II
Comrade Meissner went on. Worse than that---they had taken Comrade
Gerrity. And Jimmie stared. "But he's married!"
"I know," explained Meissner, "but that ain't what counts. What you
got to have is a dependent wife. An' the Gerritys didn't know
that--Comrade Evelyn held on to her job as stenographer, and
somebody must have told on them, for the board jacked him up and
cancelled his exemption. Of course, it was only because he was
organizer of the local; they want to put us out of business any way
they can."
"What did Gerrity do?"
"He refused to serve, and they sent a squad of men after him and
dragged him away. They took him to Camp Sheridan, and tried to put
him in uniform, and he refused--he wouldn't work, he wouldn't have
anything to do with war. So they tried him and sentenced him to
twenty-five years in jail; they put him in solitary confinement, and
he gets nothin' but bread and water--they keep him chained up by his
wrists a part of the time--"
"Oh! OH!" cried Jimmie.
"Comrade Evelyn's most crazy about it. She broke down and cried in
the local, and she went around to the churches--they have women's
sewing-circles, you know, and things for the Red Cross, and her and
Comrade Mary Allen gets up and makes speeches an' drives the women
crazy. They arrested 'em once, but they turned 'em loose--they
didn't want it to get in the papers."
Comrade Meissner could not have foreseen how this particular news
would affect Jimmie; Meissner knew nothing about the strange
adventure which had befallen his friend, the amatory convulsion
which had shaken his soul. Before Jimmie's mind now rose the lovely
face with the pert little dimples and the halo of fluffy brown hair;
the thought of Comrade Evelyn Baskerville in distress was simply not
to be endured. "Where is she?" he cried. He had a vision of himself
rushing forthwith to take up the agitation; to raid the church
sewing-circles and brave the wrath of the she-patriots; to go to
jail with Comrade Evelyn; or perhaps--who could say?--to put about
her, gently and reverently, a pair of fraternal and comforting arms.
Jimmie had the temperament of the dreamer, the idealist, to whom it
is enough to want a thing to see that thing forthwith come into
being. His imagination, stimulated by the image of the charming
stenographer, rushed forth on the wildest of flights. He realized
for the first time that he was a free man; while, as for Comrade
Evelyn, suppose the worst were to happen, suppose Comrade Gerrity
were to perish of the diet of bread and water, or to be dragged into
the trenches and killed--then the sorrowing widow would be in need
of someone to uphold her, to put fraternal and comforting arms about
her--
"Where is she?" Jimmie asked again; and Comrade Meissner dissipated
his dream by replying that she had gone off to work for an
organization in New York which was agitating for humane treatment
for "conscientious objectors". Meissner hunted up the pamphlet
published by this organization, telling most hideous stories of the
abusing of such victims of the military frenzy; they had been
beaten, tortured and starved, subjected to ridicule and humiliation,
in many cases dragged before courts-martial and sentenced to
imprisonment for twenty or thirty years. Jimmie sat up a part of the
night reading these stories--with the result that once more the
feeble sprout of patriotism was squashed flat in his soul!
