________________________________________________
_ With Billy on strike and away doing picket duty, and with the
departure of Mercedes and the death of Bert, Saxon was left much
to herself in a loneliness that even in one as healthy-minded as
she could not fail to produce morbidness. Mary, too, had left,
having spoken vaguely of taking a job at housework in Piedmont.
Billy could help Saxon little in her trouble. He dimly sansed her
suffering, without comprehending the scope and intensity of it.
He was too man-practical, and, by his very sex, too remote from
the intimate tragedy that was hers. He was an outsider at the
best, a friendly onlooker who saw little. To her the baby had
been quick and real. It was still quick and real. That was her
trouble. By no deliberate effort of will could she fill the
achiiig void of its absence. Its reality became, at times, an
hallucination. Somewhere it still was, and she must find it. She
would catch herself, on occasion, listening with strained ears
for the cry she had never heard, yet which, in fancy, she had
heard a thousand times in the happy months before the end. Twice
she left her bed in her sleep and went searching--each time
coming to herself beside her mother's chest of drawers in which
were the tiny garments. To herself, at such moments, she would
say, "I had a baby once." And she would say it, aloud, as she
watched the children playing in the street.
One day, on the Eighth street cars, a young mother sat beside
her, a crowing infant in her arms. And Saxon said to her:
"I had a baby once. It died."
The mother looked at her, startled, half-drew the baby tighter in
her arms, jealously, or as if in fear; then she softened as she
said:
"You poor thing."
"Yes," Saxon nodded. "It died."
Tear's welled into her eyes, and the telling of her grief seemed
to have brought relief. But all the day she suffered from an
almost overwhelming desire to recite her sorrow to the world--to
the paying teller at the bank, to the elderly floor-walker in
Salinger's, to the blind woman, guided by a little boy, who
played on the concertina--to every one save the policeman. The
police were new and terrible creatures to her now. She had seen
them kill the strikers as mercilessly as the strikers had killed
the scabs. And, unlike the strikers, the police were professional
killers. They were not fighting for jobs. They did it as a
business. They could have taken prisoners that day, in the angle
of her front steps and the house. But they had not.
Unconsciously, whenever approaching one, she edged across the
sidewalk so as to get as far as possible away from him. She did
not reason it out, but deeper than consciousness was the feeling
that they were typical of something inimical to her and hers.
At Eighth and Broadway, waiting for her car to return home, the
policeman on the corner recognized her and greeted her. She
turned white to the lips, and her heart fluttered painfully. It
was only Ned Hermanmann, fatter, bronder-faced, jollier looking
than ever. He had sat across the aisle from her for three terms
at school. He and she had been monitors together of the
composition books for one term. The day the powder works blew up
at Pinole, breaking every window in the school, he and she had
not joined in the panic rush for out-of-doors. Both had remained
in the room, and the irate principal had exhibited them, from
room to room, to the cowardly classes, and then rewarded them
with a month's holiday from school. And after that Ned Hermanmann
had become a policeman, and married Lena Highland, and Saxon had
heard they had five children.
But, in spite of all that, he was now a policeman, and Billy was
now a striker. Might not Ned Hermanmann some day club and shoot
Billy just as those other policemen clubbed and shot the strikers
by her front steps?
"What's the matter, Saxon?" he asked. "Sick?"
She nodded and choked, unable to speak, and started to move
toward her car which was coming to a stop.
"I'll help you," he offered.
She shrank away from his hand.
"No; I'm all right," she gasped hurriedly. "I'm not going to take
it. I've forgotten something."
She turned away dizzily, up Broadway to Ninth. Two blocks along
Ninth, she turned down Clay and back to Eighth street, where she
waited for another car.
As the summer months dragged along, the industrial situation in
Oakland grew steadily worse. Capital everywhere seemed to have
selected this city for the battle with organized labor. So many
men in Oakland were out on strike, or were locked out, or were
unable to work because of the dependence of their trades on the
other tied-up trade's, that odd jobs at common labor were hard to
obtain. Billy occasionally got a day's wdrk to do, but did not
earn enough to make both ends meet, despite the small strike
wages received at first, and despite the rigid economy he and
Saxon practiced.
The table she set had scarcely anything in common with that of
their first married year. Not alone was every item of cheaper
quality, but many items had disappeared. Meat, and the poorest,
was very seldom on the table. Cow's milk had given place to
condensed milk, and even the sparing use of the latter had
ceased. A roll of butter, when they had it, lastad half a dozen
times as long as formerly. Where Billy had been used to drinking
three cups of coffee for breakfast, he now drank one. Saxon
boiled this coffee an atrocious length of time, and she paid
twenty cents a pound for it.
The blight of hard times was on all the neighborhood. The
families not involved in one strike were touched by some other
strike or by the cessation of work in some dependent trade. Many
single young men who were lodgers had drifted away, thus
increasing the house rent of the families which had sheltered
them.
"Gott!" said the butcher to Saxon. "We working class all suffer
together. My wife she cannot get her teeth fixed now. Pretty soon
I go smash broke maybe."
Once, when Billy was preparing to pawn his watch, Saxon suggested
his borrowing the money from Billy Murphy.
"I was plannin' that," Billy answered, "only I can't now. I
didn't tell you what happened Tuesday night at the Sporting Life
Club. You remember that squarehead Champion of the United States
Navy? Bill was matched with him, an' it was sure easy money. Bill
had 'm goin' south by the end of the sixth round, an' at the
seventh went in to finish 'm. And then--just his luck, for his
trade's idle now--he snaps his right forearm. Of course the
squarehead comes back at 'm on the jump, an' it's good night for
Bill. Gee! Us Mohegans are gettin' our bad luck handed to us in
chunks these days."
"Don't!" Saxon cried, shuddering involuntarily.
"What?" Billy asked with open mouth of surprise.
"Don't say that word again. Bert was always saying it."
"Oh, Mohegans. All right, I won't. You ain't superstitions, are
you?"
"No; but just the same there's too much truth in the word for me
to like it. Sometimes it seems as though he was right. Times have
changed. They've changed even since I was a little girl. We
crossed the plains and opened up this country, and now we're
losing even the chance to work for a living in it. And it's not
my fault, it's not your fault. We've got to live well or bad just
hy luck, it seems. There's no other way to explain it."
"It beats me," Billy concurred. "Look at the way I worked last
year. Never missed a day. I'd want to never miss a day this year,
an' here I haven't done a tap for weeks an' weeks an' weeks. Say!
Who runs this country anyway?"
Saxon had stopped the morning paper, but frequently Maggie
Donahue's boy, who served a Tribune route, tossed an "extra" on
her steps. From its editorials Saxon gleaned that organized labor
was trying to run the country and that it was making a mess of
it. It was all the fault of domineering labor--so ran the
editorials, column by column, day by day; and Saxon was
convinced, yet remained unconvinced. The social puzzle of living
was too intricate.
The teamsters' strike, backed financially by the teamsters of San
Francisco and by the allied unions of the San Francisco Water
Front Confederation, promised to be long-drawn, whether or not it
was successful. The Oakland harness-washers and stablemen, with
few exceptions, had gone out with the teamsters. The teaming
firm's were not half-filling their contracts, but the employers'
association was helping them. In fact, half the employers'
associations of the Pacific Coast were helping the Oakland
Employers' Association.
Saxon was behind a month's rent, which, when it is considered
that rent was paid in advance, was equivalent to two months.
Likewise, she was two months behind in the installments on the
furniture. Yet she was not pressed very hard by Salinger's, the
furniture dealers.
"We're givin' you all the rope we can," said their collector. "My
orders is to make yon dig up every cent I can and at the same
time not to be too hard. Salinger's are trying to do the right
thing, but they're up against it, too. You've no idea how many
accounts like yours they're carrying along. Sooner or later
they'll have to call a halt or get it in the neck themselves. And
in the meantime just see if you can't scrape up five dollars by
next week--just to cheer them along, you know."
One of the stablemen who had not gone out, Henderson by name,
worked at Billy's stables. Despite the urging of the bosses to
eat and sleep in the stable like the other men, Henderson had
persisted in coming home each morning to his little house around
the corner from Saxon's on Fifth street. Several times she had
seen him swinging along defiantly, his dinner pail in his hand,
while the neighborhood boys dogged his heels at a safe distance
and informed him in yapping chorus that he was a scab and no
good. But one evening, on his way to work, in a spirit of bravado
he went into the Pile-Drivers' Home, the saloon at Seventh and
Pine. There it was his mortal mischance to encounter Otto Frank,
a striker who drove from the same stable. Not many minutes later
an ambulance was hurrylug Henderson to the receiving hospital
with a fractured skull, while a patrol wagon was no less swiftly
carrying Otto Frank to the city prison.
Maggie Donahue it was, eyes shining with gladness, who told Saxon
of the happening.
"Served him right, too, the dirty scab," Maggie concluded.
"But his poor wife!" was Saxon's cry. "She's not strong. And then
the children. She'll never be able to take care of them if her
husband dies."
"An' serve her right, the damned slut!"
Saxon was both shocked and hurt by the Irishwoman's brutality.
But Maggie was implacable.
" 'Tis all she or any woman deserves that'll put up an' live with
a scab. What about her children? Let'm starve, an' her man
a-takin' the food out of other children's mouths."
Mrs. Olsen's attitude was different. Beyond passive sentimental
pity for Henderson's wife and children, she gave them no thought,
her chief concern being for Otto Frank and Otto Frank's wife and
children--herself and Mrs. Frank being full sisters.
"If he dies, they will hang Otto," she asid. "And then what will
poor Hilda do? She has varicose veins in both legs, and she never
can stand on her feet all day an' work for wages. And me, I
cannot help. Ain't Carl out of work, too?"
Billy had still another point of view.
"It will give the strike a black eye, especially if Henderson
croaks," he worried, when he came home. "They'll hang Frank on
record time. Besides, we'll have to put up a defense, an' lawyers
charge like Sam Hill. They'll eat a hole in our treasury you
could drive every team in Oakland through. An' if Frank hadn't
ben screwed up with whisky he'd never a-done it. He's the
mildest, good-naturedest man sober you ever seen."
Twice that evening Billy left the house to find out if Henderson
was dead yet. In the morning the papers gave little hope, and the
evening papers published his death. Otto Frank lay in jail
without bail. The Tribune demanded a quick trial and summary
execution, calling on the prospective jury manfully to do its
duty and dwelling at length on the moral effect that would be so
produced upon the lawless working class. It went further,
emphasising the salutary effect machine guns would have on the
mob that had taken the fair city of Oakland by the throat.
And all such occurrences struck at Saxon personally. Practically
alone in the world, save for Billy, it was her life, and his, and
their mutual love-life, that was menaced. From the moment he left
the house to the moment of his return she knew no peace of mind.
Rough work was afoot, of which he told her nothing, and she knew
he was playing his part in it. On more than one occasion she
noticed fresh-broken skin on his knuckles. At such times he was
remarkably taciturn, and would sit in brooding silence or go
almost immediately to bed. She was afraid to have this habit of
reticence grow on him, and bravely she bid for his confidence.
She climbed into his lap and inside his arms, one of her arms
around his neck, and with the free hand she caressed his hair
back from the forehead and smoothed out tbe moody brows.
"Now listen to me, Billy Boy," she began lightly. "You haven't
been playing fair, and I won't have it. No!" She pressed his lips
shut with her fingers. "I'm doing the talking now, and because
you haven't been doing your share of the talking for some time.
You remember we agreed at the start to always talk things over. I
was the first to break this, when I sold my fancy work to Mrs.
Higgins without speaking to you about it. And I was very sorry. I
am still sorry. And I've never done it since. Now it's your turn.
You're not talking things over with me. You are doing things you
don't tell me about.
"Billy, you're dearer to me than anything else in the world. You
know that. We're sharing each other's lives, only, just now,
there's something you're not sharing. Every time your knuckles
are sore, there's something you don't share. If you can't trust
me, you can't trust anybody. And, besides, I love you so that no
matter what you do I'll go on loving you just the same."
Billy gazed at her with fond incredulity.
"Don't be a pincher," she teased. "Remember, I stand for whatever
you do."
"And you won't buck against me?" he queried.
"How can I? I'm not your boss, Billy. I wouldn't boss you for
anything in the world. And if you'd let me boss you, I wouldn't
love you half as much."
He digested this slowly, and finally nodded.
"An' you won't be mad?"
"With you? You've never seen me mad yet. Now come on and be
generous and tell me how you hurt your knuckles. It's fresh
to-day. Anybody can see that."
"All right. I'll tell you how it happened." He stopped and
giggled with genuine boyish glee at some recollection. "It's like
this. You won't be mad, now? We gotta do these sort of things to
hold our own. Well, here's the show, a regular movin' picture
except for file talkin'. Here's a big rube comin' along, hayseed
stickin' out all over, hands like hams an' feet like Mississippi
gunboats. He'd make half as much again as me in size an' he's
young, too. Only he ain't lookin' for trouble, an' he's as
innocent as ... well, he's the innocentest scab that ever come
down the pike an' bumped into a couple of pickets. Not a regular
strike-breaker, you see, just a big rube that's read the bosses'
ads an' come a-humpin' to town for the big wages.
"An' here's Bud Strothers an' me comin' along. We always go in
pairs that way, an' sometimes bigger bunches. I flag the rube.
'Hello,' says I, 'lookin' for a job?' 'You bet,' says he. 'Can
you drive?' 'Yep.' 'Four horses!' 'Show me to 'em,' says he. 'No
josh, now,' says I; 'you're sure wantin' to drive?' 'That's what
I come to town for,' he says. 'You're the man we're lookin' for,'
says I. 'Come along, an' we'll have you busy in no time.'
"You see, Saxon, we can't pull it off there, because there's Tom
Scanlon--you know, the red-headed cop only a couple of blocks
away an' pipin' us off though not recognizin' us. So away we go,
the three of us, Bud an' me leadin' that boob to take our jobs
away from us I guess nit. We turn into the alley back of
Campwell's grocery. Nobody in sight. Bud stops short, and the
rube an' me stop.
" 'I don't think he wants to drive,' Bud says, considerin'. An'
the rube says quick, 'You betcher life I do.' 'You're dead sure
you want that job?' I says. Yes, he's dead sure. Nothin's goin'
to keep him away from that job. Why, that job's what he come to
town for, an' we can't lead him to it too quick.
" 'Well, my friend,' says I, 'it's my sad duty to inform you that
you've made a mistake.' 'How's that?' he says. 'Go on,' I says;
'you're standin' on your foot.' And, honest to God, Saxon, that
gink looks down at his feet to see. 'I don't understand,' says
he. 'We're goin' to show you,' says I.
"An' then--Biff! Bang! Bingo! Swat! Zooie! Ker-slambango-blam!
Fireworks, Fourth of July, Kingdom Come, blue lights,
sky-rockets, an' hell fire--just like that. It don't take long
when you're scientific an' trained to tandem work. Of course it's
hard on the knuckles. But say, Saxon, if you'd seen that rube
before an' after you'd thought he was a lightnin' change artist.
Laugh? You'd a-busted."
Billy halted to give vent to his own mirth. Saxon forced herself
to join with him, but down in her heart was horror. Mercedes was
right. The stupid workers wrangled and snarled over jobs. The
clever masters rode in automobiles and did not wrangle and snarl.
They hired other stupid ones to do the wrangling and snarling for
them. It was men like Bert and Frank Davis, like Chester Johnson
and Otto Frank, like Jelly Belly and the Pinkertons, like
Henderson and all the rest of the scabs, who were beaten up,
shot, clubbed, or hanged. Ah, the clever ones were very clever.
Nothing happened to them. They only rode in their automobiles.
" 'You big stiffs,' the rube snivels as he crawls to his feet at
the end," Billy was continuing. " 'You think you still want that
job?' I ask. He shakes his head. Then I read'm the riot act
'They's only one thing for you to do, old hoss, an' that's beat
it. D'ye get me? Beat it. Back to the farm for YOU. An' if you
come monkeyin' around town again, we'll be real mad at you. We
was only foolin' this time. But next time we catch you your own
mother won't know you when we get done with you.'
"An'--say!--you oughta seen'm beat it. I bet he's goin' yet. Ah'
when he gets back to Milpitas, or Sleepy Hollow, or wherever he
hangs out, an' tells how the boys does things in Oakland, it's
dollars to doughnuts they won't be a rube in his district that'd
come to town to drive if they offered ten dollars an hour."
"It was awful," Saxon said, then laughed well-simulated
appreciation.
"But that was nothin'," Billy went on. "A bunch of the boys
caught another one this morning. They didn't do a thing to him.
My goodness gracious, no. In less'n two minutes he was the worst
wreck they ever hauled to the receivin' hospital. The evenin'
papers gave the score: nose broken, three bad scalp wounds, front
teeth out, a broken collarbone, an' two broken ribs. Gee! He
certainly got all that was comin' to him. But that's nothin'.
D'ye want to know what the Frisco teamsters did in the big strike
before the Earthquake? They took every scab they caught an' broke
both his arms with a crowbar. That was so he couldn't drive, you
see. Say, the hospitals was filled with 'em. An' the teamsters
won that strike, too."
"But is it necessary, Billy, to be so terrible? I know they're
scabs, and that they're taking the bread out of the strikers'
children's mouths to put in their own children's mouths, and that
it isn't fair and all that; but just the same is it necessary to
be so ... terrible?"
"Sure thing," Billy answered confidently. "We just gotta throw
the fear of God into them--when we can do it without bein'
caught."
"And if you're caught?"
"Then the union hires the lawyers to defend us, though that ain't
much good now, for the judges are pretty hostyle, an' the papers
keep hammerin' away at them to give stiffer an' stiffer
sentences. Just the same, before this strike's over there'll be a
whole lot of guys a-wishin' they'd never gone scabbin'."
Very cautiously, in the next half hour, Saxon tried to feel out
her husband's attitude, to find if he doubted the rightness of
the violence he and his brother teamsters committed. But Billy's
ethical sanction was rock-bedded and profound. It never entered
his head that he was not absolutely right. It was the game.
Caught in its tangled meshes, he could see no other way to play
it than the way all men played it. He did not stand for dynamite
and murder, however. But then the unions did not stand for such.
Quite naive was his explanation that dynamite and murder did not
pay; that such actions always brought down the condemnation of
the public and broke the strikes. But the healthy beating up of a
scab, he contended--the "throwing of the fear of God into a
scab," as he expressed it--was the only right and proper thing to
do.
"Our folks never had to do such things," Saxon said finally.
"They never had strikes nor scabs in those times."
"You bet they didn't," Billy agreed "Them was the good old days.
I'd liked to a-lived then." He drew a long breath and sighed.
"But them times will never come again."
"Would you have liked living in the country?" Saxon asked.
"Sure thing."
"There's lots of men living in the country now," she suggested.
"Just the same I notice them a-hikin' to town to get our jobs,"
was his reply. _
Read next: BOOK II: CHAPTER XII
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