CHAPTER XIV
JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD
I
Jimmie Higgins was wandering down the street, when he ran into "Wild
Bill", who was, of course, greatly surprised to see his friend in a
drunken condition. When he heard the reason, he revealed an
unexpected side of his nature. If you judged "Wild Bill" by his
oratory, you thought him a creature poisoned through and through, a
soul turned rancid with envy, hatred and malice and all
uncharitableness. But now the tears came into his eyes, and he put
his arm over Jimmie's shoulder. "Say, old pal, that's bum luck! By
God, I'm sorry!" And Jimmie, who wanted nothing so much as somebody
to be sorry with, clasped Bill in his arms, and burst into tears,
and told over and over again how he had gone to what had been his
home, and found only a huge crater blown out by the explosion, and
how he had gone about calling his wife and babies, until at last
they had brought him one leg of his wife.
"Wild Bill" listened, until he knew the story through and then he
said, "See here, old pal, let's you and me quit this town."
"Quit?" said Jimmie, stupidly.
"Every time I open the front of my face now, the police jump in it.
Leesville's a hell of a town, I say. Let's get out."
"Where'll we go?"
"Anywhere--what's the diff? It's coming summer. Let's slam the
gates."
Jimmie was willing--why not? They went back to the lodging-house
where Bill lived, and he tied up his worldly goods in a
gunny-sack--the greater part of the load consisting of a diary in
which he had recorded his adventures as leader of an unemployed army
which had started to march from California to Washington, D.C., some
four years previously. They took the trolley, and getting off in the
country, walked along the banks of the river, Jimmie still sobbing,
and Bill in the grip of one of his fearful coughing spells. They sat
down beside the stream not so far from where Jimmie had gone in
swimming with the Candidate; he gave a touching account of this
adventure, but fell asleep in the middle of it, and Bill wandered
off and begged some food at a farm-house, using his cough as a
convenient lever for moving the heart of the housewife. When night
came, they sought the railroad and got on board a southward-moving
freight; so Jimmie Higgins went back to the tramps life, at which he
had spent a considerable part of his youth.
But there was a difference now; he was no longer a blind and
helpless victim of a false economic system, but a revolutionist,
fully class-conscious, trained in a grim school. The country was
going to war, and Jimmie was going to war on the country. The two
agitators got off the train at a mining-village, and got a job as
"surface men", and proceeded to preach their gospel of revolt to the
workers in a lousy company boarding-house. When they were found out,
they "jumped" another freight, and repeated the performance in
another part of the district.
The companies were too vigilant for there to be any chance of a
strike; but "Wild Bill" whispered to the young workers that he knew
a trick worth two of that--he would teach them the art of "striking
on the job"! This idea, of course, had great charm for embittered
men; enabling them to pay back the boss, while at the same time
continuing on his pay-roll. Bill had read whole books in which the
theory and practice of "sabotage" were worked out, and he could tell
any sort of workman tricks to make his employer sweat under the
collar. If you worked in a machine-shop, you dropped emery-powder
into the bearings; if you worked on a farm, you drove copper nails
into the fruit-trees, which caused them to die; if you packed
apples, you stuck your thumb-nail into one, which made sure that the
whole box would be rotten when it arrived; if you worked in a
saw-mill, you drove a spike into a log; if you worked in a
restaurant, you served double portions to ruin the boss, and spit in
each portion to make sure the customer did not derive any benefit.
All these things you did in a fervour of exaltation, a mood of
frenzied martyrdom, because of the blaze of hate which had been
fanned in your soul by a social system based upon oppression and
knavery.
