Section 23
It had become a fascinating game, and Peter would never have tired
of it, but for the fact that he had to stay all day in the house
with little Jennie. A honeymoon is all right for a few weeks, but no
man can stand it forever. Little Jennie apparently never tired of
being kissed, and never seemed satisfied that Peter thoroughly loved
her. A man got thru with his love-making after awhile, but a woman,
it appeared, never knew how to drop the subject; she was always
looking before and after, and figuring consequences and
responsibilities, her duty and her reputation and all the rest of
it. Which, of course, was a bore.
Jennie was unhappy because she was deceiving Sadie; she wanted to
tell Sadie, and yet somehow it was easier to go on concealing than
admit that one had concealed. Peter didn't see why Sadie had to be
told at all; he didn't see why things couldn't stay just as they
were, and why he and his sweetheart couldn't have some fun now and
then, instead of always being sentimental, always having agonies
over the class war, to say nothing of the world war, and the
prospects of America becoming involved in it.
This did not mean that Peter was hard and feelingless. No, when
Peter clasped trembling little Jennie in his arms he was very deeply
moved; he had a real sense of what a gentle and good little soul she
was. He would have been glad to help her--but what could he do about
it? The situation was such that he could not plead with her, he
could not try to change her; he had to give himself up to all her
crazy whims and pretend to agree with her. Little Jennie was by her
weakness marked for destruction, and what good would it do for him
to go to destruction along with her?
Peter understood clearly that there are two kinds of people in the
world, those who eat, and those who are eaten; and it was his
intention to stay among the former, group. Peter had come in his
twenty years of life to a definite understanding of the things
called "ideas" and "causes" and "religions." They were bait to catch
suckers; and there is a continual competition between the suckers,
who of course don't want to be caught, and those people of superior
wits who want to catch them, and therefore are continually inventing
new and more plausible and alluring kinds of bait. Peter had by now
heard enough of the jargon of the "comrades" to realize that theirs
was an especially effective kind; and here was poor little Jennie,
stuck fast on the hook, and what could Peter do about it?
Yet, this was Peter's first love, and when he was deeply thrilled,
he understood the truth of Guffey's saying that a man in love wants
to tell the truth. Peter would have the impulse to say to her: "Oh,
drop all that preaching, and give yourself a rest! Let's you and me
enjoy life a bit."
Yes, it would be all he could do to keep from saying this--despite
the fact that he knew it would ruin everything. Once little Jennie
appeared in a new silk dress, brought to her by one of the rich
ladies whose heart was touched by her dowdy appearance. It was of
soft grey silk--cheap silk, but fresh and new, and Peter had never
had anything so fine in his arms before. It matched Jennie's grey
eyes, and its freshness gave her a pink glow; or was it that Peter
admired her, and loved her more, and so brought the blood to her
cheeks? Peter had an impulse to take her out and show her off, and
he pressed his face into the soft folds of the dress and whispered,
"Say kid, some day you an me got to cut all this hard luck business
for a bit!"
He felt little Jennie stiffen, and draw away from him; so quickly he
had to set to work to patch up the damage. "I want you to get well,"
he pleaded. "You're so good to everybody--you treat everybody well
but yourself!"
It had been something in his tone rather than his actual words that
had frightened the girl. "Oh Peter!" she cried. "What does it matter
about me, or about any other one person, when millions of young men
are being shot to fragments, and millions of women and children are
starving to death!"
So there they were, fighting the war again; Peter had to take up her
burden, be a hero, and a martyr, and a "Red." That same afternoon,
as fate willed it, three "wobblies" out of a job came to call; and
oh, how tired Peter was of these wandering agitators--insufferable
"grouches!" Peter would want to say: "Oh, cut it out! What you call
your `cause' is nothing but your scheme to work with your tongues
instead of with a pick and a shovel." And this would start an
imaginary quarrel in Peter's mind. He would hear one of the fellows
demanding, "How much pick and shovel work you ever done?" Another
saying, "Looks to me like you been finding the easy jobs wherever
you go!" The fact that this was true did not make Peter's irritation
any less, did not make it easier for him to meet with Comrade Smith,
and Brother Jones, and Fellow-worker Brown just out of jail, and
listen to their hard-luck stories, and watch them take from the
table food that Peter wanted, and--the bitterest pill of all--let
them think that they were fooling him with their patter!
The time came when Peter wasn't able to stand it any longer. Shut up
in the house all day, he was becoming as irritable as a chained dog.
Unless he could get out in the world again, he would surely give
himself away. He pleaded that the doctors had warned him that his
health would not stand indoor life; he must get some fresh air. So
he got away by himself, and after that he found things much easier.
He could spend a little of his money; he could find a quiet corner
in a restaurant and get himself a beefsteak, and eat all he wanted
of it, without feeling the eyes of any "comrades" resting upon him
reprovingly. Peter had lived in a jail, and in an orphan asylum, and
in the home of Shoemaker Smithers, but nowhere had he fared so
meagerly as in the home of the Todd sisters, who were contributing
nearly everything they owned to the Goober defense, and to the
"Clarion," the Socialist paper of American City.
