II
"Comrade Higgins, have you got a hammer?" It was Comrade Schneider
who spoke, and he did not take the trouble to come down from the
ladder, where he was holding up a streamer of bunting, but waited
comfortably for the hammer to be fetched to him. And scarcely had
the fetcher started to climb before there came the voice of a woman
from across the stage: "Comrade Higgins, has the Ypsel banner come?"
And from the rear part of the hall came the rotund voice of fat
Comrade Rapinsky: "Comrade Higgins, will you bring up an extra table
for the literature?" And from the second tier box Comrade Mary Allen
spoke: "While you're downstairs, Comrade Higgins, would you mind
telephoning and making sure the Reception Committee knows about the
change in the train-time?"
So it went; and Jimmie ran about the big hall with his face red and
perspiring; for this was midsummer, and no breeze came through the
windows of the Leesville Opera-house, and when you got high up on
the walls to tie the streamers of red bunting, you felt as if you
were being baked. But the streamers had to be tied, and likewise the
big red flag over the stage, and the banner of the Karl Marx Verein,
and the banner of the Ypsels, or Young People's Socialist League of
Leesville, and the banner of the Machinists' Union, Local 4717, and
of the Carpenters' Union, District 529, and of the Workers'
Co-operative Society. And because Comrade Higgins never questioned
anybody's right to give him orders, and always did everything with a
cheerful grin, people had got into the habit of regarding him as the
proper person for tedious and disagreeable tasks.
He had all the more on his hands at present, because the members of
this usually efficient local were half-distracted, like a nest of
ants that have been dug out with a shovel. The most faithful ones
showed a tendency to forget what they were doing, and to gather in
knots to talk about the news which had come over the cables and had
been published in that morning's paper. Jimmie Higgins would have
liked to hear what the rest had to say; but somebody had to keep at
work, for the local was in the hole nearly three hundred dollars for
to-night's affair, and it must succeed, even though half the
civilized world had gone suddenly insane. So Jimmie continued to
climb step-ladders and tie bunting.
When it came to lunch-time, and the members of the Decorations
Committee were going out, it suddenly occurred to one of them that
the drayman who was to bring the literature might arrive while there
was nobody to receive it. So Comrade Higgins was allowed to wait
during the lunch hour. There was a plausible excuse--he was on the
Literature Committee; indeed, he was on every committee where hard
work was involved--the committee to distribute leaflets announcing
the meeting, the committee to interview the labour unions and urge
them to sell tickets, the committee to take up a collection at the
meeting. He was not on those committees which involved honour and
edification, such as, for example, the committee to meet the
Candidate at the depot and escort him to the Opera-house. But then
it would never have occurred to Jimmie that he had any place on such
a committee; for he was just an ignorant fellow, a machinist,
undersized and undernourished, with bad teeth and roughened hands,
and no gifts or graces of any sort to recommend him; while on the
Reception Committee were a lawyer and a prosperous doctor and the
secretary of the Carpet-weavers' Union, all people who wore good
clothes and had education, and knew how to talk to a Candidate.
So Jimmie waited; and when the drayman came, he opened up the
packages of books and pamphlets and laid them out in neat piles on
the literature tables, and hung several of the more attractive ones
on the walls behind the tables; so, of course, Comrade Mabel Smith,
who was chairman of the Literature Committee, was greatly pleased
when she came back from lunch. And then came the members of the
German Liederkranz, to rehearse the programme they were to give; and
Comrade Higgins would have liked first rate to sit and listen, but
somebody discovered the need of glue, and he chased out to find a
drug-store that was open on Sunday.
Later on there was a lull, and Jimmie realized that he was hungry.
He examined the contents of his pockets and found that he had
seventeen cents. It was a long way to his home, so he would step
round the corner and have a cup of coffee and a couple of "sinkers"
at "Tom's". He first conscientiously asked if anybody needed
anything, and Comrade Mabel Smith told him to hurry back to help her
put out the leaflets on the seats, and Comrade Meissner would need
help in arranging the chairs on the stage.
