</p> +<p>“Why, you poor man,” she said, +“haven’t you heard? The strike was called off +this afternoon. Of course we’ll give you something to +eat.”</p> +<p>She bustled around, opening a tin of breakfast bacon and +preparing to fry it.</p> +<p>“Let me have some now, please,” I begged; and I +ate the raw bacon on a slice of bread, while her husband +explained that the demands of the I.L.W. had been granted. +The wires had been opened up in the early afternoon, and +everywhere the employers’ associations had given in. +There hadn’t been any employers left in San Francisco, but +General Folsom had spoken for them. The trains and steamers +would start running in the morning, and so would everything else +just as soon as system could be established.</p> +<p>And that was the end of the general strike. I never want +to see another one. It was worse than a war. A +general strike is a cruel and immoral thing, and the brain of man +should be capable of running industry in a more rational +way. Harrison is still my chauffeur. It was part of +the conditions of the I.L.W. that all of its members should be +reinstated in their old positions. Brown never came back, +but the rest of the servants are with me. I hadn’t +the heart to discharge them—poor creatures, they were +pretty hard-pressed when they deserted with the food and +silver. And now I can’t discharge them. They +have all been unionized by the I.L.W. The tyranny of +organized labour is getting beyond human endurance. +Something must be done.</p> +<h2><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>THE +SEA-FARMER</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">That</span> wull be the +doctor’s launch,” said Captain MacElrath.</p> +<p>The pilot grunted, while the skipper swept on with his glass +from the launch to the strip of beach and to Kingston beyond, and +then slowly across the entrance to Howth Head on the northern +side.</p> +<p>“The tide’s right, and we’ll have you docked +in two hours,” the pilot vouchsafed, with an effort at +cheeriness. “Ring’s End Basin, is +it?”</p> +<p>This time the skipper grunted.</p> +<p>“A dirty Dublin day.”</p> +<p>Again the skipper grunted. He was weary with the night +of wind in the Irish Channel behind him, the unbroken hours of +which he had spent on the bridge. And he was weary with all +the voyage behind him—two years and four months between +home port and home port, eight hundred and fifty days by his +log.</p> +<p>“Proper wunter weather,” he answered, after a +silence. “The town is undistinct. Ut wull be +rainun’ guid an’ hearty for the day.”</p> +<p>Captain MacElrath was a small man, just comfortably able to +peep over the canvas dodger of the bridge. The pilot and +third officer loomed above him, as did the man at the wheel, a +bulky German, deserted from a warship, whom he had signed on in +Rangoon. But his lack of inches made Captain MacElrath a no +less able man. At least so the Company reckoned, and so +would he have reckoned could he have had access to the carefully +and minutely compiled record of him filed away in the office +archives. But the Company had never given him a hint of its +faith in him. It was not the way of the Company, for the +Company went on the principle of never allowing an employee to +think himself indispensable or even exceedingly useful; +wherefore, while quick to censure, it never praised. What +was Captain MacElrath, anyway, save a skipper, one skipper of the +eighty-odd skippers that commanded the Company’s eighty-odd +freighters on all the highways and byways of the sea?</p> +<p>Beneath them, on the main deck, two Chinese stokers were +carrying breakfast for’ard across the rusty iron plates +that told their own grim story of weight and wash of sea. A +sailor was taking down the life-line that stretched from the +forecastle, past the hatches and cargo-winches, to the +bridge-deck ladder.</p> +<p>“A rough voyage,” suggested the pilot.</p> +<p>“Aye, she was fair smokin’ ot times, but not thot +I minded thot so much as the lossin’ of time. I hate +like onythun’ tull loss time.”</p> +<p>So saying, Captain MacElrath turned and glanced aft, aloft and +alow, and the pilot, following his gaze, saw the mute but +convincing explanation of that loss of time. The +smoke-stack, buff-coloured underneath, was white with salt, while +the whistle-pipe glittered crystalline in the random sunlight +that broke for the instant through a cloud-rift. The port +lifeboat was missing, its iron davits, twisted and wrenched, +testifying to the mightiness of the blow that had been struck the +old <i>Tryapsic</i>. The starboard davits were also +empty. The shattered wreck of the lifeboat they had held +lay on the fiddley beside the smashed engine-room skylight, which +was covered by a tarpaulin. Below, to star-board, on the +bridge deck, the pilot saw the crushed mess-room door, roughly +bulkheaded against the pounding seas. Abreast of it, on the +smokestack guys, and being taken down by the bos’n and a +sailor, hung the huge square of rope netting which had failed to +break those seas of their force.</p> +<p>“Twice afore I mentioned thot door tull the +owners,” said Captain MacElrath. “But they said +ut would do. There was bug seas thot time. They was +uncreditable bug. And thot buggest one dud the +domage. Ut fair carried away the door an’ laid ut +flat on the mess table an’ smashed out the chief’s +room. He was a but sore about ut.”</p> +<p>“It must ’a’ been a big un,” the pilot +remarked sympathetically.</p> +<p>“Aye, ut was thot. Thungs was lively for a +but. Ut finished the mate. He was on the brudge wuth +me, an’ I told hum tull take a look tull the wedges +o’ number one hatch. She was takin’ watter +freely an’ I was no sure o’ number one. I dudna +like the look o’ ut, an’ I was fuggerin’ maybe +tull heave to tull the marn, when she took ut over abaft the +brudge. My word, she was a bug one. We got a but of +ut ourselves on the brudge. I dudna miss the mate ot the +first, what o’ routin’ out Chips an’ +bulkheadun’ thot door an’ stretchun’ the +tarpaulin over the sky-light. Then he was nowhere to be +found. The men ot the wheel said as he seen hum goin’ +down the lodder just afore she hut us. We looked +for’ard, we looked tull hus room, aye looked tull the +engine-room, an’ we looked along aft on the lower deck, and +there he was, on both sides the cover to the steam-pipe +runnun’ tull the after-wunches.”</p> +<p>The pilot ejaculated an oath of amazement and horror.</p> +<p>“Aye,” the skipper went on wearily, +“an’ on both sides the steam-pipe uz well. I +tell ye he was in two pieces, splut clean uz a +herrin’. The sea must a-caught hum on the upper +brudge deck, carried hum clean across the fiddley, an’ +banged hum head-on tull the pipe cover. It sheered through +hum like so much butter, down atween the eyes, an’ along +the middle of hum, so that one leg an’ arm was fast tull +the one piece of hum, an’ one leg an’ arm fast tull +the other piece of hum. I tull ye ut was fair +grewsome. We putt hum together an’ rolled hum in +canvas uz we pulled hum out.”</p> +<p>The pilot swore again.</p> +<p>“Oh, ut wasna onythun’ tull greet about,” +Captain MacElrath assured him. “’Twas a guid +ruddance. He was no a sailor, thot mate-fellow. He +was only fut for a pugsty, an’ a dom puir apology for thot +same.”</p> +<p>It is said that there are three kinds of Irish—Catholic, +Protestant, and North-of-Ireland—and that the +North-of-Ireland Irishman is a transplanted Scotchman. +Captain MacElrath was a North-of-Ireland man, and, talking for +much of the world like a Scotchman, nothing aroused his ire +quicker than being mistaken for a Scotchman. Irish he +stoutly was, and Irish he stoutly abided, though it was with a +faint lip-lift of scorn that he mentioned mere South-of-Ireland +men, or even Orange-men. Himself he was Presbyterian, while +in his own community five men were all that ever mustered at a +meeting in the Orange Men’s Hall. His community was +the Island McGill, where seven thousand of his kind lived in such +amity and sobriety that in the whole island there was but one +policeman and never a public-house at all.</p> +<p>Captain MacElrath did not like the sea, and had never liked +it. He wrung his livelihood from it, and that was all the +sea was, the place where he worked, as the mill, the shop, and +the counting-house were the places where other men worked. +Romance never sang to him her siren song, and Adventure had never +shouted in his sluggish blood. He lacked imagination. +The wonders of the deep were without significance to him. +Tornadoes, hurricanes, waterspouts, and tidal waves were so many +obstacles to the way of a ship on the sea and of a master on the +bridge—they were that to him, and nothing more. He +had seen, and yet not seen, the many marvels and wonders of far +lands. Under his eyelids burned the brazen glories of the +tropic seas, or ached the bitter gales of the North Atlantic or +far South Pacific; but his memory of them was of mess-room doors +stove in, of decks awash and hatches threatened, of undue coal +consumption, of long passages, and of fresh paint-work spoiled by +unexpected squalls of rain.</p> +<p>“I know my buzz’ness,” was the way he often +put it, and beyond his business was all that he did not know, all +that he had seen with the mortal eyes of him and yet that he +never dreamed existed. That he knew his business his owners +were convinced, or at forty he would not have held command of the +<i>Tryapsic</i>, three thousand tons net register, with a cargo +capacity of nine thousand tons and valued at fifty-thousand +pounds.</p> +<p>He had taken up seafaring through no love of it, but because +it had been his destiny, because he had been the second son of +his father instead of the first. Island McGill was only so +large, and the land could support but a certain definite +proportion of those that dwelt upon it. The balance, and a +large balance it was, was driven to the sea to seek its +bread. It had been so for generations. The eldest +sons took the farms from their fathers; to the other sons +remained the sea and its salt-ploughing. So it was that +Donald MacElrath, farmer’s son and farm-boy himself, had +shifted from the soil he loved to the sea he hated and which it +was his destiny to farm. And farmed it he had, for twenty +years, shrewd, cool-headed, sober, industrious, and thrifty, +rising from ship’s boy and forecastle hand to mate and +master of sailing-ships and thence into steam, second officer, +first, and master, from small command to larger, and at last to +the bridge of the old <i>Tryapsic</i>—old, to be sure, but +worth her fifty thousand pounds and still able to bear up in all +seas, and weather her nine thousand tons of freight.</p> +<p>From the bridge of the <i>Tryapsic</i>, the high place he had +gained in the competition of men, he stared at Dublin harbour +opening out, at the town obscured by the dark sky of the dreary +wind-driven day, and at the tangled tracery of spars and rigging +of the harbour shipping. Back from twice around the world +he was, and from interminable junketings up and down on far +stretches, home-coming to the wife he had not seen in +eight-and-twenty months, and to the child he had never seen and +that was already walking and talking. He saw the watch +below of stokers and trimmers bobbing out of the forecastle doors +like rabbits from a warren and making their way aft over the +rusty deck to the mustering of the port doctor. They were +Chinese, with expressionless, Sphinx-like faces, and they walked +in peculiar shambling fashion, dragging their feet as if the +clumsy brogans were too heavy for their lean shanks.</p> +<p>He saw them and he did not see them, as he passed his hand +beneath his visored cap and scratched reflectively his mop of +sandy hair. For the scene before him was but the background +in his brain for the vision of peace that was his—a vision +that was his often during long nights on the bridge when the old +<i>Tryapsic</i> wallowed on the vexed ocean floor, her decks +awash, her rigging thrumming in the gale gusts or snow squalls or +driving tropic rain. And the vision he saw was of farm and +farm-house and straw-thatched outbuildings, of children playing +in the sun, and the good wife at the door, of lowing kine, and +clucking fowls, and the stamp of horses in the stable, of his +father’s farm next to him, with, beyond, the woodless, +rolling land and the hedged fields, neat and orderly, extending +to the crest of the smooth, soft hills. It was his vision +and his dream, his Romance and Adventure, the goal of all his +effort, the high reward for the salt-ploughing and the long, long +furrows he ran up and down the whole world around in his farming +of the sea.</p> +<p>In simple taste and homely inclination this much-travelled man +was more simple and homely than the veriest yokel. +Seventy-one years his father was, and had never slept a night out +of his own bed in his own house on Island McGill. That was +the life ideal, so Captain MacElrath considered, and he was prone +to marvel that any man, not under compulsion, should leave a farm +to go to sea. To this much-travelled man the whole world +was as familiar as the village to the cobbler sitting in his +shop. To Captain MacElrath the world was a village. +In his mind’s eye he saw its streets a thousand leagues +long, aye, and longer; turnings that doubled earth’s +stormiest headlands or were the way to quiet inland ponds; +cross-roads, taken one way, that led to flower-lands and summer +seas, and that led the other way to bitter, ceaseless gales and +the perilous bergs of the great west wind drift. And the +cities, bright with lights, were as shops on these long +streets—shops where business was transacted, where bunkers +were replenished, cargoes taken or shifted, and orders received +from the owners in London town to go elsewhere and beyond, ever +along the long sea-lanes, seeking new cargoes here, carrying new +cargoes there, running freights wherever shillings and pence +beckoned and underwriters did not forbid. But it was all a +weariness to contemplate, and, save that he wrung from it his +bread, it was without profit under the sun.</p> +<p>The last good-bye to the wife had been at Cardiff, +twenty-eight months before, when he sailed for Valparaiso with +coals—nine thousand tons and down to his marks. From +Valparaiso he had gone to Australia, light, a matter of six +thousand miles on end with a stormy passage and running short of +bunker coal. Coals again to Oregon, seven thousand miles, +and nigh as many more with general cargo for Japan and +China. Thence to Java, loading sugar for Marseilles, and +back along the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, and on to +Baltimore, down to her marks with crome ore, buffeted by +hurricanes, short again of bunker coal and calling at Bermuda to +replenish. Then a time charter, Norfolk, Virginia, loading +mysterious contraband coal and sailing for South Africa under +orders of the mysterious German supercargo put on board by the +charterers. On to Madagascar, steaming four knots by the +supercargo’s orders, and the suspicion forming that the +Russian fleet might want the coal. Confusion and delays, +long waits at sea, international complications, the whole world +excited over the old <i>Tryapsic</i> and her cargo of contraband, +and then on to Japan and the naval port of Sassebo. Back to +Australia, another time charter and general merchandise picked up +at Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, and carried on to Mauritius, +Lourenço Marques, Durban, Algoa Bay, and Cape Town. +To Ceylon for orders, and from Ceylon to Rangoon to load rice for +Rio Janeiro. Thence to Buenos Aires and loading maize for +the United Kingdom or the Continent, stopping at St. Vincent, to +receive orders to proceed to Dublin. Two years and four +months, eight hundred and fifty days by the log, steaming up and +down the thousand-league-long sea-lanes and back again to Dublin +town. And he was well aweary.</p> +<p>A little tug had laid hold of the <i>Tryapsic</i>, and with +clang and clatter and shouted command, with engines half-ahead, +slow-speed, or half-astern, the battered old sea-tramp was nudged +and nosed and shouldered through the dock-gates into Ring’s +End Basin. Lines were flung ashore, fore and aft, and a +’midship spring got out. Already a small group of the +happy shore-staying folk had clustered on the dock.</p> +<p>“Ring off,” Captain MacElrath commanded in his +slow thick voice; and the third officer worked the lever of the +engine-room telegraph.</p> +<p>“Gangway out!” called the second officer; and when +this was accomplished, “That will do.”</p> +<p>It was the last task of all, gangway out. “That +will do” was the dismissal. The voyage was ended, and +the crew shambled eagerly forward across the rusty decks to where +their sea-bags were packed and ready for the shore. The +taste of the land was strong in the men’s mouths, and +strong it was in the skipper’s mouth as he muttered a gruff +good day to the departing pilot, and himself went down to his +cabin. Up the gangway were trooping the customs officers, +the surveyor, the agent’s clerk, and the stevedores. +Quick work disposed of these and cleared his cabin, the agent +waiting to take him to the office.</p> +<p>“Dud ye send word tull the wife?” had been his +greeting to the clerk.</p> +<p>“Yes, a telegram, as soon as you were +reported.”</p> +<p>“She’ll likely be comin’ down on the +marnin’ train,” the skipper had soliloquized, and +gone inside to change his clothes and wash.</p> +<p>He took a last glance about the room and at two photographs on +the wall, one of the wife the other of an infant—the child +he had never seen. He stepped out into the cabin, with its +panelled walls of cedar and maple, and with its long table that +seated ten, and at which he had eaten by himself through all the +weary time. No laughter and clatter and wordy argument of +the mess-room had been his. He had eaten silently, almost +morosely, his silence emulated by the noiseless Asiatic who had +served him. It came to him suddenly, the overwhelming +realization of the loneliness of those two years and more. +All his vexations and anxieties had been his own. He had +shared them with no one. His two young officers were too +young and flighty, the mate too stupid. There was no +consulting with them. One tenant had shared the cabin with +him, that tenant his responsibility. They had dined and +supped together, walked the bridge together, and together they +had bedded.</p> +<p>“Och!” he muttered to that grim companion, +“I’m quit of you, an’ wull quit . . . for a +wee.”</p> +<p>Ashore he passed the last of the seamen with their bags, and, +at the agent’s, with the usual delays, put through his ship +business. When asked out by them to drink he took milk and +soda.</p> +<p>“I am no teetotaler,” he explained; “but for +the life o’ me I canna bide beer or whusky.”</p> +<p>In the early afternoon, when he finished paying off his crew, +he hurried to the private office where he had been told his wife +was waiting.</p> +<p>His eyes were for her first, though the temptation was great +to have more than a hurried glimpse of the child in the chair +beside her. He held her off from him after the long +embrace, and looked into her face long and steadily, drinking in +every feature of it and wondering that he could mark no changes +of time. A warm man, his wife thought him, though had the +opinion of his officers been asked it would have been: a harsh +man and a bitter one.</p> +<p>“Wull, Annie, how is ut wi’ ye?” he queried, +and drew her to him again.</p> +<p>And again he held her away from him, this wife of ten years +and of whom he knew so little. She was almost a +stranger—more a stranger than his Chinese steward, and +certainly far more a stranger than his own officers whom he had +seen every day, day and day, for eight hundred and fifty +days. Married ten years, and in that time he had been with +her nine weeks—scarcely a honeymoon. Each time home +had been a getting acquainted again with her. It was the +fate of the men who went out to the salt-ploughing. Little +they knew of their wives and less of their children. There +was his chief engineer—old, near-sighted +MacPherson—who told the story of returning home to be +locked out of his house by his four-year kiddie that never had +laid eyes on him before.</p> +<p>“An’ thus ’ull be the loddie,” the +skipper said, reaching out a hesitant hand to the child’s +cheek.</p> +<p>But the boy drew away from him, sheltering against the +mother’s side.</p> +<p>“Och!” she cried, “and he doesna know his +own father.”</p> +<p>“Nor I hum. Heaven knows I could no a-picked hum +out of a crowd, though he’ll be havin’ your nose +I’m thunkun’.”</p> +<p>“An’ your own eyes, Donald. Look ut +them. He’s your own father, laddie. Kiss hum +like the little mon ye are.”</p> +<p>But the child drew closer to her, his expression of fear and +distrust growing stronger, and when the father attempted to take +him in his arms he threatened to cry.</p> +<p>The skipper straightened up, and to conceal the pang at his +heart he drew out his watch and looked at it.</p> +<p>“Ut’s time to go, Annie,” he said. +“Thot train ’ull be startun’.”</p> +<p>He was silent on the train at first, divided between watching +the wife with the child going to sleep in her arms and looking +out of the window at the tilled fields and green unforested hills +vague and indistinct in the driving drizzle that had set +in. They had the compartment to themselves. When the +boy slept she laid him out on the seat and wrapped him +warmly. And when the health of relatives and friends had +been inquired after, and the gossip of Island McGill narrated, +along with the weather and the price of land and crops, there was +little left to talk about save themselves, and Captain MacElrath +took up the tale brought home for the good wife from all his +world’s-end wandering. But it was not a tale of +marvels he told, nor of beautiful flower-lands nor mysterious +Eastern cities.</p> +<p>“What like is Java?” she asked once.</p> +<p>“Full o’ fever. Half the crew down wuth ut +an’ luttle work. Ut was quinine an’ quinine the +whole blessed time. Each marnun’ ’twas quinine +an’ gin for all hands on an empty stomach. An’ +they who was no sick made ut out to be hovun’ ut bad uz the +rest.”</p> +<p>Another time she asked about Newcastle.</p> +<p>“Coals an’ coal-dust—thot’s all. +No a nice sutty. I lost two Chinks there, stokers the both +of them. An’ the owners paid a fine tull the +Government of a hundred pounds each for them. ‘We +regret tull note,’ they wrut me—I got the letter tull +Oregon—‘We regret tull note the loss o’ two +Chinese members o’ yer crew ot Newcastle, an’ we +recommend greater carefulness un the future.’ Greater +carefulness! And I could no a-been more careful. The +Chinks hod forty-five pounds each comun’ tull them in +wages, an’ I was no a-thunkun’ they ’ud +run.</p> +<p>“But thot’s their way—‘we regret tull +note,’ ‘we beg tull advise,’ ‘we +recommend,’ ‘we canna +understand’—an’ the like o’ thot. +Domned cargo tank! An’ they would thunk I could drive +her like a <i>Lucania</i>, an’ wi’out burnun’ +coals. There was thot propeller. I was after them a +guid while for ut. The old one was iron, thuck on the +edges, an’ we couldna make our speed. An’ the +new one was bronze—nine hundred pounds ut cost, an’ +then wantun’ their returns out o’ ut, an’ me +wuth a bod passage an’ lossin’ time every day. +‘We regret tull note your long passage from Voloparaiso +tull Sydney wuth an average daily run o’ only one hundred +an’ suxty-seven. We hod expected better results wuth +the new propeller. You should a-made an average daily run +o’ two hundred and suxteen.’</p> +<p>“An’ me on a wunter passage, blowin’ a +luvin’ gale half the time, wuth hurricane force in +atweenwhiles, an’ hove to sux days, wuth engines stopped +an’ bunker coal runnun’ short, an’ me wuth a +mate thot stupid he could no pass a shup’s light ot night +wi’out callun’ me tull the brudge. I wrut +an’ told ’em so. An’ then: ‘Our +nautical adviser suggests you kept too far south,’ +an’ ‘We are lookun’ for better results from +thot propeller.’ Nautical adviser!—shore +pilot! Ut was the regular latitude for a wunter passage +from Voloparaiso tull Sydney.</p> +<p>“An’ when I come un tull Auckland short o’ +coal, after lettun’ her druft sux days wuth the fires out +tull save the coal, an’ wuth only twenty tons in my +bunkers, I was thunkun’ o’ the lossin’ o’ +time an’ the expense, an’ tull save the owners I took +her un an’ out wi’out pilotage. Pilotage was no +compulsory. An’ un Yokohama, who should I meet but +Captun Robinson o’ the <i>Dyapsic</i>. We got +a-talkun’ about ports an’ places down Australia-way, +an’ first thing he says: ‘Speakun’ o’ +Auckland—of course, Captun, you was never un +Auckland?’ ‘Yus,’ I says, ‘I was un +there very recent.’ ‘Oh, ho,’ he says, +very angry-like, ‘so you was the smart Aleck thot fetched +me thot letter from the owners: “We note item of fufteen +pounds for pilotage ot Auckland. A shup o’ ours was +un tull Auckland recently an’ uncurred no such +charge. We beg tull advise you thot we conseeder thus +pilotage an onnecessary expense which should no be uncurred un +the future.”’</p> +<p>“But dud they say a word tull me for the fufteen pounds +I saved tull them? No a word. They send a letter tull +Captun Robinson for no savun’ them the fufteen pounds, +an’ tull me: ‘We note item of two guineas +doctor’s fee at Auckland for crew. Please explain +thus onusual expunditure.’ Ut was two o’ the +Chinks. I was thunkun’ they hod beri-beri, an’ +thot was the why o’ sendun’ for the doctor. I +buried the two of them ot sea not a week after. But ut was: +‘Please explain thus onusual expunditure,’ an’ +tull Captun Robinson, ‘We beg tull advise you thot we +conseeder thus pilotage an onnecessary expense.’</p> +<p>“Dudna I cable them from Newcastle, tellun’ them +the old tank was thot foul she needed dry-dock? Seven +months out o’ dry-dock, an’ the West Coast the +quickest place for foulun’ un the world. But freights +was up, an’ they hod a charter o’ coals for +Portland. The <i>Arrata</i>, one o’ the Woor Line, +left port the same day uz us, bound for Portland, an’ the +old <i>Tryapsic</i> makun’ sux knots, seven ot the +best. An’ ut was ot Comox, takun’ un bunker +coal, I got the letter from the owners. The boss humself +hod signed ut, an’ ot the bottom he wrut un hus own hond: +‘The <i>Arrata</i> beat you by four an’ a half +days. Am dusappointed.’ Dusappointed! +When I had cabled them from Newcastle. When she drydocked +ot Portland, there was whuskers on her a foot long, barnacles the +size o’ me fust, oysters like young sauce plates. Ut +took them two days afterward tull clean the dock o’ shells +an’ muck.</p> +<p>“An’ there was the motter o’ them fire-bars +ot Newcastle. The firm ashore made them heavier than the +engineer’s speecifications, an’ then forgot tull +charge for the dufference. Ot the last moment, wuth me +ashore gettun’ me clearance, they come wuth the bill: +‘Tull error on fire-bars, sux pounds.’ +They’d been tull the shup an’ MacPherson hod +O.K.’d ut. I said ut was strange an’ would no +pay. ‘Then you are dootun’ the chief +engineer,’ says they. ‘I’m no +dootun’,’ says I, ‘but I canna see my way tull +sign. Come wuth me tull the shup. The launch wull +cost ye naught an’ ut ’ull brung ye back. +An’ we wull see what MacPherson says.’</p> +<p>“But they would no come. Ot Portland I got the +bill un a letter. I took no notice. Ot Hong-Kong I +got a letter from the owners. The bill hod been sent tull +them. I wrut them from Java explainun’. At +Marseilles the owners wrut me: ‘Tull extra work un +engine-room, sux pounds. The engineer has O.K.’d ut, +an’ you have no O.K.’d ut. Are you +dootun’ the engineer’s honesty?’ I wrut +an’ told them I was no dootun’ his honesty; thot the +bill was for extra weight o’ fire-bars; an’ thot ut +was O.K. Dud they pay ut? They no dud. They +must unvestigate. An’ some clerk un the office took +sick, an’ the bill was lost. An’ there was more +letters. I got letters from the owners an’ the +firm—‘Tull error on fire-bars, sux +pounds’—ot Baltimore, ot Delagoa Bay, ot Moji, ot +Rangoon, ot Rio, an’ ot Montevuddio. Ut uz no settled +yut. I tell ye, Annie, the owners are hard tull +please.”</p> +<p>He communed with himself for a moment, and then muttered +indignantly: “Tull error on fire-bars, sux +pounds.”</p> +<p>“Hov ye heard of Jamie?” his wife asked in the +pause.</p> +<p>Captain MacElrath shook his head.</p> +<p>“He was washed off the poop wuth three +seamen.”</p> +<p>“Whereabouts?”</p> +<p>“Off the Horn. ’Twas on the +<i>Thornsby</i>.”</p> +<p>“They would be runnun’ homeward bound?”</p> +<p>“Aye,” she nodded. “We only got the +word three days gone. His wife is greetin’ like tull +die.”</p> +<p>“A good lod, Jamie,” he commented, “but a +stiff one ot carryun’ on. I mind me when we was mates +together un the <i>Albion</i>. An’ so Jamie’s +gone.”</p> +<p>Again a pause fell, to be broken by the wife.</p> +<p>“An’ ye will no a-heard o’ the +<i>Bankshire</i>? MacDougall lost her in Magellan +Straits. ’Twas only yesterday ut was in the +paper.”</p> +<p>“A cruel place, them Magellan Straits,” he +said. “Dudna thot domned mate-fellow nigh putt me +ashore twice on the one passage through? He was a eediot, a +lunatuc. I wouldna have hum on the brudge a munut. +Comun’ tull Narrow Reach, thuck weather, wuth snow squalls, +me un the chart-room, dudna I guv hum the changed course? +‘South-east-by-east,’ I told hum. +‘South-east-by-east, sir,’ says he. Fufteen +munuts after I comes on tull the brudge. +‘Funny,’ says thot mate-fellow, ‘I’m no +rememberun’ ony islands un the mouth o’ Narrow +Reach. I took one look ot the islands an’ yells, +‘Putt your wheel hard a-starboard,’ tull the mon ot +the wheel. An’ ye should a-seen the old +<i>Tryapsic</i> turnun’ the sharpest circle she ever +turned. I waited for the snow tull clear, an’ there +was Narrow Reach, nice uz ye please, tull the east’ard +an’ the islands un the mouth o’ False Bay tull the +south’ard. ‘What course was ye +steerun’?’ I says tull the mon ot the wheel. +‘South-by-east, sir,’ says he. I looked tull +the mate-fellow. What could I say? I was thot wroth I +could a-kult hum. Four points dufference. Five munuts +more an’ the old <i>Tryapsic</i> would a-been funushed.</p> +<p>“An’ was ut no the same when we cleared the +Straits tull the east’ard? Four hours would a-seen us +guid an’ clear. I was forty hours then on the +brudge. I guv the mate his course, an’ the +bearun’ o’ the Askthar Light astern. +‘Don’t let her bear more tull the north’ard +than west-by-north,’ I said tull hum, ’an’ ye +wull be all right.’ An’ I went below an’ +turned un. But I couldna sleep for worryun’. +After forty hours on the brudge, what was four hours more? I +thought. An’ for them four hours wull ye be +lettun’ the mate loss her on ye? ‘No,’ I +says to myself. An’ wuth thot I got up, hod a wash +an’ a cup o’ coffee, an’ went tull the +brudge. I took one look ot the bearun’ o’ +Askthar Light. ’Twas nor’west-by-west, and the +old <i>Tryapsic</i> down on the shoals. He was a eediot, +thot mate-fellow. Ye could look overside an’ see the +duscoloration of the watter. ’Twas a close call for +the old <i>Tryapsic</i> I’m tellun’ ye. Twice +un thirty hours he’d a-hod her ashore uf ut hod no been for +me.”</p> +<p>Captain MacElrath fell to gazing at the sleeping child with +mild wonder in his small blue eyes, and his wife sought to divert +him from his woes.</p> +<p>“Ye remember Jummy MacCaul?” she asked. +“Ye went tull school wuth hus two boys. Old Jummy +MacCaul thot hoz the farm beyond Doctor Haythorn’s +place.”</p> +<p>“Oh, aye, an’ what o’ hum? Uz he +dead?”</p> +<p>“No, but he was after askun’ your father, when he +sailed last time for Voloparaiso, uf ye’d been there +afore. An’ when your father says no, then Jummy says, +‘An’ how wull he be knowun a’ tull find hus +way?’ An’ with thot your father says: +‘Verry sumple ut uz, Jummy. Supposun’ you was +goin’ tull the mainland tull a mon who luved un +Belfast. Belfast uz a bug sutty, Jummy, an’ how would +ye be findun’ your way?’ ‘By way o’ +me tongue,’ says Jummy; ‘I’d be askun’ +the folk I met.’ ‘I told ye ut was +sumple,’ says your father. ‘Ut’s the very +same way my Donald finds the road tull Voloparaiso. He asks +every shup he meets upon the sea tull ot last he meets wuth a +shup thot’s been tull Voloparaiso, an’ the captun +o’ thot shup tells hum the way.’ An’ +Jummy scratches hus head an’ says he understands an’ +thot ut’s a very sumple motter after all.”</p> +<p>The skipper chuckled at the joke, and his tired blue eyes were +merry for the moment.</p> +<p>“He was a thun chap, thot mate-fellow, oz thun oz you +an’ me putt together,” he remarked after a time, a +slight twinkle in his eye of appreciation of the bull. But +the twinkle quickly disappeared and the blue eyes took on a bleak +and wintry look. “What dud he do ot Voloparaiso but +land sux hundred fathom o’ chain cable an’ take never +a receipt from the lighter-mon. I was gettun’ my +clearance ot the time. When we got tull sea, I found he hod +no receipt for the cable.</p> +<p>“‘An’ ye no took a receipt for ut?’ +says I.</p> +<p>“‘No,’ says he. ‘Wasna ut +goin’ direct tull the agents?’</p> +<p>“‘How long ha’ ye been goin’ tull +sea,’ says I, ‘not tull be knowin’ the +mate’s duty uz tull deluver no cargo wuthout receipt for +same? An’ on the West Coast ot thot. +What’s tull stop the lighter-mon from stealun’ a few +lengths o’ ut?’</p> +<p>“An’ ut come out uz I said. Sux hundred +went over the side, but four hundred an’ +ninety-five was all the agents received. The lighter-mon +swore ut was all he received from the mate—four hundred +an’ ninety-five fathom. I got a letter from the +owners ot Portland. They no blamed the mate for ut, but me, +an’ me ashore ot the time on shup’s +buzz’ness. I could no be in the two places ot the one +time. An’ the letters from the owners an’ the +agents uz still comun’ tull me.</p> +<p>“Thot mate-fellow was no a proper sailor, an’ no a +mon tull work for owners. Dudna he want tull break me wuth +the Board of Trade for bein’ below my marks? He said +as much tull the bos’n. An’ he told me tull my +face homeward bound thot I’d been half an inch under my +marks. ’Twas at Portland, loadun’ cargo un +fresh watter an’ goin’ tull Comox tull load bunker +coal un salt watter. I tell ye, Annie, ut takes close +fuggerin’, an’ I <i>was</i> half an inch under the +load-line when the bunker coal was un. But I’m no +tellun’ any other body but you. An’ thot +mate-fellow untendun’ tull report me tull the Board +o’ Trade, only for thot he saw fut tull be sliced un two +pieces on the steam-pipe cover.</p> +<p>“He was a fool. After loadun’ ot Portland I +hod tull take on suxty tons o’ coal tull last me tull +Comox. The charges for lighterun’ was heavy, +an’ no room ot the coal dock. A French barque was +lyin’ alongside the dock an’ I spoke tull the captun, +askun’ hum what he would charge when work for the day was +done, tull haul clear for a couple o’ hours an’ let +me un. ‘Twenty dollars,’ said he. Ut was +savun’ money on lighters tull the owner, an’ I gave +ut tull hum. An’ thot night, after dark, I hauled un +an’ took on the coal. Then I started tull go out un +the stream an’ drop anchor—under me own steam, of +course.</p> +<p>“We hod tull go out stern first, an’ +somethun’ went wrong wuth the reversun’ gear. +Old MacPherson said he could work ut by hond, but very slow ot +thot. An’ I said ‘All right.’ We +started. The pilot was on board. The tide was +ebbun’ stuffly, an’ right abreast an’ a but +below was a shup lyin’ wuth a lighter on each side. I +saw the shup’s ridun’ lights, but never a light on +the lighters. Ut was close quarters to shuft a bug vessel +onder steam, wuth MacPherson workun’ the reversun’ +gear by hond. We hod to come close down upon the shup afore +I could go ahead an’ clear o’ the shups on the +dock-ends. An’ we struck the lighter stern-on, just +uz I rung tull MacPherson half ahead.</p> +<p>“‘What was thot?’ says the pilot, when we +struck the lighter.</p> +<p>“‘I dunna know,’ says I, ‘an’ +I’m wonderun’.’</p> +<p>“The pilot was no keen, ye see, tull hus job. I +went on tull a guid place an’ dropped anchor, an’ ut +would all a-been well but for thot domned eediot mate.</p> +<p>“‘We smashed thot lighter,’ says he, +comun’ up the lodder tull the brudge—an’ the +pilot stondun’ there wuth his ears cocked tull hear.</p> +<p>“‘What lighter?’ says I.</p> +<p>“‘Thot lighter alongside the shup,’ says the +mate.</p> +<p>“‘I dudna see no lighter,’ says I, and wuth +thot I steps on hus fut guid an’ hard.</p> +<p>“After the pilot was gone I says tull the mate: +‘Uf you dunna know onythun’, old mon, for +Heaven’s sake keep your mouth shut.’</p> +<p>“‘But ye dud smash thot lighter, dudn’t +ye?’ says he.</p> +<p>“‘Uf we dud,’ says I, ‘ut’s no +your buzz’ness tull be tellun’ the +pilot—though, mind ye, I’m no admuttun’ there +was ony lighter.’</p> +<p>“An’ next marnun’, just uz I’m after +dressun’, the steward says, ‘A mon tull see ye, +sir.’ ‘Fetch hum un,’ says I. +An’ un he come. ‘Sut down,’ says I. +An’ he sot down.</p> +<p>“He was the owner of the lighter, an’ when he hod +told hus story, I says, ‘I dudna see ony +lighter.’</p> +<p>“‘What, mon?’ says he. ‘No see a +two-hundred-ton lighter, bug oz a house, alongside thot +shup?’</p> +<p>“‘I was goin’ by the shup’s +lights,’ says I, ‘an’ I dudna touch the shup, +thot I know.’</p> +<p>“‘But ye dud touch the lighter,’ says +he. ‘Ye smashed her. There’s a thousand +dollars’ domage done, an’ I’ll see ye pay for +ut.’</p> +<p>“‘Look here, muster,’ says I, ‘when +I’m shuftun’ a shup ot night I follow the law, +an’ the law dustunctly says I must regulate me actions by +the lights o’ the shuppun’. Your lighter never +hod no ridun’ light, nor dud I look for ony lighter wuthout +lights tull show ut.’</p> +<p>“‘The mate says—’ he beguns.</p> +<p>“‘Domn the mate,’ says I. ‘Dud +your lighter hov a ridun’ light?’</p> +<p>“‘No, ut dud not,’ says he, ‘but ut +was a clear night wuth the moon a-showun’.’</p> +<p>“‘Ye seem tull know your buzz’ness,’ +says I. ‘But let me tell ye thot I know my +buzz’ness uz well, an’ thot I’m no +a-lookun’ for lighters wuthout lights. Uf ye thunk ye +hov a case, go ahead. The steward will show ye out. +Guid day.’</p> +<p>“An’ thot was the end o’ ut. But ut +wull show ye what a puir fellow thot mate was. I call ut a +blessun’ for all masters thot he was sliced un two on thot +steam-pipe cover. He had a pull un the office an’ +thot was the why he was kept on.”</p> +<p>“The Wekley farm wull soon be for sale, so the agents be +tellun’ me,” his wife remarked, slyly watching what +effect her announcement would have upon him.</p> +<p>His eyes flashed eagerly on the instant, and he straightened +up as might a man about to engage in some agreeable task. +It was the farm of his vision, adjoining his father’s, and +her own people farmed not a mile away.</p> +<p>“We wull be buyun’ ut,” he said, +“though we wull be no tellun’ a soul of ut ontul +ut’s bought an’ the money paid down. I’ve +savun’ consuderable these days, though pickun’s uz no +what they used to be, an’ we hov a tidy nest-egg laid +by. I wull see the father an’ hove the money ready +tull hus hond, so uf I’m ot sea he can buy whenever the +land offers.”</p> +<p>He rubbed the frosted moisture from the inside of the window +and peered out at the pouring rain, through which he could +discern nothing.</p> +<p>“When I was a young men I used tull be afeard thot the +owners would guv me the sack. Stull afeard I am of the +sack. But once thot farm is mine I wull no be afeard ony +longer. Ut’s a puir job thus sea-farmun’. +Me managin’ un all seas an’ weather an’ perils +o’ the deep a shup worth fufty thousand pounds, wuth +cargoes ot times worth fufty thousand more—a hundred +thousand pounds, half a million dollars uz the Yankees say, +an’ me wuth all the responsubility gettun’ a screw +o’ twenty pounds a month. What mon ashore, +managin’ a buz’ness worth a hundred thousand pounds +wull be gettun’ uz small a screw uz twenty pounds? +An’ wuth such masters uz a captun serves—the owners, +the underwriters, an’ the Board o’ Trade, all +pullun’ an wantun’ dufferent thungs—the owners +wantun’ quick passages an’ domn the rusk, the +underwriters wantun’ safe passages an’ domn the +delay, an’ the Board o’ Trade wantun’ cautious +passages an’ caution always meanun’ delay. +Three dufferent masters, an’ all three able an’ +wullun’ to break ye uf ye don’t serve their dufferent +wushes.”</p> +<p>He felt the train slackening speed, and peered again through +the misty window. He stood up, buttoned his overcoat, +turned up the collar, and awkwardly gathered the child, still +asleep, in his arms.</p> +<p>“I wull see the father,” he said, “an’ +hov the money ready tull hus hond so uf I’m ot sea when the +land offers he wull no muss the chance tull buy. An’ +then the owners can guv me the sack uz soon uz they like. +Ut will be all night un, an’ I wull be wuth you, Annie, +an’ the sea can go tull hell.”</p> +<p>Happiness was in both their faces at the prospect, and for a +moment both saw the same vision of peace. Annie leaned +toward him, and as the train stopped they kissed each other +across the sleeping child.</p> +<h2><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +161</span>SAMUEL</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Margaret Henan</span> would have been a +striking figure under any circumstances, but never more so than +when I first chanced upon her, a sack of grain of fully a +hundredweight on her shoulder, as she walked with sure though +tottering stride from the cart-tail to the stable, pausing for an +instant to gather strength at the foot of the steep steps that +led to the grain-bin. There were four of these steps, and +she went up them, a step at a time, slowly, unwaveringly, and +with so dogged certitude that it never entered my mind that her +strength could fail her and let that hundred-weight sack fall +from the lean and withered frame that wellnigh doubled under +it. For she was patently an old woman, and it was her age +that made me linger by the cart and watch.</p> +<p>Six times she went between the cart and the stable, each time +with a full sack on her back, and beyond passing the time of day +with me she took no notice of my presence. Then, the cart +empty, she fumbled for matches and lighted a short clay pipe, +pressing down the burning surface of the tobacco with a calloused +and apparently nerveless thumb. The hands were +noteworthy. They were large-knuckled, sinewy and malformed +by labour, rimed with callouses, the nails blunt and broken, and +with here and there cuts and bruises, healed and healing, such as +are common to the hands of hard-working men. On the back +were huge, upstanding veins, eloquent of age and toil. +Looking at them, it was hard to believe that they were the hands +of the woman who had once been the belle of Island McGill. +This last, of course, I learned later. At the time I knew +neither her history nor her identity.</p> +<p>She wore heavy man’s brogans. Her legs were +stockingless, and I had noticed when she walked that her bare +feet were thrust into the crinkly, iron-like shoes that sloshed +about her lean ankles at every step. Her figure, shapeless +and waistless, was garbed in a rough man’s shirt and in a +ragged flannel petticoat that had once been red. But it was +her face, wrinkled, withered and weather-beaten, surrounded by an +aureole of unkempt and straggling wisps of greyish hair, that +caught and held me. Neither drifted hair nor serried +wrinkles could hide the splendid dome of a forehead, high and +broad without verging in the slightest on the abnormal.</p> +<p>The sunken cheeks and pinched nose told little of the quality +of the life that flickered behind those clear blue eyes of +hers. Despite the minutiæ of wrinkle-work that +somehow failed to weazen them, her eyes were clear as a +girl’s—clear, out-looking, and far-seeing, and with +an open and unblinking steadfastness of gaze that was +disconcerting. The remarkable thing was the distance +between them. It is a lucky man or woman who has the width +of an eye between, but with Margaret Henan the width between her +eyes was fully that of an eye and a half. Yet so +symmetrically moulded was her face that this remarkable feature +produced no uncanny effect, and, for that matter, would have +escaped the casual observer’s notice. The mouth, +shapeless and toothless, with down-turned corners and lips dry +and parchment-like, nevertheless lacked the muscular slackness so +usual with age. The lips might have been those of a mummy, +save for that impression of rigid firmness they gave. Not +that they were atrophied. On the contrary, they seemed +tense and set with a muscular and spiritual determination. +There, and in the eyes, was the secret of the certitude with +which she carried the heavy sacks up the steep steps, with never +a false step or overbalance, and emptied them in the +grain-bin.</p> +<p>“You are an old woman to be working like this,” I +ventured.</p> +<p>She looked at me with that strange, unblinking gaze, and she +thought and spoke with the slow deliberateness that characterized +everything about her, as if well aware of an eternity that was +hers and in which there was no need for haste. Again I was +impressed by the enormous certitude of her. In this +eternity that seemed so indubitably hers, there was time and to +spare for safe-footing and stable equilibrium—for +certitude, in short. No more in her spiritual life than in +carrying the hundredweights of grain was there a possibility of a +misstep or an overbalancing. The feeling produced in me was +uncanny. Here was a human soul that, save for the most +glimmering of contacts, was beyond the humanness of me. And +the more I learned of Margaret Henan in the weeks that followed +the more mysteriously remote she became. She was as alien +as a far-journeyer from some other star, and no hint could she +nor all the countryside give me of what forms of living, what +heats of feeling, or rules of philosophic contemplation actuated +her in all that she had been and was.</p> +<p>“I wull be suvunty-two come Guid Friday a +fortnight,” she said in reply to my question.</p> +<p>“But you are an old woman to be doing this man’s +work, and a strong man’s work at that,” I +insisted.</p> +<p>Again she seemed to immerse herself in that atmosphere of +contemplative eternity, and so strangely did it affect me that I +should not have been surprised to have awaked a century or so +later and found her just beginning to enunciate her +reply—</p> +<p>“The work hoz tull be done, an’ I am beholden tull +no one.”</p> +<p>“But have you no children, no family, +relations?”</p> +<p>“Oh, aye, a-plenty o’ them, but they no see fut +tull be helpun’ me.”</p> +<p>She drew out her pipe for a moment, then added, with a nod of +her head toward the house, “I luv’ wuth +meself.”</p> +<p>I glanced at the house, straw-thatched and commodious, at the +large stable, and at the large array of fields I knew must belong +with the place.</p> +<p>“It is a big bit of land for you to farm by +yourself.”</p> +<p>“Oh, aye, a bug but, suvunty acres. Ut kept me old +mon buzzy, along wuth a son an’ a hired mon, tull say +naught o’ extra honds un the harvest an’ a +maid-servant un the house.”</p> +<p>She clambered into the cart, gathered the reins in her hands, +and quizzed me with her keen, shrewd eyes.</p> +<p>“Belike ye hail from over the watter—Ameruky, +I’m meanun’?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I’m a Yankee,” I answered.</p> +<p>“Ye wull no be findun’ mony Island McGill folk +stoppun’ un Ameruky?”</p> +<p>“No; I don’t remember ever meeting one, in the +States.”</p> +<p>She nodded her head.</p> +<p>“They are home-luvun’ bodies, though I wull no be +sayin’ they are no fair-travelled. Yet they come home +ot the last, them oz are no lost ot sea or kult by fevers +an’ such-like un foreign parts.”</p> +<p>“Then your sons will have gone to sea and come home +again?” I queried.</p> +<p>“Oh, aye, all savun’ Samuel oz was +drownded.”</p> +<p>At the mention of Samuel I could have sworn to a strange light +in her eyes, and it seemed to me, as by some telepathic flash, +that I divined in her a tremendous wistfulness, an immense +yearning. It seemed to me that here was the key to her +inscrutableness, the clue that if followed properly would make +all her strangeness plain. It came to me that here was a +contact and that for the moment I was glimpsing into the soul of +her. The question was tickling on my tongue, but she +forestalled me.</p> +<p>She <i>tchk’d</i> to the horse, and with a “Guid +day tull you, sir,” drove off.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>A simple, homely people are the folk of Island McGill, and I +doubt if a more sober, thrifty, and industrious folk is to be +found in all the world. Meeting them abroad—and to +meet them abroad one must meet them on the sea, for a hybrid +seafaring and farmer breed are they—one would never take +them to be Irish. Irish they claim to be, speaking of the +North of Ireland with pride and sneering at their Scottish +brothers; yet Scotch they undoubtedly are, transplanted Scotch of +long ago, it is true, but none the less Scotch, with a thousand +traits, to say nothing of their tricks of speech and woolly +utterance, which nothing less than their Scotch clannishness +could have preserved to this late day.</p> +<p>A narrow loch, scarcely half a mile wide, separates Island +McGill from the mainland of Ireland; and, once across this loch, +one finds himself in an entirely different country. The +Scotch impression is strong, and the people, to commence with, +are Presbyterians. When it is considered that there is no +public-house in all the island and that seven thousand souls +dwell therein, some idea may be gained of the temperateness of +the community. Wedded to old ways, public opinion and the +ministers are powerful influences, while fathers and mothers are +revered and obeyed as in few other places in this modern +world. Courting lasts never later than ten at night, and no +girl walks out with her young man without her parents’ +knowledge and consent.</p> +<p>The young men go down to the sea and sow their wild oats in +the wicked ports, returning periodically, between voyages, to +live the old intensive morality, to court till ten o’clock, +to sit under the minister each Sunday, and to listen at home to +the same stern precepts that the elders preached to them from the +time they were laddies. Much they learned of women in the +ends of the earth, these seafaring sons, yet a canny wisdom was +theirs and they never brought wives home with them. The one +solitary exception to this had been the schoolmaster, who had +been guilty of bringing a wife from half a mile the other side of +the loch. For this he had never been forgiven, and he +rested under a cloud for the remainder of his days. At his +death the wife went back across the loch to her own people, and +the blot on the escutcheon of Island McGill was erased. In +the end the sailor-men married girls of their own homeland and +settled down to become exemplars of all the virtues for which the +island was noted.</p> +<p>Island McGill was without a history. She boasted none of +the events that go to make history. There had never been +any wearing of the green, any Fenian conspiracies, any land +disturbances. There had been but one eviction, and that +purely technical—a test case, and on advice of the +tenant’s lawyer. So Island McGill was without +annals. History had passed her by. She paid her +taxes, acknowledged her crowned rulers, and left the world alone; +all she asked in return was that the world should leave her +alone. The world was composed of two parts—Island +McGill and the rest of it. And whatever was not Island +McGill was outlandish and barbarian; and well she knew, for did +not her seafaring sons bring home report of that world and its +ungodly ways?</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>It was from the skipper of a Glasgow tramp, as passenger from +Colombo to Rangoon, that I had first learned of the existence of +Island McGill; and it was from him that I had carried the letter +that gave me entrance to the house of Mrs. Ross, widow of a +master mariner, with a daughter living with her and with two +sons, master mariners themselves and out upon the sea. Mrs. +Ross did not take in boarders, and it was Captain Ross’s +letter alone that had enabled me to get from her bed and +board. In the evening, after my encounter with Margaret +Henan, I questioned Mrs. Ross, and I knew on the instant that I +had in truth stumbled upon mystery.</p> +<p>Like all Island McGill folk, as I was soon to discover, Mrs. +Ross was at first averse to discussing Margaret Henan at +all. Yet it was from her I learned that evening that +Margaret Henan had once been one of the island belles. +Herself the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, she had married +Thomas Henan, equally well-to-do. Beyond the usual +housewife’s tasks she had never been accustomed to +work. Unlike many of the island women, she had never lent a +hand in the fields.</p> +<p>“But what of her children?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Two o’ the sons, Jamie an’ Timothy uz +married an’ be goun’ tull sea. Thot bug house +close tull the post office uz Jamie’s. The daughters +thot ha’ no married be luvun’ wuth them as dud +marry. An’ the rest be dead.”</p> +<p>“The Samuels,” Clara interpolated, with what I +suspected was a giggle.</p> +<p>She was Mrs. Ross’s daughter, a strapping young woman +with handsome features and remarkably handsome black eyes.</p> +<p>“’Tuz naught to be smuckerun’ ot,” her +mother reproved her.</p> +<p>“The Samuels?” I intervened. “I +don’t understand.”</p> +<p>“Her four sons thot died.”</p> +<p>“And were they all named Samuel?”</p> +<p>“Aye.”</p> +<p>“Strange,” I commented in the lagging silence.</p> +<p>“Very strange,” Mrs. Ross affirmed, proceeding +stolidly with the knitting of the woollen singlet on her +knees—one of the countless under-garments that she +interminably knitted for her skipper sons.</p> +<p>“And it was only the Samuels that died?” I +queried, in further attempt.</p> +<p>“The others luved,” was the answer. “A +fine fomuly—no finer on the island. No better lods +ever sailed out of Island McGill. The munuster held them up +oz models tull pottern after. Nor was ever a whusper +breathed again’ the girls.”</p> +<p>“But why is she left alone now in her old age?” I +persisted. “Why don’t her own flesh and blood +look after her? Why does she live alone? Don’t +they ever go to see her or care for her?”</p> +<p>“Never a one un twenty years an’ more now. +She fetched ut on tull herself. She drove them from the +house just oz she drove old Tom Henan, thot was her husband, tull +hus death.”</p> +<p>“Drink?” I ventured.</p> +<p>Mrs. Ross shook her head scornfully, as if drink was a +weakness beneath the weakest of Island McGill.</p> +<p>A long pause followed, during which Mrs. Ross knitted stolidly +on, only nodding permission when Clara’s young man, mate on +one of the Shire Line sailing ships, came to walk out with +her. I studied the half-dozen ostrich eggs, hanging in the +corner against the wall like a cluster of some monstrous +fruit. On each shell were painted precipitous and +impossible seas through which full-rigged ships foamed with a +lack of perspective only equalled by their sharp technical +perfection. On the mantelpiece stood two large pearl +shells, obviously a pair, intricately carved by the patient hands +of New Caledonian convicts. In the centre of the mantel was +a stuffed bird-of-paradise, while about the room were scattered +gorgeous shells from the southern seas, delicate sprays of coral +sprouting from barnacled <i>pi-pi</i> shells and cased in glass, +assegais from South Africa, stone axes from New Guinea, huge +Alaskan tobacco-pouches beaded with heraldic totem designs, a +boomerang from Australia, divers ships in glass bottles, a +cannibal <i>kai-kai</i> bowl from the Marquesas, and fragile +cabinets from China and the Indies and inlaid with +mother-of-pearl and precious woods.</p> +<p>I gazed at this varied trove brought home by sailor sons, and +pondered the mystery of Margaret Henan, who had driven her +husband to his death and been forsaken by all her kin. It +was not the drink. Then what was it?—some shocking +cruelty? some amazing infidelity? or some fearful, old-world +peasant-crime?</p> +<p>I broached my theories, but to all Mrs. Ross shook her +head.</p> +<p>“Ut was no thot,” she said. “Margaret +was a guid wife an’ a guid mother, an’ I doubt she +would harm a fly. She brought up her fomuly +God-fearin’ an’ decent-minded. Her trouble was +thot she took lunatic—turned eediot.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Ross tapped significantly on her forehead to indicate a +state of addlement.</p> +<p>“But I talked with her this afternoon,” I +objected, “and I found her a sensible +woman—remarkably bright for one of her years.”</p> +<p>“Aye, an’ I’m grantun’ all thot you +say,” she went on calmly. “But I am no +referrun’ tull thot. I am referrun’ tull her +wucked-headed an’ vucious stubbornness. No more +stubborn woman ever luv’d than Margaret Henan. Ut was +all on account o’ Samuel, which was the name o’ her +youngest an’ they do say her favourut brother—hum oz +died by hus own hond all through the munuster’s mustake un +no registerun’ the new church ot Dublin. Ut was a +lesson thot the name was musfortunate, but she would no take ut, +an’ there was talk when she called her first child +Samuel—hum thot died o’ the croup. An’ +wuth thot what does she do but call the next one Samuel, +an’ hum only three when he fell un tull the tub o’ +hot watter an’ was plain cooked tull death. Ut all +come, I tell you, o’ her wucked-headed an’ foolush +stubbornness. For a Samuel she must hov; an’ ut was +the death of the four of her sons. After the first, dudna +her own mother go down un the dirt tull her feet, a-beggun’ +an’ pleadun’ wuth her no tull name her next one +Samuel? But she was no tull be turned from her +purpose. Margaret Henan was always set on her ways, +an’ never more so thon on thot name Samuel.</p> +<p>“She was fair lunatuc on Samuel. Dudna her +neighbours’ an’ all kuth an’ kun savun’ +them thot luv’d un the house wuth her, get up an’ +walk out ot the christenun’ of the second—hum thot +was cooked? Thot they dud, an’ ot the very moment the +munuster asked what would the bairn’s name be. +‘Samuel,’ says she; an’ wuth thot they got up +an’ walked out an’ left the house. An’ ot +the door dudna her Aunt Fannie, her mother’s suster, turn +an’ say loud for all tull hear: ‘What for wull she be +wantun’ tull murder the wee thing?’ The +munuster heard fine, an’ dudna like ut, but, oz he told my +Larry afterward, what could he do? Ut was the woman’s +wush, an’ there was no law again’ a mother +callun’ her child accordun’ tull her wush.</p> +<p>“An’ then was there no the third Samuel? +An’ when he was lost ot sea off the Cape, dudna she break +all laws o’ nature tull hov a fourth? She was +forty-seven, I’m tellun’ ye, an’ she hod a +child ot forty-seven. Thunk on ut! Ot +forty-seven! Ut was fair scand’lous.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>From Clara, next morning, I got the tale of Margaret +Henan’s favourite brother; and from here and there, in the +week that followed, I pieced together the tragedy of Margaret +Henan. Samuel Dundee had been the youngest of +Margaret’s four brothers, and, as Clara told me, she had +well-nigh worshipped him. He was going to sea at the time, +skipper of one of the sailing ships of the Bank Line, when he +married Agnes Hewitt. She was described as a slender wisp +of a girl, delicately featured and with a nervous organization of +the supersensitive order. Theirs had been the first +marriage in the “new” church, and after a +two-weeks’ honeymoon Samuel had kissed his bride good-bye +and sailed in command of the <i>Loughbank</i>, a big four-masted +barque.</p> +<p>And it was because of the “new” church that the +minister’s blunder occurred. Nor was it the blunder +of the minister alone, as one of the elders later explained; for +it was equally the blunder of the whole Presbytery of Coughleen, +which included fifteen churches on Island McGill and the +mainland. The old church, beyond repair, had been torn down +and the new one built on the original foundation. Looking +upon the foundation-stones as similar to a ship’s keel, it +never entered the minister’s nor the Presbytery’s +head that the new church was legally any other than the old +church.</p> +<p>“An’ three couples was married the first week un +the new church,” Clara said. “First of all, +Samuel Dundee an’ Agnes Hewitt; the next day Albert Mahan +an’ Minnie Duncan; an’ by the week-end Eddie Troy and +Flo Mackintosh—all sailor-men, an’ un sux +weeks’ time the last of them back tull their ships +an’ awa’, an’ no one o’ them +dreamin’ of the wuckedness they’d been ot.”</p> +<p>The Imp of the Perverse must have chuckled at the +situation. All things favoured. The marriages had +taken place in the first week of May, and it was not till three +months later that the minister, as required by law, made his +quarterly report to the civil authorities in Dublin. +Promptly came back the announcement that his church had no legal +existence, not being registered according to the law’s +demands. This was overcome by prompt registration; but the +marriages were not to be so easily remedied. The three +sailor husbands were away, and their wives, in short, were not +their wives.</p> +<p>“But the munuster was no for alarmin’ the +bodies,” said Clara. “He kept hus council +an’ bided hus time, waitun’ for the lods tull be back +from sea. Oz luck would have ut, he was away across the +island tull a christenun’ when Albert Mahan arrives home +onexpected, hus shup just docked ot Dublin. Ut’s nine +o’clock ot night when the munuster, un hus sluppers +an’ dressun’-gown, gets the news. Up he jumps +an’ calls for horse an’ saddle, an’ awa’ +he goes like the wund for Albert Mahan’s. Albert uz +just goun’ tull bed an’ hoz one shoe off when the +munuster arrives.</p> +<p>“‘Come wuth me, the pair o’ ye,’ says +he, breathless-like. ‘What for, an’ me dead +weary an’ goun’ tull bed?’ says Albert. +‘Yull be lawful married,’ says the munuster. +Albert looks black an’ says, ‘Now, munuster, ye wull +be jokun’,’ but tull humself, oz I’ve heard hum +tell mony a time, he uz wonderun’ thot the munuster should +a-took tull whusky ot hus time o’ life.</p> +<p>“’We be no married?’ says Minnie. He +shook his head. ‘An’ I om no Mussus +Mahan?’ ‘No,’ says he, ‘ye are no +Mussus Mahan. Ye are plain Muss Duncan.’ +‘But ye married ’us yoursel’,’ says +she. ‘I dud an’ I dudna,’ says he. +An’ wuth thot he tells them the whole upshot, an’ +Albert puts on hus shoe, an’ they go wuth the munuster +an’ are married proper an’ lawful, an’ oz +Albert Mahan says afterward mony’s the time, +‘’Tus no every mon thot hoz two weddun’ nights +on Island McGill.’”</p> +<p>Six months later Eddie Troy came home and was promptly +remarried. But Samuel Dundee was away on a +three-years’ voyage and his ship fell overdue. +Further to complicate the situation, a baby boy, past two years +old, was waiting for him in the arms of his wife. The +months passed, and the wife grew thin with worrying. +“Ut’s no meself I’m thunkun’ on,” +she is reported to have said many times, “but ut’s +the puir fatherless bairn. Uf aught happened tull Samuel +where wull the bairn stond?”</p> +<p>Lloyd’s posted the <i>Loughbank</i> as missing, and the +owners ceased the monthly remittance of Samuel’s half-pay +to his wife. It was the question of the child’s +legitimacy that preyed on her mind, and, when all hope of +Samuel’s return was abandoned, she drowned herself and the +child in the loch. And here enters the greater +tragedy. The <i>Loughbank</i> was not lost. By a +series of sea disasters and delays too interminable to relate, +she had made one of those long, unsighted passages such as occur +once or twice in half a century. How the Imp must have held +both his sides! Back from the sea came Samuel, and when +they broke the news to him something else broke somewhere in his +heart or head. Next morning they found him where he had +tried to kill himself across the grave of his wife and +child. Never in the history of Island McGill was there so +fearful a death-bed. He spat in the minister’s face +and reviled him, and died blaspheming so terribly that those that +tended on him did so with averted gaze and trembling hands.</p> +<p>And, in the face of all this, Margaret Henan named her first +child Samuel.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>How account for the woman’s stubbornness? Or was +it a morbid obsession that demanded a child of hers should be +named Samuel? Her third child was a girl, named after +herself, and the fourth was a boy again. Despite the +strokes of fate that had already bereft her, and despite the loss +of friends and relatives, she persisted in her resolve to name +the child after her brother. She was shunned at church by +those who had grown up with her. Her mother, after a final +appeal, left her house with the warning that if the child were so +named she would never speak to her again. And though the +old lady lived thirty-odd years longer she kept her word. +The minister agreed to christen the child any name but Samuel, +and every other minister on Island McGill refused to christen it +by the name she had chosen. There was talk on the part of +Margaret Henan of going to law at the time, but in the end she +carried the child to Belfast and there had it christened +Samuel.</p> +<p>And then nothing happened. The whole island was +confuted. The boy grew and prospered. The +schoolmaster never ceased averring that it was the brightest lad +he had ever seen. Samuel had a splendid constitution, a +tremendous grip on life. To everybody’s amazement he +escaped the usual run of childish afflictions. Measles, +whooping-cough and mumps knew him not. He was armour-clad +against germs, immune to all disease. Headaches and +earaches were things unknown. “Never so much oz a +boil or a pumple,” as one of the old bodies told me, ever +marred his healthy skin. He broke school records in +scholarship and athletics, and whipped every boy of his size or +years on Island McGill.</p> +<p>It was a triumph for Margaret Henan. This paragon was +hers, and it bore the cherished name. With the one +exception of her mother, friends and relatives drifted back and +acknowledged that they had been mistaken; though there were old +crones who still abided by their opinion and who shook their +heads ominously over their cups of tea. The boy was too +wonderful to last. There was no escaping the curse of the +name his mother had wickedly laid upon him. The young +generation joined Margaret Henan in laughing at them, but the old +crones continued to shake their heads.</p> +<p>Other children followed. Margaret Henan’s fifth +was a boy, whom she called Jamie, and in rapid succession +followed three girls, Alice, Sara, and Nora, the boy Timothy, and +two more girls, Florence and Katie. Katie was the last and +eleventh, and Margaret Henan, at thirty-five, ceased from her +exertions. She had done well by Island McGill and the +Queen. Nine healthy children were hers. All +prospered. It seemed her ill-luck had shot its bolt with +the deaths of her first two. Nine lived, and one of them +was named Samuel.</p> +<p>Jamie elected to follow the sea, though it was not so much a +matter of election as compulsion, for the eldest sons on Island +McGill remained on the land, while all other sons went to the +salt-ploughing. Timothy followed Jamie, and by the time the +latter had got his first command, a steamer in the Bay trade out +of Cardiff, Timothy was mate of a big sailing ship. Samuel, +however, did not take kindly to the soil. The +farmer’s life had no attraction for him. His brothers +went to sea, not out of desire, but because it was the only way +for them to gain their bread; and he, who had no need to go, +envied them when, returned from far voyages, they sat by the +kitchen fire, and told their bold tales of the wonderlands beyond +the sea-rim.</p> +<p>Samuel became a teacher, much to his father’s disgust, +and even took extra certificates, going to Belfast for his +examinations. When the old master retired, Samuel took over +his school. Secretly, however, he studied navigation, and +it was Margaret’s delight when he sat by the kitchen fire, +and, despite their master’s tickets, tangled up his +brothers in the theoretics of their profession. Tom Henan +alone was outraged when Samuel, school teacher, gentleman, and +heir to the Henan farm, shipped to sea before the mast. +Margaret had an abiding faith in her son’s star, and +whatever he did she was sure was for the best. Like +everything else connected with his glorious personality, there +had never been known so swift a rise as in the case of +Samuel. Barely with two years’ sea experience before +the mast, he was taken from the forecastle and made a provisional +second mate. This occurred in a fever port on the West +Coast, and the committee of skippers that examined him agreed +that he knew more of the science of navigation than they had +remembered or forgotten. Two years later he sailed from +Liverpool, mate of the <i>Starry Grace</i>, with both +master’s and extra-master’s tickets in his +possession. And then it happened—the thing the old +crones had been shaking their heads over for years.</p> +<p>It was told me by Gavin McNab, bos’n of the <i>Starry +Grace</i> at the time, himself an Island McGill man.</p> +<p>“Wull do I remember ut,” he said. “We +was runnin’ our Eastun’ down, an’ makun’ +heavy weather of ut. Oz fine a sailor-mon oz ever walked +was Samuel Henan. I remember the look of hum wull thot last +marnun’, a-watch-un’ them bug seas curlun’ up +astern, an’ a-watchun’ the old girl an’ +seeun’ how she took them—the skupper down below +an’ drunkun’ for days. Ut was ot seven thot +Henan brought her up on tull the wund, not darun’ tull run +longer on thot fearful sea. Ot eight, after havun’ +breakfast, he turns un, an’ a half hour after up comes the +skupper, bleary-eyed an’ shaky an’ holdun’ on +tull the companion. Ut was fair smokun’, I om +tellun’ ye, an’ there he stood, blunkun’ +an’ noddun’ an’ talkun’ tull +humsel’. ‘Keep off,’ says he ot last tull +the mon ot the wheel. ‘My God!’ says the second +mate, standun’ beside hum. The skupper never looks +tull hum ot all, but keeps on mutterun” an’ +jabberun’ tull humsel’. All of a suddent-like +he straightens up an’ throws hus head back, an’ says: +‘Put your wheel over, me mon—now domn ye! Are +ye deef thot ye’ll no be hearun’ me?’</p> +<p>“Ut was a drunken mon’s luck, for the <i>Starry +Grace</i> wore off afore thot God-Almighty gale wuthout +shuppun’ a bucket o’ watter, the second mate +shoutun’ orders an’ the crew jumpun’ like +mod. An’ wuth thot the skupper nods contented-like +tull humself an’ goes below after more whusky. Ut was +plain murder o’ the lives o’ all of us, for ut was no +the time for the buggest shup afloat tull be runnun’. +Run? Never hov I seen the like! Ut was beyond all +thunkun’, an’ me goun’ tull sea, boy an’ +men, for forty year. I tell you ut was fair awesome.</p> +<p>“The face o’ the second mate was white oz death, +an’ he stood ut alone for half an hour, when ut was too +much for hum an’ he went below an’ called Samuel +an’ the third. Aye, a fine sailor-mon thot Samuel, +but ut was too much for hum. He looked an’ studied, +and looked an’ studied, but he could no see hus way. +He durst na heave tull. She would ha’ been sweeput +o’ all honds an’ stucks an’ everythung afore +she could a-fetched up. There was naught tull do but keep +on runnun’. An’ uf ut worsened we were lost ony +way, for soon or late that overtakun’ sea was sure tull +sweep us clear over poop an’ all.</p> +<p>“Dud I say ut was a God-Almighty gale? Ut was +worse nor thot. The devil himself must ha’ hod a hond +un the brewun’ o’ ut, ut was thot fearsome. I +ha’ looked on some sights, but I om no carun’ tull +look on the like o’ thot again. No mon dared tull be +un hus bunk. No, nor no mon on the decks. All honds +of us stood on top the house an’ held on an’ +watched. The three mates was on the poop, with two men ot +the wheel, an’ the only mon below was thot whusky-blighted +captain snorun’ drunk.</p> +<p>“An’ then I see ut comun’, a mile away, +risun’ above all the waves like an island un the +sea—the buggest wave ever I looked upon. The three +mates stood tulgether an’ watched ut comun’, +a-prayun’ like we thot she would no break un passun’ +us. But ut was no tull be. Ot the last, when she rose +up like a mountain, curlun’ above the stern an’ +blottun’ out the sky, the mates scattered, the second +an’ third runnun’ for the mizzen-shrouds an’ +climbun’ up, but the first runnun’ tull the wheel +tull lend a hond. He was a brave men, thot Samuel +Henan. He run straight un tull the face o’ thot +father o’ all waves, no thunkun’ on humself but +thunkun’ only o’ the shup. The two men was +lashed tull the wheel, but he would be ready tull hond un the +case they was kult. An’ then she took ut. We on +the house could no see the poop for the thousand tons o’ +watter thot hod hut ut. Thot wave cleaned them out, took +everythung along wuth ut—the two mates, climbun’ up +the mizzen-ruggun’, Samuel Henan runnun’ tull the +wheel, the two men ot the wheel, aye, an’ the wheel +utself. We never saw aught o’ them, for she broached +tull what o’ the wheel goun’, an’ two men +o’ us was drownded off the house, no tull mention the +carpenter thot we pucked up ot the break o’ the poop wuth +every bone o’ hus body broke tull he was like so much +jelly.”</p> +<p>And here enters the marvel of it, the miraculous wonder of +that woman’s heroic spirit. Margaret Henan was +forty-seven when the news came home of the loss of Samuel; and it +was not long after that the unbelievable rumour went around +Island McGill. I say unbelievable. Island McGill +would not believe. Doctor Hall pooh-pooh’d it. +Everybody laughed at it as a good joke. They traced back +the gossip to Sara Dack, servant to the Henans’, and who +alone lived with Margaret and her husband. But Sara Dack +persisted in her assertion and was called a low-mouthed +liar. One or two dared question Tom Henan himself, but +beyond black looks and curses for their presumption they elicited +nothing from him.</p> +<p>The rumour died down, and the island fell to discussing in all +its ramifications the loss of the <i>Grenoble</i> in the China +seas, with all her officers and half her crew born and married on +Island McGill. But the rumour would not stay down. +Sara Dack was louder in her assertions, the looks Tom Henan cast +about him were blacker than ever, and Dr. Hall, after a visit to +the Henan house, no longer pooh-pooh’d. Then Island +McGill sat up, and there was a tremendous wagging of +tongues. It was unnatural and ungodly. The like had +never been heard. And when, as time passed, the truth of +Sara Dack’s utterances was manifest, the island folk +decided, like the bos’n of the <i>Starry Grace</i>, that +only the devil could have had a hand in so untoward a +happening. And the infatuated woman, so Sara Dack reported, +insisted that it would be a boy. “Eleven bairns +ha’ I borne,” she said; “sux o’ them +lossies an’ five o’ them loddies. An’ +sunce there be balance un all thungs, so wull there be balance +wuth me. Sux o’ one an’ half a dozen o’ +the other—there uz the balance, an’ oz sure oz the +sun rises un the marnun’, thot sure wull ut be a +boy.”</p> +<p>And boy it was, and a prodigy. Dr. Hall raved about its +unblemished perfection and massive strength, and wrote a brochure +on it for the Dublin Medical Society as the most interesting case +of the sort in his long career. When Sara Dack gave the +babe’s unbelievable weight, Island McGill refused to +believe and once again called her liar. But when Doctor +Hall attested that he had himself weighed it and seen it tip that +very notch, Island McGill held its breath and accepted whatever +report Sara Dack made of the infant’s progress or +appetite. And once again Margaret Henan carried a babe to +Belfast and had it christened Samuel.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>“Oz good oz gold ut was,” said Sara Dack to +me.</p> +<p>Sara, at the time I met her, was a buxom, phlegmatic spinster +of sixty, equipped with an experience so tragic and unusual that +though her tongue ran on for decades its output would still be of +imperishable interest to her cronies.</p> +<p>“Oz good oz good,” said Sara Dack. “Ut +never fretted. Sut ut down un the sun by the hour an’ +never a sound ut would make oz long oz ut was no hungered! +An’ thot strong! The grup o’ uts honds was like +a mon’s. I mind me, when ut was but hours old, ut +grupped me so mighty thot I fetched a scream I was thot +frightened. Ut was the punk o’ health. Ut slept +an’ ate, an’ grew. Ut never bothered. +Never a night’s sleep ut lost tull no one, nor ever a +munut’s, an’ thot wuth cuttin’ uts teeth +an’ all. An’ Margaret would dandle ut on her +knee an’ ask was there ever so fine a loddie un the three +Kungdoms.</p> +<p>“The way ut grew! Ut was un keepun’ wuth the +way ut ate. Ot a year ut was the size o’ a bairn of +two. Ut was slow tull walk an’ talk. +Exceptun’ for gurgly noises un uts throat an’ for +creepun’ on all fours, ut dudna monage much un the +walkun’ an’ talkun’ line. But thot was +tull be expected from the way ut grew. Ut all went tull +growun’ strong an’ healthy. An’ even old +Tom Henan cheered up ot the might of ut an’ said was there +ever the like o’ ut un the three Kungdoms. Ut was +Doctor Hall thot first suspicioned, I mind me well, though ut was +luttle I dreamt what he was up tull ot the time. I seehum +holdun’ thungs’ un fronto’ luttle Sammy’s +eyes, an’ a-makun’ noises, loud an’ soft, +an’ far an’ near, un luttle Sammy’s ears. +An’ then I see Doctor Hall go away, wrunklun’ hus +eyebrows an’ shakun’ hus head like the bairn was +ailun’. But he was no ailun’, oz I could swear +tull, me a-seeun’ hum eat an’ grow. But Doctor +Hall no said a word tull Margaret an’ I was no for +guessun’ the why he was sore puzzled.</p> +<p>“I mind me when luttle Sammy first spoke. He was +two years old an’ the size of a child o five, though he +could no monage the walkun’ yet but went around on all +fours, happy an’ contented-like an’ makun’ no +trouble oz long oz he was fed promptly, which was onusual +often. I was hangun’ the wash on the line ot the time +when out he comes, on all fours, hus bug head waggun’ tull +an’ fro an’ blunkun’ un the sun. +An’ then, suddent, he talked. I was thot took a-back +I near died o’ fright, an’ fine I knew ut then, the +shakun’ o’ Doctor Hall’s head. +Talked? Never a bairn on Island McGill talked so loud +an’ tull such purpose. There was no mustakun’ +ut. I stood there all tremblun’ an’ +shakun’. Little Sammy was brayun’. I tell +you, sir, he was brayun’ like an ass—just like +thot,—loud an’ long an’ cheerful tull ut seemed +hus lungs ud crack.</p> +<p>“He was a eediot—a great, awful, monster +eediot. Ut was after he talked thot Doctor Hall told +Margaret, but she would no believe. Ut would all come +right, she said. Ut was growun’ too fast for aught +else. Guv ut time, said she, an’ we would see. +But old Tom Henan knew, an’ he never held up hus head +again. He could no abide the thung, an’ would no +brung humsel’ tull touch ut, though I om no denyun’ +he was fair fascinated by ut. Mony the time, I see hum +watchun’ of ut around a corner, lookun’ ot ut tull +hus eyes fair bulged wuth the horror; an’ when ut brayed +old Tom ud stuck hus fungers tull hus ears an’ look thot +miserable I could a-puttied hum.</p> +<p>“An’ bray ut could! Ut was the only thung ut +could do besides eat an’ grow. Whenever ut was hungry +ut brayed, an’ there was no stoppun’ ut save wuth +food. An’ always of a marnun’, when first ut +crawled tull the kutchen-door an’ blunked out ot the sun, +ut brayed. An’ ut was brayun’ that brought +about uts end.</p> +<p>“I mind me well. Ut was three years old an’ +oz bug oz a led o’ ten. Old Tom hed been goun’ +from bed tull worse, ploughun’ up an’ down the fields +an’ talkun’ an’ mutterun’ tull +humself. On the marnun’ o’ the day I mind me, +he was suttun’ on the bench outside the kutchen, +a-futtun’ the handle tull a puck-axe. Unbeknown, the +monster eediot crawled tull the door an’ brayed after hus +fashion ot the sun. I see old Tom start up an’ +look. An’ there was the monster eediot, waggun’ +uts bug head an’ blunkun’ an’ brayun’ +like the great bug ass ut was. Ut was too much for +Tom. Somethun’ went wrong wuth hum +suddent-like. He jumped tull hus feet an’ fetched the +puck-handle down on the monster eediot’s head. +An’ he hut ut again an’ again like ut was a mod dog +an’ hum afeard o’ ut. An’ he went +straight tull the stable an’ hung humsel’ tull a +rafter. An’ I was no for stoppun’ on after +such-like, an’ I went tull stay along wuth me suster thot +was married tull John Martin an’ +comfortable-off.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>I sat on the bench by the kitchen door and regarded Margaret +Henan, while with her callous thumb she pressed down the live +fire of her pipe and gazed out across the twilight-sombred +fields. It was the very bench Tom Henan had sat upon that +last sanguinary day of life. And Margaret sat in the +doorway where the monster, blinking at the sun, had so often +wagged its head and brayed. We had been talking for an +hour, she with that slow certitude of eternity that so befitted +her; and, for the life of me, I could lay no finger on the +motives that ran through the tangled warp and woof of her. +Was she a martyr to Truth? Did she have it in her to +worship at so abstract a shrine? Had she conceived Abstract +Truth to be the one high goal of human endeavour on that day of +long ago when she named her first-born Samuel? Or was hers +the stubborn obstinacy of the ox? the fixity of purpose of the +balky horse? the stolidity of the self-willed peasant-mind? +Was it whim or fancy?—the one streak of lunacy in what was +otherwise an eminently rational mind? Or, reverting, was +hers the spirit of a Bruno? Was she convinced of the +intellectual rightness of the stand she had taken? Was hers +a steady, enlightened opposition to superstition? or—and a +subtler thought—was she mastered by some vaster, profounder +superstition, a fetish-worship of which the Alpha and the Omega +was the cryptic <i>Samuel</i>?</p> +<p>“Wull ye be tellun’ me,” she said, +“thot uf the second Samuel hod been named Larry thot he +would no hov fell un the hot watter an’ drownded? +Atween you an’ me, sir, an’ ye are +untellugent-lookun’ tull the eye, would the name hov made +ut onyways dufferent? Would the washun’ no be done +thot day uf he hod been Larry or Michael? Would hot watter +no be hot, an’ would hot watter no burn uf he hod hod ony +other name but Samuel?”</p> +<p>I acknowledged the justice of her contention, and she went +on.</p> +<p>“Do a wee but of a name change the plans o’ +God? Do the world run by hut or muss, an’ be God a +weak, shully-shallyun’ creature thot ud alter the fate +an’ destiny o’ thungs because the worm Margaret Henan +seen fut tull name her bairn Samuel? There be my son +Jamie. He wull no sign a Rooshan-Funn un hus crew because +o’ believun’ thot Rooshan-Funns do be monajun’ +the wunds an’ hov the makun’ o’ bod +weather. Wull you be thunkun’ so? Wull you be +thunkun’ thot God thot makes the wunds tull blow wull bend +Hus head from on high tull lussen tull the word o’ a greasy +Rooshan-Funn un some dirty shup’s +fo’c’sle?”</p> +<p>I said no, certainly not; but she was not to be set aside from +pressing home the point of her argument.</p> +<p>“Then wull you be thunkun’ thot God thot directs +the stars un their courses, an’ tull whose mighty foot the +world uz but a footstool, wull you be thunkun’ thot He wull +take a spite again’ Margaret Henan an’ send a bug +wave off the Cape tull wash her son un tull eternity, all because +she was for namun’ hum Samuel?”</p> +<p>“But why Samuel?” I asked.</p> +<p>“An’ thot I dinna know. I wantud ut +so.”</p> +<p>“But <i>why</i> did you want it so?”</p> +<p>“An’ uz ut me thot would be answerun’ a +such-like question? Be there ony mon luvun’ or dead +thot can answer? Who can tell the <i>why</i> o’ +like? My Jamie was fair daft on buttermilk, he would drunk +ut tull, oz he said humself, hus back teeth was awash. But +my Tumothy could no abide buttermilk. I like tull lussen +tull the thunder growlun’ an’ roarun’, +an’ rampajun’. My Katie could no abide the +noise of ut, but must scream an’ flutter an’ go +runnun’ for the mudmost o’ a feather-bed. Never +yet hov I heard the answer tull the <i>why</i> o’ like, God +alone hoz thot answer. You an’ me be mortal an’ +we canna know. Enough for us tull know what we like +an’ what we duslike. I <i>like</i>—thot uz the +first word an’ the last. An’ behind thot like +no men can go an’ find the <i>why</i> o’ ut. I +<i>like</i> Samuel, an’ I like ut well. Ut uz a sweet +name, an’ there be a rollun’ wonder un the sound +o’ ut thot passes onderstandun’.”</p> +<p>The twilight deepened, and in the silence I gazed upon that +splendid dome of a forehead which time could not mar, at the +width between the eyes, and at the eyes themselves—clear, +out-looking, and wide-seeing. She rose to her feet with an +air of dismissing me, saying—</p> +<p>“Ut wull be a dark walk home, an’ there wull be +more thon a sprunkle o’ wet un the sky.”</p> +<p>“Have you any regrets, Margaret Henan?” I asked, +suddenly and without forethought.</p> +<p>She studied me a moment.</p> +<p>“Aye, thot I no ha’ borne another son.”</p> +<p>“And you would . . .?” I faltered.</p> +<p>“Aye, thot I would,” she answered. “Ut +would ha’ been hus name.”</p> +<p>I went down the dark road between the hawthorn hedges puzzling +over the why of like, repeating <i>Samuel</i> to myself and aloud +and listening to the rolling wonder in its sound that had charmed +her soul and led her life in tragic places. +<i>Samuel</i>! There was a rolling wonder in the +sound. 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