diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/sstrg10h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/sstrg10h.htm | 4696 |
1 files changed, 4696 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/sstrg10h.htm b/old/sstrg10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed781cf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sstrg10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4696 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Strength of the Strong</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Strength of the Strong, by Jack London</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strength of the Strong, by Jack London +(#12 in our series by Jack London) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Strength of the Strong + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: October, 1997 [EBook #1075] +[This file was first posted on October 17, 1997] +[Most recently updated: June 28, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>The Strength of the Strong</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p>The Strength of the Strong<br />South of the Slot<br />The Unparalleled +Invasion<br />The Enemy of All the World<br />The Dream of Debs<br />The +Sea-Farmer<br />Samuel</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“Parables don’t lie, but liars will parable.”—Lip-King.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Old 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SOUTH OF THE SLOT</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Old 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</i> <i>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</i>-<i>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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE UNPARALLELED INVASION</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>It 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 +mediaeval 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 boots +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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE ENEMY OF ALL THE WORLD</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>It 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, Delaware, 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE DREAM OF DEBS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I awoke 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. “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 follows 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE SEA-FARMER</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“That 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 map 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’ +drydock, 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 bond: ‘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>Abion</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 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SAMUEL</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Margaret Henan 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 minutiae 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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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 sea-faring 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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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. Aye, there was!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named sstrg10h.htm or sstrg10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, sstrg11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, sstrg10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext05 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext05 + +Or /etext04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, +91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + + PROJECT GUTENBERG LITERARY ARCHIVE FOUNDATION + 809 North 1500 West + Salt Lake City, UT 84116 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart hart@pobox.com + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* +</pre></body> +</html> |