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    <h1>
      JIMMIE HIGGINS
    </h1>
    <h2>
      By Upton Sinclair
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h3>
      London
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      <b>CONTENTS</b>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>JIMMIE HIGGINS</b> </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE CANDIDATE
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. JIMMIE HIGGINS HEARS A SPEECH </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. JIMMIE HIGGINS DEBATES THE ISSUE
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. JIMMIE HIGGINS STRIKES IT RICH </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. JIMMIE HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISER </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. JIMMIE HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. JIMMIE HIGGINS DALLIES WITH CUPID
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. JIMMIE HIGGINS RETURNS TO NATURE </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE OWNER </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. JIMMIE HIGGINS FACES THE WAR </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS A PATRIOT </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS DODGES TROUBLE </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. JIMMIE HIGGINS TURNS BOLSHEVIK </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE TEMPTER
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. JIMMIE HIGGINS WRESTLES WITH THE
      TEMPTER </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE PLUNGE
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS ON KHAKI. I.
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES A SWIM </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS SOCIETY </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. JIMMIE HIGGINS WORKS FOR HIS UNCLE
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. JIMMIE HIGGINS SEES THE OTHER SIDE
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS INTO DANGER
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL
      </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. JIMMIE HIGGINS VOTES FOR DEMOCRACY
      </a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      JIMMIE HIGGINS
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER I. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE CANDIDATE
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Jimmie,&rdquo; said Lizzie, &ldquo;couldn't we go see the pictures?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And Jimmie set down the saucer of hot coffee which he was in the act of
      adjusting to his mouth, and stared at his wife. He did not say anything;
      in three years and a half as a married man he had learned that one does
      not always say everything that comes into one's mind. But he meditated on
      the abysses that lie between the masculine and feminine intellects. That
      it should be possible for anyone to wish to see a movie idol leaping into
      second-story windows, or being pulled from beneath flying express trains,
      on this day of destiny, this greatest crisis in history!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You know, Lizzie,&rdquo; he said, patiently, &ldquo;I've got to help at the
      Opera-house.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you've got all morning!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know; but it'll take all day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And Lizzie fell silent; for she too had learned much in three years and a
      half of married life. She had learned that working men's wives seldom get
      all they would like in this world; also that to have a propagandist for a
      husband is not the worst fate that may befall. After all, he might have
      been giving his time and money to drink, or to other women; he might have
      been dying of a cough, like the man next door. If one could not have a bit
      of pleasure on a Sunday afternoon&mdash;well, one might sigh, but not too
      loud.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie began telling all the things that had to be done that Sunday
      morning and afternoon. They seemed to Lizzie exactly like the things that
      were done on other occasions before meetings. To be sure, this was bigger&mdash;it
      was in the Opera-house, and all the stores had cards in the windows, with
      a picture of the Candidate who was to be the orator of the occasion. But
      it was hard for Lizzie to understand the difference between this Candidate
      and other candidates&mdash;none of whom ever got elected! Lizzie would
      truly rather have stayed at home, for she did not understand English very
      well when it was shouted from a platform, and with a lot of long words;
      but she knew that Jimmie was trying to educate her, and being a woman, she
      was educated to this extent&mdash;she knew the way to hold on to her man.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had just discovered a new solution of the problem of getting the
      babies to meetings; and Lizzie knew that he was tremendously proud of this
      discovery. So long as there had been only one baby, Jimmie had carried it.
      When there had come a second, Lizzie had helped. But now there were three,
      the total weight of them something over sixty pounds; and the street-car
      line was some distance away, and also it hurt Jimmie in his
      class-consciousness to pay twenty cents to a predatory corporation. They
      had tried the plan of paying something to a neighbour to stay with the
      babies; but the first they tried was a young girl who got tired and went
      away, leaving the little ones to howl their heads off; and the second was
      a Polish lady whom they found in a drunken stupor on their return.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Jimmie was determined to go to meetings, and determined that Lizzie
      should go along. It was one of the curses of the system, he said, that it
      deprived working-class women of all chance for self-improvement. So he had
      paid a visit to the &ldquo;Industrial Store&rdquo;, a junk-shop maintained by the
      Salvation Army, and for fifteen cents he had obtained a marvellous broad
      baby-carriage for twins, all finished in shiny black enamel. One side of
      it was busted, but Jimmie had fixed that with some wire, and by careful
      packing had shown that it was possible to stow the youngsters in it&mdash;Jimmie
      and Pete side by side, and the new baby at the foot.
    </p>
    <p>
      The one trouble was that Jimmie Junior couldn't keep his feet still. He
      could never keep any part of him still, the little jack-in-the-box. Here
      he was now, tearing about the kitchen, pursuing the ever-receding tail of
      the newest addition to the family, a half-starved cur who had followed
      Jimmie in from the street, and had been fed into a semblance of reality.
      From this treasure a bare, round tail hung out behind in tantalizing
      fashion; Jimmie Junior, always imagining he could catch it, was toddling
      round and round and round the kitchen-table, clutching out in front of
      him, laughing so that after a while he sat down from sheer exhaustion.
    </p>
    <p>
      And Jimmie Senior watched enraptured. Say, but he was a buster! Did you
      ever see a twenty-seven months' old kid that could get over the ground
      like that? Or make a louder noise? This last because Jimmie Junior had
      tried to take a short cut through the kitchen range and failed. Lizzie
      swooped down, clasping him to her broad bosom, and pouring out words of
      comfort in Bohemian. As Jimmie Senior did not understand any of these
      words, he took advantage of the confusion to get his coat and cap and
      hustle off to the Opera-house, full of fresh determination. For, you see,
      whenever a Socialist looks at his son, or even thinks of his son, he is
      hotter for his job of propagandist. Let the world be changed soon, so that
      the little fellows may be spared those sufferings and humiliations which
      have fallen to the lot of their parents!
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Comrade Higgins, have you got a hammer?&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Comrade
      Higgins, has the Ypsel banner come?&rdquo; And from the rear part of the hall
      came the rotund voice of fat Comrade Rapinsky: &ldquo;Comrade Higgins, will you
      bring up an extra table for the literature?&rdquo; And from the second tier box
      Comrade Mary Allen spoke: &ldquo;While you're downstairs, Comrade Higgins, would
      you mind telephoning and making sure the Reception Committee knows about
      the change in the train-time?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;he was on the Literature Committee; indeed,
      he was on every committee where hard work was involved&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;sinkers&rdquo; at &ldquo;Tom's&rdquo;. 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.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      When you went from the Leesville Opera-house and turned West in Main
      Street, you passed Heinz's Cafe, which was a &ldquo;swell&rdquo; eating-place, and not
      for Jimmie; and then the &ldquo;Bijou Nickelodeon&rdquo;, with a mechanical piano in
      the entrance; and the &ldquo;Bon Marche Shoe Store&rdquo;, which was always having a
      fire-sale or a removal sale or a bankruptcy clearing-out; and then
      Lipsky's &ldquo;Picture Palace&rdquo;, with a brown and yellow cowboy galloping away
      with a red and yellow maiden in his arms; then Harrod's &ldquo;Fancy Grocery&rdquo; on
      the corner. And in each of these places there was a show-card in the
      window, with a picture of the Candidate, and the announcement that on
      Sunday evening, at eight o'clock, he would speak at the Leesville
      Opera-house on &ldquo;War, the Reason and the Remedy&rdquo;. Jimmie Higgins looked at
      the cards, and a dignified yet joyful pride stirred in his bosom; for all
      of them were there because he, Jimmie, had interviewed the proprietors and
      obtained their more or less reluctant consent.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie knew that on this Sunday, in cities all over Germany, Austria,
      Belgium, France and England, the workers were gathering by millions and
      tens of millions, to protest against the red horror of war being let loose
      over their heads. And in America too&mdash;a call would go from the new
      world to the old, that the workers should rise and carry out their pledge
      to prevent this crime against mankind. He, Jimmie Higgins, had no voice
      that anybody would heed; but he had helped to bring the people of his city
      to hear a man who had a voice, and who would show the meaning of this
      world-crisis to the working-people.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the party's Candidate for President. At this time only
      congressional elections were pending, but this man had been Candidate for
      President so often that every one thought of him in that role. You might
      say that each of his campaigns lasted four years; he travelled from one
      end of the land to the other, and counted by the millions those who heard
      his burning, bitter message. It had chanced that the day which the
      War-lords and Money-lords of Europe had chosen to drive their slaves to
      slaughter was the day on which the Candidate had been scheduled to speak
      in the Leesville Opera-house. No wonder the Socialists of the little
      inland city were stirred!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins turned into &ldquo;Tom's Buffeteria&rdquo;, and greeted the proprietor,
      and seated himself on a stool in front of the counter, and called for
      coffee, and helped himself to &ldquo;sinkers&rdquo;&mdash;which might have been called
      &ldquo;life-preservers&rdquo;, they were blown so full of air. He filled his mouth, at
      the same time looking up to make sure that Tom had not removed the card
      announcing the meeting; for Tom was a Catholic, and one of the reasons
      that Jimmie went to his place was to involve him and his patrons in
      arguments over exploitation, unearned increment and surplus value.
    </p>
    <p>
      But before a discussion could be started, it chanced that Jimmie glanced
      about. In the back part of the room were four little tables, covered with
      oil-cloth, where &ldquo;short orders&rdquo; were served; and at one of those tables a
      man was seated. Jimmie took a glance at him, and started so that he almost
      spilled his coffee. Impossible; and yet&mdash;surely&mdash;who could
      mistake that face? The face of a medieval churchman, lean, ascetic, but
      with a modern touch of kindliness, and a bald dome on top like a moon
      rising over the prairie. Jimmie started, then stared at the picture of the
      Candidate which crowned the shelf of pies. He turned to the man again; and
      the man glanced up, and his eyes met Jimmie's, with their expression of
      amazement and awe. The whole story was there, not to be misread&mdash;especially
      by a Candidate who travels about the country making speeches, and being
      recognized every hour or so from his pictures which have preceded him. A
      smile came to his face, and Jimmie set down the coffee-cup from one
      trembling hand and the &ldquo;sinker&rdquo; from the other, and rose from his stool.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie would not have had the courage to advance, save for the other man's
      smile&mdash;a smile that was weary, but candid and welcoming. &ldquo;Howdy do,
      Comrade?&rdquo; said the man. He held out his hand, and the moment of this clasp
      was the nearest to heaven that Jimmie Higgins had ever known.
    </p>
    <p>
      When he was able to find his voice, it was only to exclaim, &ldquo;You wasn't
      due till five-forty-two!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As if the Candidate had not known that! He explained that he had missed
      his sleep the night before, and had come on ahead so as to snatch a bit
      during the day. &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Jimmie; and then, &ldquo;I knowed you by your
      picture.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; said the other, patiently.
    </p>
    <p>
      And Jimmie groped round in his addled head for something really worth
      while. &ldquo;You'll want to see the Committee?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the other, &ldquo;I want to finish this first.&rdquo; And he took a sip
      from a glass of milk, and a bite out of a sandwich, and chewed.
    </p>
    <p>
      So utterly rattled was Jimmie he sat there like a num-skull, unable to
      find a word, while the man finished his repast. When it was over, Jimmie
      said again&mdash;he could do no better&mdash;&ldquo;You want to see the
      Committee?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; was the reply, &ldquo;I want to sit here&mdash;and perhaps talk to you,
      Comrade&mdash;Comrade&mdash;?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Higgins,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Comrade Higgins&mdash;that is, if you have time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, sure!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmie. &ldquo;I got all the time there is. But the
      Committee&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never mind the Committee, Comrade. Do you know how many Committees I have
      met on this trip?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie did not know; nor did he have the courage to ask.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Probably you never thought how it is to be a Candidate,&rdquo; continued the
      other. &ldquo;You go from place to place, and make the same speech every night,
      and it seems as if you slept in the same hotel every night, and almost as
      if you met the same Committee. But you have to remember that your speech
      is new to each audience, and you have to make it as if you had never made
      it before; also you have to remember that the Committee is made up of
      devoted comrades who are giving everything for the cause, so you don't
      tell them that they are just like every other committee, or that you are
      tired to death, or maybe have a headache&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie sat, gazing in awe-stricken silence. Not being a man of reading, he
      had never heard of &ldquo;the head that wears a crown&rdquo;. This was his first
      glimpse into the soul of greatness.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Candidate went on: &ldquo;And then, too, Comrade, there's the news from
      Europe. I want a little time. I can't bring myself to face it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His voice had grown sombre, and to Jimmie, gazing at him, it seemed that
      all the sorrows of the world were in his tired grey eyes. &ldquo;Perhaps I'd
      better go,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No no,&rdquo; replied the other, with quick self-recovery. He looked and saw
      that Jimmie had forgotten his meal. &ldquo;Bring your things over here,&rdquo; he
      said; and the other fetched his cup and saucer and plate, and gulped the
      rest of his &ldquo;sinkers&rdquo; under the Candidate's eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I oughtn't to talk,&rdquo; said the latter. &ldquo;You see how hoarse I am. But you
      talk. Tell me about the local, and how things are going here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie summoned his courage. It was the one thing he could really talk
      about, the thing of which his mind and soul were full. Leesville was a
      typical small manufacturing city, with a glass bottle works, a brewery, a
      carpet-factory, and the big Empire Machine Shops, at which Jimmie himself
      spent sixty-three hours of his life each week. The workers were asleep, of
      course; but still you couldn't complain, the movement was growing. The
      local boasted of a hundred and twenty members, though of course, only
      about thirty of them could be counted on for real work. That was the case
      everywhere, the Candidate put in&mdash;it was always a few who made the
      sacrifice and kept things alive.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then Jimmie went on to tell about to-night's meeting, the preparations
      they had made, the troubles they had had. The police had suddenly decided
      to enforce the law against delivering circulars from house to house;
      though they allowed Isaac's &ldquo;Emporium&rdquo; to use this method of announcement.
      The Leesville Herald and Evening Courier were enthusiastic for the police
      action; if you couldn't give out circulars, obviously you would have to
      advertise in these papers. The Candidate smiled&mdash;he knew about
      American police officials, and also about American journalism.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had been laid off for a couple of days at the shop, and he told how
      he had put this time to good use, getting announcements of the meeting
      into the stores. There was an old Scotchman in a real estate office just
      across the way. &ldquo;Git oot!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;So I thought I'd better git oot!&rdquo;
       said Jimmie. And then, taking his life into his hands, he had gone into
      the First National Bank. There was a gentleman walking across the floor,
      and Jimmie went up to him and held out one of the placards with the
      picture of the Candidate. &ldquo;Would you be so good as to put this in your
      window?&rdquo; he inquired; and the other looked at it coldly. Then he smiled&mdash;he
      was a good sort, apparently. &ldquo;I don't think my customers would patronize
      your business,&rdquo; he said; but Jimmie went at him to take some tickets and
      learn about Socialism&mdash;and would you believe it, he had actually
      shelled out a dollar! &ldquo;I found out afterwards that it was Ashton Charmers,
      the president of the bank!&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;I'd a' been scared, if I'd a'
      known.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He had not meant to talk about himself; he was just trying to entertain a
      tired Candidate, to keep him from brooding over a world going to war. But
      the Candidate, listening, found tears trying to steal into his eyes. He
      watched the figure before him&mdash;a bowed, undernourished little man,
      with one shoulder lower than the other, a straggly brown moustache stained
      with coffee, and stumpy black teeth, and gnarled hands into which the dirt
      and grease were ground so deeply that washing them would obviously be a
      waste of time. His clothes were worn and shapeless, his celluloid collar
      was cracked and his necktie was almost a rag. You would never have looked
      at such a man twice on the street&mdash;and yet the Candidate saw in him
      one of those obscure heroes who are making a movement which is to
      transform the world.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Comrade Higgins,&rdquo; said the Candidate, after a bit, &ldquo;let's you and me run
      away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie looked startled. &ldquo;How?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I mean from the Committee, and from the meeting, and from everything.&rdquo;
       And then, seeing the dismay in the other's face: &ldquo;I mean, let's take a
      walk in the country.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see it through the windows of the railroad-cars, but I don't set foot
      on it for months at a time. And I was brought up in the country. Were
      you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was brought up everywhere,&rdquo; said the little machinist.
    </p>
    <p>
      They got up, and paid each their ten cents to the proprietor of the
      &ldquo;Buffeteria.&rdquo; Jimmie could not resist the temptation to introduce his
      hero, and show a pious Catholic that a Socialist Candidate had neither
      hoofs nor horns. The Candidate was used to being introduced for that
      purpose and had certain spontaneous and cordial words which he had said
      not less than ten thousand times before; with the result that the pious
      Catholic gave his promise to come to the meeting that night.
    </p>
    <p>
      They went out; and because some member of the Committee might be passing
      on Main Street, Jimmie took his hero by an alley into a back street; and
      they walked past the glass-factory, which to the outsider was a long board
      fence, and across the Atlantic Western railroad tracks, and past the
      carpet-factory, a huge four-story box made of bricks; after which the rows
      of wooden shacks began to thin out, and there were vacant lots and
      ash-heaps, and at last the beginning of farms.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Candidate's legs were long, and Jimmie's, alas, were short, so he had
      almost to run. The sun blazed down on them, and sweat, starting from the
      Candidate's bald head stole under the band of his straw hat and down to
      his wilting collar; so he took off his coat and hung it over his arm, and
      went on, faster than ever. Jimmie raced beside him, afraid to speak, for
      he divined that the Candidate was brooding over the world-calamity, the
      millions of young men marching out to slaughter. On the placards which
      Jimmie had been distributing in Leesville, there were two lines about the
      Candidate, written by America's favourite poet:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
    As warm heart as ever beat
    Betwixt here and judgement seat.
</pre>
    <p>
      So they went on for perhaps an hour, by which time they were really in the
      country. They came to a bridge which crossed the river Lee, and there the
      Candidate suddenly stopped, and stood looking at the water sliding below
      him, and at the vista through which it wound, an avenue of green trees
      with stretches of pasture and cattle grazing. &ldquo;That looks fine,&rdquo; he said.
      &ldquo;Let's go down.&rdquo; So they climbed a fence, and made their way along the
      river for a distance, until a turn of the stream took them out of sight of
      the road.
    </p>
    <p>
      There they sat on a shelving bank, and mopped the perspiration from their
      foreheads and necks, and gazed into the rippling current. You couldn't
      exactly say it was crystal clear, for when there is a town every ten miles
      or so along a stream, with factories pouring various kinds of chemicals
      into it, the job becomes too much for the restoring forces of Mother
      Nature. But it would take a dirty stream indeed not to look inviting in
      midsummer after a four-mile walk. So presently the Candidate turned to
      Jimmie, with a mischievous look upon his face. &ldquo;Comrade Higgins, were you
      ever in a swimmin' hole?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure I was!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Everywhere. I was on the road off an' on ten years&mdash;till I got
      married.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the Candidate, still smiling, &ldquo;what do you say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I say sure!&rdquo; replied Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was almost beside himself with awe, at this unbelieveable strange
      fortune, this real comradeship with the hero of his dreams. To Jimmie this
      man had been a disembodied intelligence, a dispenser of proletarian
      inspiration, a supernatural being who went about the country standing upon
      platforms and swaying the souls of multitudes. It had never occurred to
      Jimmie that he might have a bare body, and might enjoy splashing about in
      cool water like a boy playing &ldquo;hookey&rdquo; from school. The saying is that
      familiarity breeds contempt, but for Jimmie it bred rapture.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They walked home again, more slowly. The Candidate asked Jimmie about his
      life, and Jimmie told the story of a Socialist&mdash;not one of the
      leaders, the &ldquo;intellectuals&rdquo;, but of the &ldquo;rank and file&rdquo;. Jimmie's father
      was a working man out of a job, who had left his family before Jimmie had
      joined it; Jimmie's mother had died three years later, so he did not
      remember her, nor could he recall a word of the foreign language he had
      spoken at home, nor did he even know what the language was. He had been
      taken in charge by the city, and farmed out to a negro woman who had eight
      miserable starvelings under her care, feeding them on gruel and water, and
      not even giving them a blanket in winter. You might not think that
      possible&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know America,&rdquo; put in the Candidate.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie went on. At nine he had been boarded with a woodsaw man, who worked
      him sixteen hours a day and beat him in addition; so Jimmie had skipped
      out, and for ten years had lived the life of a street waif in the cities
      and a hobo on the road. He had learned a bit about machinery, helping in a
      garage, and then, in a rush-time, he had got a job in the Empire Machine
      Shops. He had stayed in Leesville, because he had got married; he had met
      his wife in a brothel, and she had wanted to quit the life, and they had
      taken a chance together.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't tell that to everybody,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;You know&mdash;they
      mightn't understand. But I don't mind you knowin'.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; replied the Candidate, and put his hand on Jimmie's shoulder.
      &ldquo;Tell me how you became a Socialist.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was nothing special about that, was the answer. There had been a
      fellow in the shop who was always &ldquo;chewing the rag&rdquo;; Jimmie had laughed at
      him&mdash;for his life had made him suspicious of everybody, and if there
      was any sort of politician, it was just another scheme of somebody to wear
      a white collar and live off the workers. But the fellow had kept pegging
      away; and once Jimmie had been laid off for a couple of months, and the
      family had near starved, and that had given him time to think, and also
      the inclination. The fellow had come along with some papers, and Jimmie
      had read them, and it dawned upon him that here was a movement of his
      fellow-workers to put an end to their torments.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How long ago was that?&rdquo; asked the Candidate, and Jimmie answered three
      years. &ldquo;And you haven't lost your enthusiasm?&rdquo; This with an intensity that
      surprised Jimmie. No, he answered, he was not that kind. Whatever
      happened, he would keep pegging away at the task of freeing labour. He
      would not see the New Day, perhaps, but his children would see it; and a
      fellow would work like the devil to save his children.
    </p>
    <p>
      So they came to the city; and the Candidate pressed Jimmie's arm.
      &ldquo;Comrade,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I want to tell you how much good this little trip has
      done me. I owe you a debt of gratitude.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Me?&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have given me fresh hope and courage, and at a time when I felt
      beaten. I got into town this morning, and I'd had no sleep, and I tried to
      get some in the hotel and couldn't, because of the horror that's
      happening. I wrote a dozen telegrams and sent them off, and then I was
      afraid to go back to the hotel-room, because I knew I'd only lie awake all
      afternoon. But now&mdash;I remember that our movement is rooted in the
      hearts of the people!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was trembling. But all he could say was: &ldquo;I wish I could do it
      every Sunday.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; said the Candidate.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They walked down Main Street, and some way ahead they saw a crowd
      gathered, filling the pavement beyond the kerb. &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; asked the
      Candidate, and Jimmie answered that it was the office of the Herald. There
      must be some news.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other hastened his steps; and Jimmie, striding alongside, fell silent
      again, knowing that the gigantic burden and woe of the world was falling
      upon his hero's shoulders once more. They came to the edge of the crowd,
      and saw a bulletin in front of the newspaper office. But it was too far
      away for them to read. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; they asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It says the Germans are going to march into Belgium. And they've shot a
      lot of Socialists in Germany.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;WHAT?&rdquo; And the Candidate's hand clutched Jimmie's arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's what it says.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; exclaimed the man. And he began pushing his way into the crowd,
      with Jimmie in his wake. They got to the bulletin, and stood reading the
      typewritten words&mdash;a bare announcement that more than a hundred
      leading German Socialists had been executed for efforts to prevent
      mobilization. They continued staring, until people pushing behind them
      caused them to draw back. Outside the throng they stood, the Candidate
      gazing into space, and Jimmie gazing at the Candidate, both of them dumb.
      It was a fact that they could not have been more shocked if the news had
      referred to the members of Local Leesville of the Socialist Party of
      America.
    </p>
    <p>
      The pain in the Candidate's face was so evident that Jimmie groped about
      in his head for something comforting to say. &ldquo;At least they done what they
      could,&rdquo; he whispered.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other suddenly burst forth: &ldquo;They are heroes! They have made the name
      Socialist sacred for ever!&rdquo; He rushed on, as if he were making a speech-so
      strong becomes a life-time habit. &ldquo;They have written their names at the
      very top of humanity's roll of honour! It doesn't make any difference what
      happens after this, Comrade&mdash;the movement had vindicated itself! All
      the future will be changed because of this event!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He began to walk down the street, talking more to himself than to Jimmie.
      He was borne away on the wings of his vision; and his companion was so
      thrilled that he honestly did not know where he was. Afterwards, when he
      looked back upon this scene, it remained the most wonderful event of his
      life; he told the story, sooner or later, to every Socialist he met.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presently the Candidate stopped. &ldquo;Comrade,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I must go to the
      hotel. I want to write some telegrams. You explain to the Committee&mdash;I'd
      rather not see anyone till time for the meeting. I'll find the way
      myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II. JIMMIE HIGGINS HEARS A SPEECH
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      In the Opera-house were gathered Comrade Mabel Smith and Comrade Meissner
      and Comrade Goldstein, the secretary of the Ypsels, and the three members
      of the Reception Committee&mdash;Comrade Norwood, the rising young lawyer,
      Comrade Dr. Service, and Comrade Schultze of the Carpet-weavers' Union. To
      them rushed the breathless Jimmie. &ldquo;Have you heard the news?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A hundred Socialist leaders shot in Germany!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Herr Gott!&rdquo; cried Comrade Schultze, in horror; and everyone turned
      instinctively, for they knew how this came home to him&mdash;he had a
      brother who was a Socialist editor in Leipzig, and who was liable for the
      mobilization.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where did you see it?&rdquo; cried Schultze; and Jimmie told what he knew. And
      then the clamour broke forth! Others were called from the back part of the
      hall, and came running, and there were questions and cries of dismay.
      Here, too, it was as if the crime had been committed against Local
      Leesville&mdash;so completely did they feel themselves one with the
      victims. In a town where there was a brewery, needless to say there were
      German workers a-plenty; but even had this not been so, the feeling would
      have been the same, for the Socialists of the world were one, the soul of
      the movement was its internationalism. The Candidate discovering that
      Jimmie was a Socialist had asked and received no further introduction, but
      had been instantly his friend; and so it would have been with a comrade
      from Germany, Japan, or the heart of Africa&mdash;he might not have known
      another word of English, the word &ldquo;Socialist&rdquo; would have sufficed.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a long time before they thought of any other matter; but finally
      someone referred to the trouble which had fallen upon the local&mdash;the
      Candidate had not showed up. And Jimmie exclaimed, &ldquo;Why, he's here!&rdquo; And
      instantly all turned upon him. Where? When? How?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He came this morning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And why didn't you let us know?&rdquo; It was Comrade Dr. Service of the
      Reception Committee who spoke, and with a decided sharpness in his tone.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He didn't want anybody to know,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Did he want us to go to the train and think he had failed us?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sure enough, it was after train-time! Jimmie had entirely forgotten both
      the train and the committee, and now he had not the grace to hide his
      offence. All he could do was to tell his story&mdash;how he had spent the
      afternoon walking in the country with the Candidate, and how they had gone
      swimming, and how they had got the news from the bulletin board, and how
      the Candidate had acted and what he had said. Poor Jimmie never doubted
      but that his own thrill was shared by all the others; and at the next
      regular meeting of the local, when Comrade Dr. Service sat down on some
      proposition which Jimmie had ventured to make, the little machinist had
      not the faintest idea what he had done to deserve the snub. He was lacking
      in worldly sense, he did not understand that a prosperous physician, who
      comes into the movement out of pure humanitarianism, contributing his
      prestige and his wealth to the certain detriment of his social and
      business interests, is entitled to a certain deference from the Jimmie
      Higginses, and even from a Candidate.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      You might have thought that Jimmie would be tired; but this was a day on
      which the flesh had no claims. First he helped Comrade Mabel in depositing
      upon every seat a leaflet containing a letter from the local candidate for
      Congress; then he rushed away to catch a street-car, and spent his last
      nickel to get to his home and keep his engagement with Lizzie. He would
      not make with her the mistake he had made with the Committee, you bet!
    </p>
    <p>
      He found that Lizzie had faithfully carried out her part of the bargain.
      The three babies were done up in bright-coloured calico dresses; she had
      spent the morning in washing and ironing these garments&mdash;also her own
      dress, which was half-red and half-green, and of generous, almost
      crinoline proportions. Lizzie herself was built on that scale, with broad
      hips and bosom, big brown eyes and heavy dark hair. She was a fine strong
      woman when she had shed her bedraggled house gown, and Jimmie was proud of
      his capability as a chooser of wives. It was no small feat to find a good
      woman, and to recognize her, where Jimmie had found Lizzie. She was five
      years older than he, a Bohemian, having been brought to America when she
      was a baby. Her former name&mdash;you could hardly call it her &ldquo;maiden&rdquo;
       name, considering the circumstances&mdash;was Elizabeth Huszar, which she
      pronounced so that for a long time Jimmie had understood it to be Eleeza
      Betooser.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie snatched a bite of bread and drank a cup of metallic tasting tea,
      and packed the family into the baby-carriage, and trudged the mile and
      half to the centre of the city. When they arrived, Lizzie took the biggest
      child, and Jimmie the other two, and so they trudged into the Opera-house.
      On this hot night it was like holding three stoves in your arms, and if
      the babies woke up and began to cry, the parents would have the painful
      choice of missing something, or else facing the disgusted looks of
      everyone about them. In Belgium, at the &ldquo;People's House&rdquo;, the Socialists
      maintained a creche, but the American movement had not yet discovered that
      useful institution.
    </p>
    <p>
      Already the hall was half-full, and a stream of people pouring in. Jimmie
      got himself and family seated, and then turned his eager eyes proudly to
      survey the scene. The would-be-congressman's circulars which he had placed
      in the seats were now being read by the sitters; the banners he had so
      laboriously hung were resplendent on the walls; there was a pitcher of ice
      water on the speaker's table, and a bouquet of flowers and a gavel for the
      chairman; the seats in the rear of the platform for the Liederkranz were
      neatly ranged, most of them already occupied by solid German figures
      topped by rosy German faces: to each detail of which achievements Jimmie
      had lent a hand. He had a pride of possession in this great buzzing
      throng, and in the debt they owed to him. They had no idea of it, of
      course; the fools, they thought that a meeting like this just grew out of
      nothing! They paid their ten cents&mdash;twenty-five cents for reserved
      seats&mdash;and imagined that covered everything, with perhaps even a
      rake-off for somebody! They would grumble, wondering why the Socialists
      persisted in charging admission for their meetings&mdash;why they could
      not let people in free as the Democrats and Republicans did. They would go
      to Democratic and Republican meetings, and enjoy the brass band and the
      fireworks, pyrotechnical and oratorical&mdash;never dreaming it was all a
      snare paid for by their exploiters!
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, they would learn about it to-night! Jimmie thought of the Candidate,
      and how he would impress this man and that. For Jimmie knew scores who had
      got tickets, and he peered about after this one and that, and gave them a
      happy nod from behind his barricade of babies. Then, craning his neck to
      look behind him, suddenly Jimmie gave a start. Coming down the aisle was
      Ashton Chalmers, president of the First National Bank of Leesville; and
      with him-could it be possible?&mdash;old man Granitch, owner of the huge
      Empire Machine Shops where Jimmie worked! The little machinist found
      himself shaking with excitement as these two tall forms strode past him
      down the aisle. He gave Lizzie a nudge with his elbow and whispered into
      her ear; and all around was a buzz of whispers&mdash;for, of course,
      everybody knew these two mighty men, the heads of the &ldquo;invisible
      government&rdquo; of Leesville. They had come to find out what their subjects
      were thinking! Well, they would get it straight!
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The big hall was full, and the aisles began to jam, and then the police
      closed the doors&mdash;something which Jimmie took as part of the
      universal capitalist conspiracy. The audience began to chafe; until at
      last the chairman walked out upon the stage, followed by several important
      persons who took front seats. The singers stood up, and the leader waved
      his wand, and forth came the Marseillaise: a French revolutionary hymn,
      sung in English by a German organization&mdash;there was Internationalism
      for you! With full realization of the solemnity of this world-crisis, they
      sang as if they hoped to be heard in Europe.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then rose the Chairman&mdash;Comrade Dr. Service. He was a fine, big
      figure of a man, with grey moustache and beard trimmed to a point; his
      swelling chest was covered by clean white linen and tight-fitting
      broad-cloth, and he made a most imposing chairman, reflecting credit on
      the movement. He cleared his throat, and told them that they had come that
      evening to listen to one of America's greatest orators, and that therefore
      he, the Chairman, would not make a speech; after which he proceeded to
      make a speech. He told them what a grave hour this was, and how the orator
      would tell them its meaning, after which he proceeded to tell most of the
      things which the orator would tell. This was a weakness of Comrade Dr.
      Service&mdash;but one hesitated to point it out to him, because of his
      black broad-cloth suit and his imposing appearance, and the money he had
      put up to pay for the hall.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last, however, he called on the Liederkranz again, and a quartet sang a
      German song and then an encore. And then came Comrade Gerrity, the
      hustling young insurance-agent who was organizer for the local, and whose
      task it was to make a &ldquo;collection speech.&rdquo; He had humorous ways of
      extracting money&mdash;&ldquo;Here I am again!&rdquo; he began, and everybody smiled,
      knowing his bag of tricks. While he was telling his newest funny story,
      Jimmie was unloading the littlest infant into Lizzie's spare arm, and
      laying the other on the seat with its head against her knee, and getting
      himself out into the aisle, hat in hand and ready for business; and as
      soon as the organizer ceased and the Liederkranz resumed, Jimmie set to
      work gathering the coin. His territory was the reserved-seat section up in
      front, where sat the two mighty magnates. Jimmie's knees went weak, but he
      did his duty, and was tickled to see each of the pair drop a coin into the
      hat, to be used in overthrowing their power in Leesville!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The hats were taken to the box-office and emptied, and the
      collection-takers and the Liederkranz singers resumed their seats. An
      expectant hush fell&mdash;and then at last there strode out on the stage
      the Candidate. What a storm broke out! Men cheered and clapped and
      shouted. He took his seat modestly; but as the noise continued, he was
      justified in assuming that it was meant for him, and he rose and bowed; as
      it still continued, he bowed again, and then again. It had been the
      expectation of Comrade Dr. Service to come forward and say that, of
      course, it was not necessary for anyone to introduce the speaker of the
      evening; but the audience, as if it had read the worthy doctor's
      intention, kept on applauding, until the Candidate himself advanced, and
      raised his hand, and began his speech.
    </p>
    <p>
      He did not stop for any oratorical preliminaries. This, he said&mdash;and
      his voice trembled with emotion&mdash;was the solemnest hour that men had
      ever faced on earth. That day on the bulletin-board of their local
      newspaper he had read tidings which had moved him as he had never been
      moved in his life, which had almost deprived him of the power to walk upon
      a stage and address an audience. Perhaps they had not heard the news; he
      told it to them, and there sprang from the audience a cry of indignation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, they might well protest, said the speaker; nowhere on all the bloody
      pages of history could you find a crime more revolting than this! The
      masters of Europe had gone mad in their lust for power; they had called
      down the vengeance of mankind upon their crowned and coronetted heads.
      Here to-night he would tell them&mdash;and the speaker's hoarse and
      raucous voice mounted to a shout of rage&mdash;he would tell them that in
      signing the death-warrant of those heroic martyrs, they had sealed the
      doom of their own order, they had torn out the foundation-stones from the
      structure of capitalist society! The speaker's voice seemed to lift the
      audience from its seats, and the last words of the sentence were drowned
      in a tumult of applause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Silence fell again, and the man went on. He had peculiar mannerisms on the
      platform. His lanky form was never still for an instant. He hurried from
      one end of the stage to the other; he would crouch and bend as if he were
      going to spring upon the audience, a long, skinny finger would be shaken
      before their faces, or pointed as if to drive his words into their hearts.
      His speech was a torrent of epigram, sarcasm, invective. He was bitter; if
      you knew nothing about the man or his cause, you would find this repellent
      and shocking. You had to know what his life had been&mdash;an unceasing
      conflict with oppression; he had got his Socialist education in jail,
      where he had been sent for trying to organize the wage-slaves of a
      gigantic corporation. His rage was the rage of a tender-hearted poet, a
      lover of children and of Nature, driven mad by the sight of torment
      wantonly inflicted. And if ever he had seemed to you an extremist, too
      angry to be excused, here to-night he had his vindication, here to-night
      you saw him as a prophet. For now the master-class had torn the mask from
      its face, and revealed to the whole world what were its moral standards!
      At last men saw their rulers face to face!
    </p>
    <p>
      They have plunged mankind into a pit of lunacy. &ldquo;They call it war,&rdquo; cried
      the speaker; &ldquo;but I call it murder.&rdquo; And he went on to picture to them
      what was happening in Europe at that hour&mdash;he brought the awful
      nightmare before their eyes, he showed them homes blown to pieces, cities
      given to the flames, the bodies of men pierced by bullets or torn to
      fragments by shells. He pictured a bayonet plunged into the abdomen of a
      man; he made you see the ghastly deed, and feel its shuddering wickedness.
      Men and women and children sat spellbound; and for once no man could say
      aloud or feel in his heart that the pictures of a Socialist agitator were
      overdrawn&mdash;no, not even Ashton Chalmers, president of the First
      National Bank of Leesville, or old Abel Granitch, proprietor of the Empire
      Machine Shops!
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      And what was the cause of this blackest of calamities? The speaker went on
      to show that the determining motive was not racial jealousy, but
      commercial greed. The fountain-head of the war was world-capitalism,
      clamouring for markets, seeking to get rid of its surplus products, to
      keep busy its hordes of wage-slaves at home. He analysed the various
      factors; and now, with the shadow of the European storm over their heads&mdash;now
      at last men and women would listen, they would realize that the matter
      concerned them. He warned them&mdash;let them not think that they were
      safe from the hoofs of this war-monster, just because they were three
      thousand miles away! Capitalism was a world phenomenon, and all the forces
      of parasitism and exploitation which had swept Europe into this tragedy
      were active here in America. The money-masters, the profit-seekers, would
      leap to take advantage of the collapse over the seas; there would be
      jealousies, disputes&mdash;let the audience understand, once for all, that
      if world-capitalism did not make this a world-war, it would be only
      because the workers of America took warning, and made their preparations
      to frustrate the conspiracy.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was what he had come for, this was the heart of his message. Many of
      those who listened were refugees from the old world, having fled its
      oppressions and enslavements. He pleaded with them now, as a man whose
      heart was torn by more suffering than he could bear&mdash;let there be one
      part of the fair garden of earth into which the demons of destruction
      might not break their way! Let them take warning in time, let them
      organize and establish their own machinery of information and propaganda&mdash;so
      that when the crisis came, when the money-masters of America sounded the
      war-drums, there might be&mdash;not the destruction and desolation which
      these masters willed, but the joy and freedom of the Co-operative
      Commonwealth!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How many years we Socialists have warned you!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;But you have
      doubted us, you have believed what your exploiters have told you! And now,
      in this hour of crisis, you look at Europe and discover who are the real
      friends of humanity, of civilization. What voice comes over the seas,
      protesting against war? The Socialist voice, and the Socialist voice
      alone! And to-night, once more, you hear it in this hall! You men and
      women of America, and you exiles from all corners of the world, make this
      pledge with me&mdash;make it now, before it is too late, and stand by it
      when the hour of crisis comes! Swear it by the blood of our martyred
      heroes, those slaughtered German Socialists&mdash;swear that, come what
      will, and when and how it will, that no power on earth or in hell beneath
      the earth shall draw you into this fratricidal war! Make this resolution,
      send this message to all the nations of the earth&mdash;that the men of
      all nations and all races are your brothers, and that never will you
      consent to shed their blood. If the money-masters and the exploiters want
      war, let them have it, but let it be among themselves! Let them take the
      bombs and shells they have made and go out against one another! Let them
      blow their own class to pieces&mdash;but let them not seek to lure the
      working-people into their quarrels!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Again and again, in answer to such exhortations, the audience broke out
      into shouts of applause. Men raised their hands in solemn pledge; and the
      Socialists among them went home from the meeting with a new gravity in
      their faces, a new consecration in their hearts. They had made a vow, and
      they would keep it&mdash;yes, even though it meant sharing the fate of
      their heroic German comrades!
    </p>
    <p>
      &mdash;And then in the morning they opened their papers, looking eagerly
      for more details about the fate of the heroic German comrades, and they
      found none. Day after day, morning and afternoon, they looked for more
      details, and found none. On the contrary, to their unutterable
      bewilderment, they learned that the leaders of the German Social-Democracy
      had voted for the war-budgets, and that the rank and file of the movement
      were hammering out the goose-step on the roads of Belgium and France! They
      could not bring themselves to believe it; even yet they have not brought
      themselves to realize that the story which thrilled them so on that fatal
      Sunday afternoon was only a cunning lie sent out by the German war-lords,
      in the hope of causing the Socialists of Belgium and France and England to
      revolt, and so give the victory to Germany!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III. JIMMIE HIGGINS DEBATES THE ISSUE
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The grey flood of frightfulness rolled over Belgium; and every morning,
      and again in the afternoon, the front page of the Leesville newspaper was
      like the explosion of a bomb. Twenty-five thousand Germans killed in one
      assault on Liege; a quarter of a million Russians massacred or drowned in
      the swamps of the Masurian Lakes; so it went, until the minds of men
      reeled. They saw empires and civilizations crumbling before their eyes,
      all those certainties upon which their lives had been built vanishing as a
      mist at sunrise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hitherto, Jimmie Higgins had always refused to take a daily paper. No
      capitalist lies for him; he would save his pennies for the Socialist
      weeklies! But now he had to have the news, and tired as he was after the
      day's work, he would sit on his front porch with his ragged feet against a
      post, spelling out the despatches. Then he would stroll down to the
      cigar-stand of Comrade Stankewitz, a wizened-up little Roumanian Jew who
      had lived in Europe, and had a map, and would show Jimmie which was
      Russia, and why Germany marched across Belgium, and why England had to
      interfere. It was good to have a friend who was a man of travel and a
      linguist&mdash;especially when the fighting became centred about places
      such as Przemysl and Przasnyaz!
    </p>
    <p>
      Then every Friday night would be the meeting of the local. Jimmie would be
      the first to arrive, eager to hear every word the better informed comrades
      had to say, and thus to complete the education which Society had so
      cruelly neglected.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before the war was many weeks old, Jimmie's head was in a state of utter
      bewilderment; never would he have thought it possible for men to hold so
      many conflicting opinions, and to hold them with such passionate
      intensity! It seemed as if the world-conflict were being fought out in
      miniature in Leesville.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the third meeting after the war began, the prosperous Dr. Service
      arose, and in his impressive oratorical voice moved that the local should
      send a telegram to the National Executive Committee of the party,
      requesting it to protest against the invasion of Belgium; also a telegram
      to the President of the United States, requesting him to take the same
      action. And then what pandemonium broke loose! Comrade Schneider, the
      brewery-worker, demanded to know whether Local Leesville had ever
      requested the National Executive Committee to protest against the invasion
      of Ireland. Had the Socialist party ever requested the President of the
      United States to protect Egypt and India from oppression?
    </p>
    <p>
      Comrade Dr. Service, who had remained on his feet, began a passionate
      denunciation of the outrages perpetrated by the German army in Belgium; at
      which Comrade Schneider's florid face turned purple. He demanded whether
      all men did not know that France had first invaded Belgium, and that the
      Belgians had welcomed the French? Weren't all the Belgian forts turned
      toward Germany? Of course! answered the doctor. But what of that? Was it a
      crime for a man to know who was going to attack him?
    </p>
    <p>
      The purple-faced brewer, without heeding this question, demanded: Did not
      all the world know that the French had begun the war with an aeroplane
      bombardment of the German cities? The Comrade Doctor, his face also
      purpling, replied that all the world knew this for a tale sent out by the
      German propaganda machine. HOW did all the world know it? roared
      Schneider. By a cable-censorship controlled by British gold?
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was much exicted by this dispute. The only trouble was that he
      found himself in agreement with both sides, and with an impulse to applaud
      both sides. And also he applauded the next speaker, young Emil Forster, a
      pale, slender, and fair-haired youth, a designer in the carpet-factory.
      Emil was one who seldom raised his voice in the meetings, but when he did,
      he was heard with attention, for he was a student and a thinker; he played
      the flute, and his father, also a member of the local, played the
      clarinet, so the pair were invaluable on &ldquo;social evenings&rdquo;. In his gentle,
      dispassionate voice he explained how it was not easy for people in America
      to understand the dilemma of the German Socialists in the present crisis.
      We must remember that the Germans were fighting, not merely England and
      France, but Russia; and Russia was a huge, half-civilized land, under
      perhaps the most cruel government in the world. How would Americans feel
      if up in Canada there were three hundred millions of people, ignorant,
      enslaved, and being drilled in huge armies?
    </p>
    <p>
      All right, retorted Dr. Service. But then why did not the Germans fight
      Russia, and let France and Belgium alone?
    </p>
    <p>
      Because, answered Emil, the French would not permit that. We in America
      thought of France as a republic, but we must remember that it was a
      capitalist republic, a nation ruled by bankers; and these bankers had
      formed an alliance with Russia, the sole possible aim of which was the
      destruction of Germany. France had loaned something like four billions of
      dollars to Russia.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then Schneider leaped up. Yes, and it was that money which had
      provided the cannon and shells that were now being used in laying waste
      East Prussia, the land of Schneider's birth!
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The temper of both sides was rising higher and higher, and the neutrals
      made efforts to calm the dispute. Comrade Stankewitz, Jimmie's cigar-store
      friend, cried out in his shrill eager voice: Vy did we vant to git mixed
      up vit them European fights? Didn't we know vat bankers and capitalists
      vere? Vat difference did it make to any vorking man vether he vas robbed
      from Paris or Berlin? &ldquo;Sure, I know,&rdquo; said Stankewitz, &ldquo;I vorked in both
      them cities, and I vas every bit so hungry under Rothschild as I vas under
      the Kaiser.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then Comrade Gerrity, organizer of the local, took his turn. Whatever they
      did, said Gerrity, they must keep their neutrality in this war; the one
      hope of the world just now was in the Socialist movement&mdash;that it
      would preserve the international spirit, and point a war-torn world back
      to peace. Especially just now in Local Leesville they must keep their
      heads, for they were beginning the most important move in their history,
      the establishment of a weekly paper. Nothing must get in the way of that!
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, said Comrade Service, but they would have to determine the policy of
      the paper, would they not? Were they going to protest against injustice at
      home, and pay no attention to the most flagrant act of international
      injustice in the history of the world? Was a working man's paper to say
      nothing against the enslavement of the working men of Europe by the Kaiser
      and his militarist crew? He, Dr. Service, would wash his hands of such a
      paper.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then the members of the local gazed at one another in dismay. Every
      man and woman of them knew that the prosperous doctor had headed the list
      of subscribers for the soon-to-be-born Leesville Worker with the sum of
      five hundred dollars. The thought of losing this munificent contribution
      brought consternation even to the Germans!
    </p>
    <p>
      But there was one member of the local whom no menace ever daunted. He rose
      up now&mdash;lean, sallow almost to greenness, with black hair falling
      into his eyes, and a cough that racked him at every other sentence. Bill
      Murray was his name; &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;, the papers called him. The red card he
      carried had been initialled by the secretaires of some thirty locals all
      over the country. He had lost a couple of toes under a tractor-plough in
      Kansas, and half a hand in a tin-plate mill in Alleghany County; he had
      been clubbed insensible in a strike in Chicago, and tarred and feathered
      in a free speech fight in San Diego. And now he told the members of Local
      Leesville what he thought of those tea-party revolutionists who pandered
      to the respectability of a church-ridden community. &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; had
      watched the discussions over &ldquo;Section Six&rdquo;, the provision in the
      constitution of the party against sabotage and violence; the very same
      persons who had been enthusiastic for that bit of middle-class fakery were
      now trying to line up the local for the defence of the British sea-power!
      What the hell difference did it make to any working man whether or not the
      Kaiser got a railroad to Bagdad? Of course, if a man had been to school in
      Britain, and had a British wife, and felt himself a British gentleman&mdash;you
      could feel the shudder that went through the gathering, for everyone knew
      that this was Dr. Service&mdash;all right, let that man take the first
      ship across the ocean and enlist; but let him not try to turn an American
      Socialist local into a recruiting-agency for British landlords and
      aristocrats.
    </p>
    <p>
      This brought to his feet Comrade Norwood, the young lawyer who had helped
      to put through &ldquo;Section Six&rdquo; in the National Convention of the party. If
      there were people so keen against this Section, why couldn't they get out
      of the party and form an organization of their own?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; answered Murray, &ldquo;we prefer sabotage to striking!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In other words,&rdquo; continued Norwood, &ldquo;you stay in the local, and by a
      campaign of sneering and personalities you drive your opponents out!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is the first meeting for some months that we have had the pleasure
      of seeing Comrade Norwood,&rdquo; said &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;, with venomous placidity.
      &ldquo;Perhaps he knew that we were to be asked to raise a regiment for
      Kitchener!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And then again Comrade Stankewitz was on his feet, with distress in his
      thin, eager face. &ldquo;Comrades, all this vill not get us anyvere! There is
      but vun question ve have to answer, are ve internationalists, or are ve
      not?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It seems to me,&rdquo; continued Norwood, &ldquo;the question is, are we
      anti-nationalists?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right!&rdquo; shrilled the little Jew. &ldquo;I vill leave it so&mdash;I am an
      anti-nationalist! Such must all Socialists be!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I don't understand it so,&rdquo; declared the young lawyer. &ldquo;It is easy for
      some who belong to a race which has not had a country for two thousand
      years&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And who's dealing in personalities now?&rdquo; sneered &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      So matters went in Local Leesville. The upshot of the debate was that
      Comrade Dr. Service declared that he washed his hands of the Socialist
      Party from that time on. And the Comrade Doctor buttoned his handsome
      black coat over his stately chest and stalked out of the room. The greater
      part of the remainder of that meeting was devoted to a discussion of him
      and his personality and his influence in the local. He was no Socialist at
      all, declared Schneider, he was an English aristocrat, or the next thing
      to it&mdash;his wife had two brothers in the British Expeditionary Force,
      and a nephew already enlisted in the Territorials, and a visiting cousin
      on the point of setting out for Canada, as the quickest way of getting
      into the mix-up. But in spite of all these damaging circumstances, the
      local was not disposed to give up its most generous supporter, and Comrade
      Gerrity, the organizer, and Comrade Goldstein of the Ypsels, were
      constituted a committee to go and plead with him and try to bring him back
      into the fold.
    </p>
    <p>
      As for Jimmie Higgins, his problem was not so complicated. He had no
      relatives anywhere that he knew of; and if he had any &ldquo;country&rdquo;, the
      country had failed to make him aware of the fact. The first thing the
      &ldquo;country&rdquo; had done for him was to put him into the hands of a negro woman
      who fed him gruel and water and gave him no blanket in winter. To Jimmie
      this country was an aggregation of owners and bosses, who made you sweat
      hard for your wages, and sent the police to club you if you made any kick.
      A soldier Jimmie thought of as a fellow who came to help the police when
      they got hard pushed. This soldier walked with his chest out and his nose
      in the air, and Jimmie referred to him as a &ldquo;tin willie&rdquo;, and summed him
      up as a traitor to the working-class.
    </p>
    <p>
      And so it was easy for our little machinist to agree with the Roumanian
      Jewish cigar-seller in calling himself an &ldquo;anti-nationalist&rdquo;. It was easy
      for him to laugh and applaud when &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; demanded what the hell
      difference it made to any working man whether or not the Kaiser got a
      railroad to Bagdad. He did not thrill in the least over the story of the
      British Army falling back step by step across France, and holding ten
      times their number of invaders. The papers called this &ldquo;heroism&rdquo;; but to
      Jimmie it was a lot of poor fools who had had a flag waved in their eyes,
      and had sold themselves for a shilling to the landlords of their country.
      In one of the Socialist papers that Jimmie read, there appeared every week
      a series of comic pictures in which the working man was figured as a
      guileless fool by the name of &ldquo;Henry Dubb&rdquo;. Poor Henry always believed
      what he was told, and at the end of each adventure he got a thump on the
      top of his nut which caused stars to sprout over the page. And of the many
      adventures of Henry Dubb, the most absurd were when he got himself into a
      uniform. Jimmie would cut these pictures out and pass them round in the
      shop, and among his neighbours in the row of tenement-shacks where he
      lived.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor did it make much difference in Jimmie's feelings when he read of
      German atrocities. To begin with, he did not believe in them; they were
      just a part of the poison-gas of war. When men were willing to stab one
      another with bayonets, and to blow one another to pieces with bombs, they
      would be willing to lie about one another, you might be sure; the
      governments would lie deliberately, as one of the ways of making the
      soldiers fight harder. What? argued Jimmie: tell him that Germans were a
      lot of savages? When he lived in a city with hundreds of them, and met
      them all the time at the local?
    </p>
    <p>
      Here, for instance, was the Forster family; where would you find a kinder
      lot of people? They were much above Jimmie in social standing&mdash;they
      owned their own house and had whole shelves full of books, and a pile of
      music as high as yourself; but recently Jimmie had stopped on a Socialist
      errand, and they had invited him in to supper, and there was a thin, worn,
      sweet-faced little woman, and four growing daughters&mdash;nice, gentle,
      quiet girls&mdash;and two sons younger than Emil; they had a pot-roast of
      beef, and a big dish of steaming potatoes, and another of sauerkraut, and
      some queer pudding that Jimmie had never heard of; and then they had music&mdash;they
      were fairly dippy on music, that family, they would play all night if you
      would listen, old Hermann Forster with his stout, black-bearded face
      turned up as if he were seeing Heaven. And you wanted Jimmie to believe
      that a man like that would carry a baby on a bayonet, or rape a girl and
      then cut off her hands!
    </p>
    <p>
      Or there was Comrade Meissner, a neighbour of Jimmie's, a friendly little
      chatter-box of a man who was foreman-in-charge of a dozen women from as
      many different races of the earth, packing bottles in the glass-works. The
      tears would come into Meissner's pale blue eyes when he told how he was
      made to drive these women, sick, or in the family way, or whatever it
      might be. And remember, it was an American superintendent and an American
      owner who gave Meissner his orders&mdash;not a German! The little man
      could not quit his job, because he had a brood of children and a wife with
      something the matter with her&mdash;nobody could tell what it was, but she
      took all kinds of patent medicines, which kept the family poor. Sometimes
      Lizzie Higgins would go over to see her, and the two would sit and
      exchange ideas about ailments and the prices of food; and meantime
      Meissner would come over to where Jimmie was minding the Jimmie babies,
      and the two would puff their cobs and discuss the disputes between the
      &ldquo;politicians&rdquo; and the &ldquo;direct actionists&rdquo; in the local. And you wanted
      Jimmie to believe that men like Meissner were standing old Belgian women
      against the walls of churches and shooting them full of bullets!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      But as the weeks passed, the evidence of atrocities began to pile in, and
      so Jimmie Higgins was driven to a second line of defence. Well, maybe so,
      but then all the armies were alike. Somebody told Jimmie the saying of a
      famous general, that war was hell; and Jimmie took to this&mdash;it was
      exactly what he wanted to believe! War was a return to savagery, and the
      worse it became, the better Jimmie's argument went. He was not interested
      in men's efforts to improve war, by agreeing that they would kill in this
      way but not in that way, they would kill this kind of people but not that
      kind.
    </p>
    <p>
      These ideas Jimmie got from his fellow members in the local, and from the
      Socialist papers which came each week and from the many speakers he heard.
      These speakers were men and women of burning sincerity and with a definite
      and entirely logical point of view. Whether they talked about war, crime,
      prostitution, political corruption, or any other social evil, what they
      wanted was to tear down the old ramshackle structure, and to put in its
      place something new and intelligent. You might possibly bring them to
      admit slight differences between capitalist governments but when it came
      to a practical issue, to an action you found that to these people all
      governments were alike&mdash;and never so much alike as in war-time!
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor was there ever such need for Socialist protest! Very quickly it became
      apparent that it was not going to be an easy matter for America to keep
      out of this world-vortex. Because American working men did not get a
      living wage, and could not buy what they produced, there was a surplus
      product which had to be sold abroad; so the business of American
      manufacturers depended upon foreign markets&mdash;and here suddenly were
      all the principal trading nations of the world plunging in to buy all the
      American products they could, and to keep their enemies from buying any at
      all.
    </p>
    <p>
      A woman speaker came to Leesville a shrewd little body with a sharp
      tongue, who had these disputes figured out, and gave them in dialogue, as
      in a play. Kaiser Bill says, &ldquo;I want cotton&rdquo; John Bull says, &ldquo;You shan't
      have it.&rdquo; Uncle Sam says, &ldquo;But he has a right to have it. Get out of the
      way, John Bull.&rdquo; But John Bull says, &ldquo;I will hold up your ships and take
      them into my ports.&rdquo; Uncle Sam says, &ldquo;No, no! Don't do that!&rdquo; But John
      Bull does it. And then the Kaiser says, &ldquo;What sort of a fellow are you to
      let John Bull steal your ships? Are you a coward, or are you secretly a
      friend of this old villain?&rdquo; Uncle Sam says, &ldquo;John Bull, give me my German
      mail and my German newspapers, at least. But John Bull answers, &ldquo;You've
      got a lot of German spies in your country&mdash;that's why I can't let you
      have your mail. You can't have German papers because the Kaiser fills them
      full of lies about me.&rdquo; And the Kaiser says, &ldquo;If John Bull won't let me
      have my cotton and my meat and all the rest of it, why don't you stop
      sending anything to him?&rdquo; He waits a while, and then he says, &ldquo;If you
      won't stop sending things to that old villain, I'll sink the ships, that's
      all.&rdquo; And Uncle Sam cries, &ldquo;But that's against the law!&rdquo; &ldquo;Whose law?&rdquo; says
      the Kaiser. &ldquo;What sort of a law is it that works only one way?&rdquo; &ldquo;But there
      are Americans on those ships!&rdquo; cries Uncle Sam. &ldquo;Well, keep them off the
      ships!&rdquo; answers the Kaiser. &ldquo;Keep them off till John Bull obeys the law.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Put in this way the situation was easy for any Jimmie Higgins to
      understand; and month by month, as the debate continued, Jimmie's own
      point of view became clearer. He was not interested in sending cotton to
      England, and still less in sending meat. He thought he was lucky if he had
      a bit of meat twice a week himself, and it was plain enough to him that if
      the fellows who owned the meat were not allowed to ship it abroad, they
      might sell it in America at a price that a working man could pay. Nor was
      that just greediness on Jimmie's part; he was perfectly willing to go
      without meat where an ideal was involved&mdash;look at the time and money
      and energy he gave to Socialism! The point was that by sending goods to
      Europe, you helped to keep up the fighting; whereas, if you quit, the
      fools must come to their senses. So the Jimmie Higginses worked out their
      campaign-slogan: &ldquo;Starve the War and Feed America!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      In the third month of the war, disturbing rumours began to run about
      Leesville. Old Abel Granitch had taken on a contract with the Belgian
      government, and the Empire Machine Shops were going to make shells.
      Nothing appeared about this in the local papers, but everybody claimed to
      have first-hand knowledge, and although no two people told the same story,
      there must be some basis of truth in them all. And then, one day, to
      Jimmie's consternation, he heard from Lizzie that the agent of the
      landlord had called and served notice that they had three days to vacate
      the premises. Old man Granitch had bought the land, and the Shops were to
      build out that way. Jimmie could hardly credit his ears, for he was six
      city blocks from the nearest part of the Shops; but it was true, so
      everyone declared; all that land had been bought up, and half a thousand
      families, children and old people, and sick people, men on their
      death-beds and women in child-birth&mdash;all had three days in which to
      move themselves to new quarters.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let anyone imagine the confusion, the babel of tongues, the women on their
      porches calling to one another, asking and giving advice! The
      denunciations and the scoldings and the threats to resort to law! The
      raids upon landlords, and how the prices went up! Jimmie hurried off to
      Comrade Meissner, who had bought a house and was paying instalments on it;
      Meissner, being a Socialist, did not try to fleece him, but was glad to
      have help in making his payments. There were no partitions in the garret
      which Jimmie rented, but they would hang curtains and make do somehow, and
      Lizzie would use Mrs. Meissner's stove until they could get something
      fixed upstairs. And then to the corner grocery, to borrow a hand-cart and
      get started at moving the furniture; for to-morrow everybody would be
      moving, and you would not be able to get anything on wheels for love or
      money. Until after midnight Jimmie and Meissner worked at transporting
      babies and bedding and saucepans and chairs and chicken-coops piled on the
      hand-cart.
    </p>
    <p>
      And next morning at the shop, more excitement! It was four years now that
      Jimmie had been in the employ of old man Granitch, and in all that time he
      had done but one thing; standing in a vast room amid a confusion of
      whirling belts and wheels, a roar and screech and grumble and whirl that
      completely annulled one of the five senses. There came in front of him,
      mechanically propelled, a tray full of small oblong blocks of steel, which
      he fed, one with each hand, into two places in a machine; the machine took
      these blocks, and rounded off one end, and ground the rest a little
      smaller, and put a thread on it, and it dropped into a tray on the other
      side, a bolt. Because Jimmie had to watch the machine, and keep the
      oil-cups full, his was classed as semi-skilled labour, and was paid
      nineteen and a half cents an hour. Some time ago an expert had studied the
      process, and figured that with labour at that price it was one-eighth of a
      cent per hour cheaper to have the work done by hand than to instal a
      machine to do it; and so for four years Jimmie had his job, standing on
      one spot from seven to twelve, and again from twelve-thirty to six, and
      carrying home every Saturday night the sum of twelve dollars and
      twenty-nine cents. You might have thought that the huge machine-works
      would have made it twelve-thirty for good measure; but if so, you do not
      understand large scale production.
    </p>
    <p>
      And now, all of an instant and without warning, Jimmie's precisely ordered
      and habitual world came to an end. He was at his post when the whistle
      blew, but the machinery did not move. And presently came the Irish foreman
      with the curt announcement that the machinery would never move again, at
      least not on that spot; it was to be cleared out of the way, and new
      machinery set up, and they were to fall to forthwith with wrenches and
      hammers and crow-bars to make a new world!
    </p>
    <p>
      So for a week they did; and meantime, every night as he went home, Jimmie
      saw people's homes being wrecked&mdash;roofs falling in clouds of dust,
      and gangs of men loading the debris into huge motor-trucks. Before long
      they had got acetylene torches, and were working all night-gangs of
      labourers who lived in tents on vacant lots outside the city and kept
      their canvas cots warm with double shifts of sleepers. Jimmie Higgins
      realized the dreadful truth, that in spite of all the agitation of
      Socialists, the war had actually come to Leesville!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV. JIMMIE HIGGINS STRIKES IT RICH
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It was some time before Jimmie understood the nature of the new machinery
      he was helping to set up. It was nobody's business to explain, for he was
      only a pair of hands and a strong back; he was not supposed to be a brain&mdash;while
      as for a soul or a conscience, nobody was supposed to be that. Russian
      agents had come to Leesville with seventeen millions of the money which
      the Paris bankers had put up; and so overnight whole blocks of homes were
      swept out of existence, and a huge new steel structure was rising, and on
      the spot where for four years Jimmie had made certain motions of the
      hands, they were preparing to manufacture new machinery for the quantity
      production of shell-casings.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Jimmie had definitely learned what was in process, he was brought
      face to face with a grave moral problem. Could he, as an international
      Socialist, spend his time making shells to kill his German comrades? Could
      he spend his time making the machinery to make the shells? Would he take
      the bribe of old man Granitch, a working man's share of the hideous loot&mdash;an
      increase of four cents an hour, with the prospect of another four when the
      works got started? Jimmie had to meet this issue, just when it happened
      that one of his babies was sick, and he was cudgelling his head to think
      how he could ever squeeze out of his scanty wage the money to pay the
      doctor!
    </p>
    <p>
      The answer was easy to Comrade Schneider, the stout and sturdy brewer, who
      stood up in the local and spoke with bitter scorn of those Socialists who
      stayed on in the pay of that old hell-devil, Granitch. Schneider wanted a
      strike in the Empire Machine Shops, and he wanted it that very night! But
      then rose Comrade Mabel Smith, whose brother was a bookkeeper for the
      concern. It was all very well for Schneider to talk, but suppose someone
      were to demand that the brewery-workers should strike and refuse to make
      beer for munition-workers? That was a mere quibble, argued Schneider; but
      the other denied this, declaring that it was an illustration of what the
      worker was up against, with no control of his own destiny, no voice as to
      what use should be made of his product. A man might say that he would have
      nothing to do with munition-work, and go out into the fields as a farmer&mdash;to
      raise grain, to be shipped to the armies! The solidarity of capitalist
      society was such that nowhere could a man find work that would not in some
      way be helping to kill his fellow-workers in other lands.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins talked solemnly to Lizzie of moving to Hubbardtown&mdash;tempted
      thereto by the signs he saw in an agency which had been set up in a vacant
      store on Main Street. The Hubbard Engine Company was trying to steal old
      man Granitch's workers, and was offering thirty-two cents an hour for
      semi-skilled labour! Jimmie made inquiry and learned that the company was
      extending its plant for gas-engines; for what purpose was not told, but
      men suspected that the engines were to go into motor-boats and be used for
      the sinking of submarines. So Jimmie decided that Comrade Mabel Smith was
      right; he might as well stay where he was. He would take as much money as
      he could get and use his new-found prosperity to make trouble for the
      war-profiteers. It was the first time in his life that Jimmie had ever
      been free from money-fear. He could now get a job anywhere at good wages,
      and so he did not care a hang what the boss might say. He would talk to
      his fellow-workers, and explain the war to them; a war of the capitalists
      at present, but destined perhaps to turn into another kind of war, which
      the capitalists would not find to their taste!
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It was wonderful, incredible, the thing which had befallen Leesville. Full
      of hatred for the system as Jimmie Higgins was, he could not but be
      thrilled by what he saw. Thousands of men pouring into the once
      commonplace little city&mdash;men of a score of races and creeds, men old
      and young, white and black&mdash;even a few yellow ones! It was a boom
      like San Francisco in '49; the money which the Paris bankers had paid to
      the Russian government, and which the Russian government had paid to old
      man Granitch, spread out in a golden flood over the city. The speculators
      raised the price of land, the house-owners raised rents, the hotels
      doubled their prices, and even so, had to put people to bed on pool
      tables! Even Tom Callahan of the &ldquo;Buffeteria&rdquo;' had to hire two assistants,
      and build an extension, and move his kitchen into the back yard.
    </p>
    <p>
      At night the hordes of strangers roamed the streets, and Lipsky's &ldquo;Picture
      Palace&rdquo; was packed to the doors, and the &ldquo;Bon Marche Shoe Stores&rdquo; had a
      new bankruptcy sale every week, and the swinging doors of the saloons were
      never still for hours on end. Of course, where so many men were gathered,
      there came women&mdash;swarms of women&mdash;of as many races as the men.
      Leesville had some two score churches, and had kept hitherto a careful
      pretence of decency; but now all barriers went down, the police-force of
      the city was overwhelmed by the new population&mdash;or was it by the
      golden flood from Paris by way of Russia? Anyway, you saw sights on Main
      Street which confirmed your distrust of war.
    </p>
    <p>
      Never had there been such an opportunity for Socialist propaganda! All
      these hordes of men, collected from the ends of the earth, torn loose from
      home ties, from religion, from old habits of every sort, thrown together
      promiscuously, living in any old way, ready for any old thing that might
      come along! In former days these men had taken what was handed out to them
      by their newspaper editors and preachers and politicians; they had engaged
      in commonplace and respectable activities, had lived tame and
      unadventurous lives. But now they were making munitions; and you might say
      what you pleased, but there was a certain psychological condition
      incidental to the making of munitions. An employer could look pious and
      talk about law and order, so long as he was setting his men to hoeing
      weeds or shingling roofs or grading track; but what could he say to his
      men when he was making shells to be used in blowing men to pieces?
    </p>
    <p>
      So came the Socialist and the Anarchist and the Syndicalist and the
      Industrial Unionist. Look at these masters, look at this civilization they
      have produced! In the world's oldest centres of culture ten or twenty
      millions of wage-slaves have been hurled together&mdash;and then the
      Socialist or Anarchist or Syndicalist or Industrial Unionist would
      describe in detail the bloody and bestial operations which these ten or
      twenty millions of men were performing. And each day's papers would bring
      fresh details for them to cite&mdash;famine and pestilence, fire and
      slaughter, poison gas, incendiary bombs, torpedoed passenger-ships. Look
      at these pious hypocrites, the masters, with their refinement, their
      culture, their religion! These are the people you are asked to follow, it
      is for such as these that you have been chained to the machines all these
      weary, toil-crowded years!
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      On every street corner, in every meeting-room, in every spot where the
      workers gathered at the noon hour, you would hear such arguments; and you
      would find men listening to them&mdash;men who perhaps had never listened
      to such arguments before. They would nod, and their faces would become
      grim&mdash;yes, the people up on top must be a rotten lot! Here in
      America, supposed to be a land of liberty and all that&mdash;here they
      were just the same, they were crowding to the trough to drink the blood
      that was poured out in Europe. Of course, they covered their greed with a
      camouflage of sympathy for the Allies; but did anybody believe that old
      man Granitch loved the Russian government? Certainly nobody in Leesville
      did; they knew that he was &ldquo;getting his&rdquo;, and their hearts hardened with a
      grim resolve to &ldquo;get theirs&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <p>
      At first they thought they were succeeding. Wages went up, almost for the
      asking; never did the unskilled man have so much money in his pocket,
      while the man who could pretend to any skill at all found himself in the
      plutocratic class. But quickly men discovered the worm in this luscious
      war-fruit; prices were going up almost as fast as wages&mdash;in some
      places even faster. The sums you had to pay to the landlord surpassed
      belief; a single working man would be asked two or three dollars a week
      for twelve hours' use of a mattress and blanket, which in the old days he
      might have got for fifty cents. Food was scarce and of poor quality;
      before long you found yourself being asked to pay six cents for a hunk of
      pie or a cup of coffee&mdash;and then seven cents, and then ten. If you
      kicked, the proprietor would tell you a long tale about what he had to pay
      for rent and labour and supplies; and you could not deny that he was
      probably right. About the only thing that did not go up was a
      postage-stamp; and the Socialist would point to this and explain that the
      Post Office was run by Uncle Sam, instead of by Abel Granitch!
    </p>
    <p>
      Every rise in price was a fresh stick of fuel for the Socialist machine,
      and gave new power to their propaganda of &ldquo;Starve the War and Feed
      America!&rdquo; The Socialist saw millions of tons of goods being loaded into
      steamships and sent to Europe to be destroyed in war; he saw the workers
      of Europe becoming enslaved by a bonded debt to a class of parasites in
      America, he saw America being drawn closer and closer to the abyss of the
      strife. The Socialist loved no part of this process. He clamoured for an
      embargo&mdash;not merely on munitions, but on food and everything, until
      the war-lords of Europe came to their senses. He urged the workers to
      strike, and thus force the politicians to declare the embargo.
    </p>
    <p>
      Especially, of course, he urged this if he were a German or an Austrian, a
      Hungarian or a Bohemian. The latter were subject races, but they could not
      in these early days see beyond the fact that their fathers and brothers
      and cousins were being killed by the shells that were made in the Empire
      Machine Shops. With them stood also the Jews, who hated the Russian
      government so bitterly that nothing else mattered; also the Irish, whose
      first idea in life was to pay back John Bull for his sins of several
      centuries, and whose second idea was to take part in any sort of shivaree
      that was going. It was quite bewildering to Jimmie Higgins; he had
      wrestled with Catholics of several nations and got nothing but hard words
      for his pains, but now all of a sudden Tom Callahan of the &ldquo;Buffeteria&rdquo;
       and Pat Grogan of the grocery on the corner made the discovery that maybe
      he was not such a fool after all!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      As a result of this ferment among the workers, the local had doubled its
      membership, and was holding soap-box meetings on a corner off Main Street
      on two evenings every week. The plans for the weekly paper, however, still
      hung fire. Comrade Dr. Service had lost his two brothers-in-law, one in
      the battle of Mons, and the other in the first frightful gas-attack at
      Ypres, where whole regiments of men were caught unprepared and died in
      awful torments. Also two of his wife's cousins had paid the price&mdash;one
      was blind, and the other a prisoner at Ruhleben, the worst fate of all. So
      Dr. Service made one last indignant speech in the local, and took his five
      hundred dollars to start a chapter of the Red Cross!
    </p>
    <p>
      But now the Germans and the war-haters in the local were asking
      themselves, was Socialism to languish in the city of the Empire Machine
      Shops, just because one rich man with an English wife had proved a
      renegade? Such a question answered itself! The work of collecting
      subscription lists was taken up more vigorously than ever; and already
      more than half the lost five hundred had been made up, when one evening
      John Meissner came home with a most amazing story.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was his custom to stop at Sandkuh's for one glass of beer on his way
      home in the evening; and when anybody in the saloon got to arguing about
      the war, he would take his chance to put in a little propaganda. This time
      he had made a regular speech, declaring that the workers would soon put an
      end to the munition-business; and a fellow had got to talking with him,
      asking him all sorts of questions about himself, and about the local. How
      many members did it have? How many of them felt as Meissner did? What were
      they doing about it? Pretty soon the man had drawn Meissner to a table in
      the back part of the place, asking about the proposed paper, and what its
      policy was to be; also about the unions in the city, and their policy, and
      the personalities of the leaders.
    </p>
    <p>
      The man had said he was a Socialist, but Meissner did not believe him.
      Meissner thought he must be some kind of union organizer. There had been
      talk of various unions making an effort to break into the domain of old
      man Granitch; and, of course, there was always the I. W. W. trying to
      break in everywhere with its programme of the &ldquo;one big union&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meissner went on to tell how this mysterious stranger had stated to him
      that it would be possible to get plenty of money to back the proposition
      of a strike in the Empire Shops. The new plant was just ready to start up,
      and fresh swarms of men were coming in; what was wanted was some live
      fellows to get in with them and agitate for an eight hour day and a
      minimum wage scale of sixty cents an hour. Men who were willing to do that
      could get good money, and plenty of it; if the Leesville Worker would
      advocate such a policy, there was no reason why it should not start up the
      very next week, and publish a big edition and flood the town. The one
      essential was that arrangements should be made secretly. Meissner must
      trust no one save dyed-in-the-wool &ldquo;reds&rdquo;, who would be willing to hustle,
      and not say where the pay came from. As earnest of his intentions, the
      stranger pulled out a roll of bills, and casually drew off half a dozen
      and slipped them into Meissner's hands. They were for ten dollars each&mdash;more
      money than a petty boss at the glass-works had ever got into his hands at
      one time in all his life!
    </p>
    <p>
      Meissner exhibited the roll, and Jimmie stared with wide-open eyes. Here
      indeed was a new development of the war&mdash;ten dollar bills for
      Socialist propaganda to be picked up in the back rooms of saloons! What
      was this fellow's name? And where did he hang out? Meissner offered to
      take Jimmie to meet him, and so the two bolted their suppers and set out
      at top speed.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jerry Coleman had mentioned several saloons where he was known, and in one
      of these they found him, a smooth-faced, smooth-spoken young fellow whom
      Jimmie would have taken for a detective or &ldquo;spotter&rdquo;&mdash;having had
      dealings with such in his days &ldquo;on the road&rdquo;. The man wore good clothes,
      and his finger-nails were cared for, something which, as we know, is
      seldom permitted to working-men. But he did not put on airs, and he bade
      them call him by his first name. He talked to Jimmie a while, enough to
      make sure of his man, and then he peeled off some more bills, and told
      Jimmie to find more fellows who could be trusted. It wouldn't do for any
      one person to have too much money, for that would excite suspicion; but if
      they would go to work and spend that much for dodgers to be distributed
      among the munition-workers, and for street-meetings, and for the proposed
      radical paper&mdash;well, there was plenty more money in the place where
      this had come from.
    </p>
    <p>
      Where was that place? Jimmie asked; and Jerry Coleman looked wise and
      winked. Then, after further consideration, he decided it might be well to
      tell them, provided they would pledge themselves not to mention it to
      others without his permission. This pledge they gave, and Jerry stated
      that he was a national organizer for the American Federation of Labour,
      which had resolved to unionize these munition-plants, and to establish the
      eight hour day. But it was of the utmost importance that the bosses should
      not get wind of the matter; it must not be revealed to anyone save those
      whom Coleman saw fit to trust. He was trusting Jimmie and Meissner, and
      they might know that the great labour organization was behind them, and
      would see them through regardless of expense. Of course, it would be
      expected that they would use the money honestly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gee!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmie. &ldquo;What do you take us for? A bunch of crooks?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      No, said the other, he was not such a poor judge of character. And Jimmie
      remarked grimly that anybody who was looking for easy money did not go
      into the business of Socialist agitation. If there was anything a
      Socialist could boast of, it was that their workers and elected officials
      never touched any graft. Mr. Coleman&mdash;that is, Jerry&mdash;would be
      handed a receipt for every dollar they spent.
    </p>
    <p>
      It chanced that that same night there was a meeting of the Propaganda
      Committee of the local, which consisted of half a dozen of the most active
      members. Jimmie and Meissner hurried to this place, with their new-found
      wealth burning a hole in their pockets. They informed the committee that
      they had been collecting money for the propaganda fund, and produced
      before the eyes of the astounded comrades the sum of one hundred dollars.
    </p>
    <p>
      It happened that the chairman of the committee had just received from the
      National Office of the party in Chicago a sample of a new leaflet entitled
      &ldquo;Feed America First&rdquo;; this leaflet could be had in quantities for a very
      low price, a dollar or two per thousand; as a result of Jimmie's
      contribution, a telegram was sent for ten thousand of the leaflets to be
      shipped by express. And then there was a proposition from the state office
      for Comrade Seaman, author of a book against war, to speak every night for
      two weeks in Leesville. The local had voted to turn down his proposition
      for lack of funds; but now, with the new contributions, the propaganda
      committee felt equal to the fifty dollars involved. And then there was the
      idea of Comrade Gerrity, the organizer, who was conducting street meetings
      every Wednesday and Saturday nights; if he could have an assistant, at
      fifteen a week, the soap-boxing could go on every night. John Meissner
      here put in&mdash;he was sure that contributions could be got for that
      purpose, provided the decision was made without delay. So the decision was
      made.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The meeting was adjourned, and then Meissner and Jimmie went into
      conference with Gerrity, the organizer, and Schneider, the brewer, and
      Comrade Mary Allen, all three of whom happened to be on the committee
      entrusted with the affairs of the Worker. Jimmie explained that they had
      met a union organizer&mdash;they could not tell about him, but the
      committee would have a chance to meet him&mdash;who would put up the
      balance of the money needed, provided that the paper would be willing to
      call at once for a strike of the Empire employees. Could that promise be
      made? And Comrade Mary Allen laughed, indicating her scorn for anybody who
      could cherish a doubt on that question! Comrade Mary was a Quaker; she
      loved all mankind with religious fervour&mdash;and it is astonishing how
      bitter people can become in the cause of universal love. Her sharp, pale
      face flushed, and her thin lips set, as she answered that the Worker would
      most surely fight the war-profiteers, so long as she was on the managing
      committee!
    </p>
    <p>
      It was finally decided that Comrade Mary should call on Jerry Coleman in
      the morning, and satisfy herself that he really meant business; if so, she
      would get the full committee together on the following evening. The
      committee had authority to go ahead, as soon as the necessary fund was
      made up, so if Coleman was all right, there was no reason why the first
      issue of the paper should not appear next week. Comrade Jack Smith, a
      reporter on the Herald, the capitalist paper of Leesville, was to resign
      and become editor of the Worker, and he already had his editorials written&mdash;had
      been showing them about in the local for the past month!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie and Meissner set out for home, happy in the feeling that they had
      accomplished more for Socialism on that one night than in all the rest of
      their lives. But then, as they walked, there came suddenly a clamour of
      bells on the night air; a fire! They knew the signals, and counted the
      strokes, and made the discovery that it was in the neighbourhood of their
      own home! An engine went by on the gallop, with sparks streaming out
      behind, and they broke into a run. Before they had gone a couple of
      blocks, they saw a glare in the sky, and their hearts were in their
      throats; poor Meissner panted that he had neglected to pay his last
      month's insurance!
    </p>
    <p>
      But as they ran, in the ever-growing throng of people, they realized that
      the fire was too near for their own home; also, it was a bigger blaze than
      could have been made by any number of shacks. And presently there were
      shouts in the crowd, &ldquo;It's the Empire! The Old Shops!&rdquo; There came a hook
      and ladder truck, rushing by with shrieking siren, and then the fire-chief
      in his automobile with a fiercely clanging bell; they turned the corner,
      and far down the street before them was the building in which for four
      years Jimmie had tended the bolt-making machine. They saw that one whole
      end of it was a towering, leaping, sweeping pillar of flames!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER V. JIMMIE HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISER
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins regarded with the utmost resentment the determination of
      the war to come to Leesville, in spite of all his labours to keep it out.
      Take the most preposterous thing you could imagine&mdash;the most idiotic
      thing on the face of the earth&mdash;take German spies! When Jimmie heard
      people talking about German spies, he laughed in their faces, he told them
      they were a bunch of fools, they belonged in the nursery; for Jimmie
      classed German spies with goblins, witches and sea-serpents. And here
      suddenly the bewildered little man found himself in the midst of a German
      spy mania, the like of which he could never have dreamed!
    </p>
    <p>
      Everybody seemed to take it for granted that the Empire Machine Shops had
      been burned by German agents; they just knew it, and by the time the fire
      was out they had a hundred various stories to support their conviction.
      The fire had leaped from place to place in a series of explosions; the
      watchman, who had passed through the building only two minutes before, had
      rushed back and seen blazing gasolene, and had almost lost his life in the
      sweep of the flames. And next morning the Leesville Herald was out with
      letters half a foot high, telling these tales and insisting that the plant
      had been full of German agents, disguised as working men.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before the day was by the police had arrested a dozen perfectly harmless
      German and Austrian labourers; at least that was the way it seemed to
      Jimmie, because of the fact that two of the men were members of the
      Socialist local. Somebody told Mrs. Meissner that all the Germans in
      Leesville were to be arrested, and the poor woman was trembling with
      terror. She wanted her husband to run away, but Jimmie persuaded them that
      this would be the worst possible course; so Meissner stayed in the house,
      and Jimmie kept his mouth shut for three whole days&mdash;an extraordinary
      feat for him, and a trial more severe than being in gaol.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had lost his job&mdash;for ever, he thought. But in this again he
      misjudged the forces which had taken his life in their grip&mdash;the
      power of the gold which had come to Leesville by way of Russia. The day
      after the fire he received word to report for work again; old man Granitch
      was so anxious to keep his workers out of the clutches of the Hubbard
      Engine Company that he put them all, skilled and unskilled, at the job of
      clearing away the debris of the fire! And five days later came the first
      carloads of new material, brought on motor-trucks, and the rebuilding of
      the Empire Shops began. Would you believe it&mdash;some of the machinery
      which had not been damaged too much in the fire was fixed up, and at the
      end of a couple of weeks was starting up again, covered by a temporary
      canvas shelter, and with the walls of the new building rising round it!
    </p>
    <p>
      That was the kind of thing which made America the marvel of the world. It
      had made old man Granitch young again, people said; he worked twenty hours
      a day in his shirt-sleeves, and the increase in his profanity was
      appalling. Even Lacey Granitch, his dashing son, quitted the bright lights
      of Broadway and came home to help the old man keep his contracts. The
      enthusiasm for these contracts became as it were the religion of
      Leesville; it spread even to the ranks of labour, so that Jimmie found
      himself like a man in a surf, struggling to keep his feet against an
      undertow.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The plans for the Worker were delayed, for the reason that when Comrade
      Mary Allen, the Quaker, went to look for Jerry Coleman the day after the
      fire, that dispenser of ten dollar bills had mysteriously disappeared. It
      was a week before he showed up again; and meantime fresh events had taken
      place, both in the local and outside. To begin with the latter, as
      presumably the more important, an English passenger liner, the pride of
      the Atlantic fleet, loaded to the last cabin with American millionaires,
      was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine. More than a thousand
      men, women and children went down, and the deed sent a shudder of horror
      through the civilized world. At the meeting of Local Leesville, which
      happened to take place the evening afterward, it proved a difficult matter
      to get business started.
    </p>
    <p>
      The members stood about and argued. What could you say about a government
      that ordered a crime like that? What could you say about a naval officer
      who would carry out such an order? Thus Comrade Norwood, the young lawyer;
      and Schneider, the brewer, answered that the German government had done
      everything that any reasonable man could ask. It had published a notice in
      the New York papers, to the effect that the vessel was subject to attack,
      and that anyone who travelled on her would do so at his peril. If women
      and children would ride on munition-ships&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Munition-ships?&rdquo; cried Norwood; and then Schneider pointed to a
      news-dispatch, to the effect that the Lusitania had had on board a
      shipment of cartridge-cases.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A fine lot of munitions!&rdquo; jeered the lawyer.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, was the reply, what were cartridge-cases for, if not to kill
      Germans? The Germans had been attacked by the whole world, and they had to
      defend themselves. When you looked at Comrade Schneider, you saw a man who
      felt himself attacked by the whole world; his face was red up to the roots
      of his hair, and he was ready to defend himself with any weapon he could
      get hold of.
    </p>
    <p>
      Comrade Koeln, a big glass-blower, broke into the discussion. The German
      government was authority for the statement that the Lusitania had been
      armed with guns. And when Norwood hooted at this, every German in the room
      was up in arms. What did he have to disprove it? The word of the British
      government! Was not &ldquo;perfidious Albion&rdquo; a byword!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The thing that beats me,&rdquo; declared the young lawyer, &ldquo;is the way you
      Germans stand up for the Kaiser now, when before the war you couldn't find
      enough bad things to say about him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What beats me,&rdquo; countered Schneider, &ldquo;is how you Americans stand up for
      King George. Every newspaper in Wall Street howling for America to go into
      the war&mdash;just because some millionaires got killed!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don't seem to realize that the greater number of the men who lost
      their lives on that ship were working men!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ho! Ho!&rdquo; hooted Comrade Stankewitz. &ldquo;Vall Street loves so the vorking
      men!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Comrade Mary Allen, who loved all men, took up the argument. If those
      working men had been killed in a mine disaster, caused by criminal
      carelessness and greed for profits; if they had died of some industrial
      disease which might easily have been prevented; if they had been burned in
      a factory without fire-escapes&mdash;nobody in Wall Street would have
      wanted to go to war. And, of course, every Socialist considered this was
      true; every Socialist saw quite clearly that the enormity of the Lusitania
      sinking lay in the fact that it had reached and injured the privileged
      people, the people who counted, who got their names in the papers and were
      not supposed to be inconvenienced, even by war. So it was possible for
      Jimmie Higgins, even though shocked by what the Germans had done, to be
      irritated by the fuss which the Wall Street newspapers made.
    </p>
    <p>
      Young Emil Forster spoke, and they listened to him, as they always did. It
      was a quarrel, he said&mdash;and as usual in quarrels, both sides had
      their rights and wrongs. You had to balance a few English and American
      babies against the millions of German babies which the British government
      intended to starve. It was British sea-power maintaining itself&mdash;and
      of course controlling most of the channels of publicity. It appealed to
      what it called &ldquo;law&rdquo;&mdash;that is to say, the customs it had found
      convenient in the past. British cruisers were able to visit and search
      vessels, and to take off their crews; but submarines could not do that, so
      what the British clamour about &ldquo;law&rdquo; amounted to was an attempt to keep
      Germany from using her only weapon. After all, ask yourself honestly if it
      was any worse to drown people quickly than to starve them slowly.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then came &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;. This wrangling over German and British gave him
      a pain in the guts. Couldn't they see, the big stiffs, that they were
      playing the masters' game? Quarrelling among themselves, when they ought
      to be waking up the workers, getting ready for the real fight. And
      wizened-up little Stankewitz broke in again&mdash;that vas vy he hated
      var, it divided the vorkers. There was nothing you could say for var. But
      &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; smiled his crooked smile. There were several things you could
      say. War gave the workers guns, and taught them to use them; how would it
      be if some day they turned these guns about and fought their own battles?
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Comrade Gerrity now took the chair and made an effort to get things
      started. The minutes of the last meeting were read, new members were voted
      on, and then Comrade Mary Allen rose to report for the Worker committee.
      The fund had been completed, the first number of the paper was to appear
      next week, and it was now up to every member of the local to get up on his
      toes and hustle as never in his life before. Comrade Mary, with her thin,
      eager face of a religious zealot, made everyone share her fervour.
    </p>
    <p>
      All save Lawyer Norwood. Since the retirement of Dr. Service he was the
      chief pro-ally trouble-maker, and he now made a little speech. He had been
      agreeably surprised to learn that the money had been raised so quickly;
      but then certain uncomfortable doubts having occurred to him, he had made
      inquiries and found there was some mystery about the matter. It was stated
      that the new paper was to demand a general strike in the Empire; and of
      course everybody knew there were powerful and sinister forces now
      interested in promoting strikes in munition factories.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; was on his feet in an instant. Had the comrade any objection
      to munition workers demanding the eight hour day?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Norwood, &ldquo;of course not; but if we are going into a fight with
      other people, we surely ought to know who they are and what their purpose
      is. I have been informed&mdash;there seems to be a little hesitation in
      talking about it&mdash;that a lot of money has been put up by one man, and
      nobody knows who that man is.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's an organizer for the A. F. of L.!&rdquo; The voice was Jimmie's. In his
      excitement the solemn pledge of secrecy was entirely forgotten!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Norwood. &ldquo;What is his name?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Nobody answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Has he shown his credentials?&rdquo; Again silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of course, I don't need to tell men as familiar with union affairs as the
      comrades here that every bona-fide organizer for a union carries
      credentials. If he does not produce them, it is at least occasion for
      writing to the organization and finding out about him. Has anybody done
      that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Again there was silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't want to make charges,&rdquo; said Norwood&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; put in &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;. &ldquo;You only want to make insinuations!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What I want to do is merely to make sure that the local knows what it is
      doing. It is no secret anywhere in Leesville that money is being spent to
      cause trouble in the Empire. No doubt this money has passed through a
      great many hands since it left the Kaiser's, but we may be sure that his
      hands are guiding it to its final end.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And then what an uproar! &ldquo;Shame! Shame!&rdquo; cried some; and others cried,
      &ldquo;Bring your proofs!&rdquo; The &ldquo;wild&rdquo; members shouted, &ldquo;Put him out!&rdquo; They had
      long wanted to get rid of Norwood, and this looked to be their chance.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the young lawyer stood his ground and gave them shot for shot. They
      wanted proofs, did they? Suppose they had learned of a capitalist
      conspiracy to wreck the unions in the city; and suppose that the Leesville
      Herald had been clamouring for &ldquo;proofs&rdquo;&mdash;what would they have
      thought?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In other words,&rdquo; shouted Schneider, &ldquo;you know it's true, yust because
      it's Yermany!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know it's true,&rdquo; said Norwood, &ldquo;because it would help Germany to win
      the war. One doesn't have to have any other evidence&mdash;if a certain
      thing will help Germany to win the war, one knows that thing is being
      done. All you Germans know that, and what's more, you're proud of it; it's
      your efficiency that you boast.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Again there was a cry of &ldquo;Shame! Shame!&rdquo; But the cry came from Comrade
      Mary, the Quaker lady, and it was evident that she had expected a chorus,
      and was disconcerted at being alone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Young Norwood, who knew his Germans, laughed scornfully. &ldquo;Just now your
      government is selling bonds in America, supposed to be for the benefit of
      the families of the dead and wounded. Some of those bonds have been taken
      in this city, as I happen to know. Does anybody really believe the money
      will reach the families of the dead and wounded?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This time the Germans answered. &ldquo;I belief it!&rdquo; roared Comrade Koeln. &ldquo;And
      I! And I!&rdquo; shouted others.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That money is staying right here in Leesville!&rdquo; proclaimed the lawyer.
      &ldquo;It is preparing a strike in the Empire!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A dozen men wanted the floor at once. Schneider, the brewer, got it, for
      the reason that he could outbellow anyone else. &ldquo;What does the comrade
      want?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;Is he not for the eight hour day?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Has he got any of the old man Granitch's money?&rdquo; shrilled &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;.
      &ldquo;Or maybe he doesn't know that Granitch is spending money to get smart
      young lawyers to help keep his munition slaves at work?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Norwood, having thrown the fat into the fire, sat down for a while and let
      it blaze. When the Germans taunted him with being afraid to say what he
      really meant&mdash;that the local should oppose the demand for the eight
      hour day&mdash;he merely laughed at them. He had wanted to make them show
      themselves up, and he had done it. Not merely were they willing to do the
      work of the Kaiser&mdash;they were willing to take the Kaiser's pay for
      doing it!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Take his pay?&rdquo; cried &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;. &ldquo;I'd take the devil's pay to carry on
      Socialist propaganda!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Old Hermann Forster rose and spoke, in his gentle sentimental voice. If it
      were true that the Kaiser was paying money for such ends, he would surely
      find he had bought very little. There were Socialists in Germany, one must
      remember&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      And then came a shrill laugh. Those tame German Socialists! It was Comrade
      Claudel, a Belgian jeweller, who spoke. Would any rabbit be afraid of such
      revolutionists as them? Eating out of the Kaiser's hand&mdash;having their
      papers distributed in the trenches for government propaganda! Talk to a
      Belgian about German Socialists!
    </p>
    <p>
      So you saw the European national lines splitting Local Leesville in two:
      on the one side, the Germans and the Austrians, the Russian Jews, the
      Irish and the religious pacifists; on the other side, two English
      glass-blowers, a French waiter, and several Americans who, because of
      college-education or other snobbish weakness, were suspected of tenderness
      for John Bull. Between these extreme factions stood the bulk of the
      membership, listening bewildered, trying to grope their way through the
      labyrinth.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was no easy job for these plain fellows, the Jimmie Higginses. When
      they tried to think the matter out, they were almost brought to despair.
      There were so many sides to the question&mdash;the last fellow you met
      always had a better argument than anyone you had heard before! You
      sympathized with Belgium and France, of course; but could you help hating
      the British ruling classes? They were your hereditary enemies&mdash;your
      school-book enemies, so to speak. And they were the ones you knew most
      about; since every American jack-ass that got rich quick and wanted to set
      himself up above his fellows would proceed to get English clothes and
      English servants and English bad manners. To the average plain American,
      the word English stood for privilege, for ruling class culture, the things
      established, the things against which he was in rebellion; Germany was the
      I. W. W. among the nations&mdash;the fellow who had never got a chance and
      was now hitting out for it. Moreover, the Germans were efficient; they
      took the trouble to put their case before you, they cared what you thought
      about them; whereas the Englishman, damn him, turned up his snobbish nose,
      not caring a whoop what you or anybody might think.
    </p>
    <p>
      Moreover, in this controversy the force of inertia was on the German side,
      and inertia is a powerful force in any organization. What the Germans
      wanted of American Socialists was simply that they should go on doing what
      they had been doing all their lives. And the Socialist machine had been
      set up for the purpose of going on, regardless of all the powers on earth,
      in the heavens above the earth, or in hell beneath. Ask Jimmie Higgins to
      stop demanding higher wages and the eight hour day! Wouldn't anybody in
      his senses know what Jimmie would answer to that proposition? Go chase
      yourself!
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      But, on the other hand, it must be admitted that Jimmie was staggered by
      the idea that he might be getting into the pay of the Kaiser. It was true
      that the traditions of the Socialist movement were German traditions, but
      they were German anti-Government traditions: Jimmie regarded the Kaiser as
      the devil incarnate, and the bare idea of doing anything the Kaiser wanted
      done was enough to make him stop short. He could see also what a bad thing
      it would be for the movement to have any person believe that it was taking
      the Kaiser's money. Suppose, for example, that a report of this evening's
      discussion should reach the Herald! And with the public inflamed to
      madness over the Lusitania affair!
    </p>
    <p>
      After the discussion had proceeded for an hour or so, Norwood made a
      motion to the effect that the Worker committee should be instructed to
      investigate thoroughly the sources of all funds contributed, and to reject
      any that did not come from Socialists, or those in sympathy with
      Socialism. The common sense of the meeting asserted itself, and even the
      Germans voted for this motion. Sure, let them go ahead and investigate!
      The Socialist movement was clean, it had always been clean, it had nothing
      to conceal from anyone.
    </p>
    <p>
      But then came another controversy. Claudel moved that Norwood should be
      made a member of the committee; and this, of course, was bitterly opposed
      by the radicals. It was an insult to the integrity of the committee. Then,
      too, suggested Baggs, an Englishman, perhaps Norwood might really find out
      something! The Jimmie Higginses voted down the motion&mdash;not because
      they feared any disclosures, but because they felt that a quiet, sensible
      fellow like Gerrity, their organizer, might be trusted to protect the good
      faith of the movement, and without antagonizing anybody or making a fuss.
    </p>
    <p>
      The investigation took place, and the result of it was that the money
      which Jerry Coleman had contributed for the Worker was quietly returned to
      him. But the difference was at once made up by the Germans in the local,
      who regarded the whole thing as a put-up job, an effort to block the
      agitation for a strike. These comrades took no stock whatever in the talk
      about &ldquo;German gold&rdquo;; but on the other hand they were keenly on the alert
      for the influence of Russian gold, which they knew was being openly
      distributed by old Abel Granitch. And so they put their hands down into
      their pockets and dug out their scanty wages, so that the demand for
      social justice might be kept alive in Leesville.
    </p>
    <p>
      The upshot of the whole episode was that the local rejected the Kaiser's
      pay, but went on doing what the Kaiser wanted without pay. This could
      hardly be considered a satisfactory solution, but it was the best that
      Jimmie Higgins was able to work out at this time.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The first issue of the Worker appeared, with Jack Smith's editorial spread
      over the front page, calling upon the workers of the Empire to take this
      occasion to organize and demand their rights. &ldquo;Eight hours for work, eight
      hours for sleep, eight hours for play!&rdquo; proclaimed Comrade Jack; and the
      Herald and the Courier, stung to a frenzy by the appearance of a poacher
      on their journalistic preserves, answered with broadsides about &ldquo;German
      propaganda&rdquo;. The Herald got the story of what had happened in the local;
      also it printed a picture of &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;, and an interview with that
      terror of the West, who declared that he was for war on the capitalist
      class with the aid of any and every ally that came along&mdash;even to the
      extent of emery powder in ball-bearings and copper nails driven into fruit
      trees.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Herald charged that the attitude of the Socialists toward &ldquo;tainted
      wealth&rdquo; was all a sham. What had happened was simply that the German
      members of the local were getting German money, and making it &ldquo;Socialist
      money&rdquo; by the simple device of passing it through their consecrated hands.
      As this had been hinted by Norwood in the local, the German comrades now
      charged that Norwood had betrayed the movement to the capitalist press.
      And so came another bitter controversy in the local. The young lawyer
      laughed at the charge. Did they really believe they could take German
      money in Leesville, and not have the fact become known?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then you think we are taking German money?&rdquo; roared Schneider; and he
      clamoured furiously for an answer. The other would not answer directly,
      but he told them a little parable. He saw a tree, sending down its roots
      into the ground, spreading everywhere, each tiny rootlet constructed for
      the purpose of absorbing water. And on the top of the ground was a man
      with a supply of water, which he poured out; he poured and poured without
      stint, and the water seeped down toward the rootlets, and every rootlet
      was reaching for water, pushing toward the places where water was likely
      to be. &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said Norwood, &ldquo;you ask me, do I believe that tree has
      been getting any of that water?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And here, of course, was the basis of a bitter quarrel. The hot-heads
      would not listen to subtle distinctions; they declared that Norwood was
      accusing the movement of corruption, he was making out his anti-war
      opponents to be villains! He was providing the capitalist press with
      ammunition. For shame! for shame! &ldquo;He's a stool-pigeon!&rdquo; shrieked &ldquo;Wild
      Bill&rdquo;. &ldquo;Put him out, the Judas!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The average member of the local, the perfectly sincere fellow like Jimmie
      Higgins, who was wearing himself out, half-starving himself in the effort
      to bring enlightenment to his class, listened to these controversies with
      bewildered distress. He saw them as echoes of the terrible national
      hatreds which were rending Europe, and he resented having these old world
      disputes thrust into American industrial life. Why could he not go on with
      his duty of leading the American workers into the co-operative
      commonwealth?
    </p>
    <p>
      Because, answered the Germans, old man Granitch wanted to keep the
      American workers as munition-slaves; and to this idea the overwhelming
      percentage of the membership agreed. They were not pacifists,
      non-resistants; they were perfectly willing to fight the battles of the
      working-class; what they objected to was having to fight the battles of
      the master-class. They wanted to go on, as they had always gone, opposing
      the master-class and paying no heed to talk about German agents. Jimmie
      Higgins believed&mdash;and in this belief he was perfectly correct&mdash;that
      even had there been no German agents, the capitalist papers of Leesville
      would have invented them, as a means of discrediting the agitators in this
      crisis. Jimmie Higgins had lived all his life in a country in which his
      masters starved and oppressed him, and when he tried to help himself, met
      him with every weapon of treachery and slander. So Jimmie had made up his
      mind that one capitalist country was the same as another capitalist
      country, and that he would not be frightened into submission by tales
      about goblins and witches and sea-serpents and German spies.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI. JIMMIE HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Every evening now the party held its &ldquo;soap-box&rdquo; meetings on a corner just
      off Main Street. Jimmie, having volunteered as one of the assistants,
      would bolt his supper in the evening and hurry off to the spot. He was not
      one of the speakers, of course&mdash;he would have been terrified at the
      idea of making a speech; but he was one of those whose labours made the
      speaking possible, and who reaped the harvest for the movement.
    </p>
    <p>
      The apparatus of the meeting was kept in the shop of a friendly carpenter
      near-by. The carpenter had made a &ldquo;soap-box&rdquo; that was a wonder&mdash;a
      platform mounted upon four slender legs, detachable, so that one man could
      carry the whole business and set it up. Thus the speaker was lifted a
      couple of feet above the heads of the crowd, and provided with a hand-rail
      upon which he might lean, and even pound, if he did not pound too hard. A
      kerosene torch burned some distance from his head, illuminating his
      features, and it was Jimmie's business to see that this torch was properly
      cleaned and filled, and to hold it erect on a pole part of the time. The
      rest of the time he peddled literature among the crowd&mdash;copies of the
      Leesville Worker, and five and ten cent pamphlets supplied by the National
      Office.
    </p>
    <p>
      He would come home at night, worn out from these labours after his daily
      toil; he would fall asleep at Lizzie's side, and have to be routed out by
      her when the alarm-clock went off next morning. She would get him a cup of
      hot coffee, and after he had drunk this, he would be himself again, and
      would chatter about the adventures of the night before. There was always
      something happening, a fellow starting a controversy, a drunken man, or
      perhaps a couple of thugs in the pay of old man Granitch, trying to break
      up the meeting.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lizzie would do her best to show that sympathy with her husband's
      activities which is expected from a dutiful wife. But all the time there
      was a grief in her soul&mdash;the eternal grief of the feminine
      temperament, which is cautious and conservative, in conflict with the
      masculine, which is adventurous and destructive. Here was Jimmie, earning
      twice what he had ever earned before, having a chance to feed his children
      properly and to put by a little margin for the first time in his harassed
      life; but instead of making the most of the opportunity, he was going out
      on the streets every night, doing everything in his power to destroy the
      golden occasion which Fate had brought to him! Like the fellow who climbs
      a tree to saw off a limb, and sits on the limb and saws between himself
      and the tree!
    </p>
    <p>
      In spite of her best efforts, Lizzie's broad, kindly face would sometimes
      become hard with disappointment, and a big tear would roll down each of
      her sturdy cheeks. Jimmie would be sorry for her, and would patiently try
      to explain his actions. Should a man think only of his own wife and
      children, and forget entirely all the other wives and children of the
      working-class? That was why the workers had been slaves all through the
      ages, because each thought of himself, and never of his fellows. No, you
      must think of your class! You must act as a class&mdash;on the alert to
      seize every advantage, to teach solidarity and stimulate
      class-consciousness! Jimmie would use these long words, which he had heard
      at meetings; but then, seeing that Lizzie did not understand them, he
      would go back and say it over again in words of one syllable. They had old
      man Granitch in a hole just now, and they must teach him a lesson, and at
      the same time teach the workers their power. Lizzie would sigh, and shake
      her head; for to her, old man Granitch was not a human being, but a
      natural phenomenon, like winter, or hunger. He, or some other like him,
      had been the master of her fathers for generations untold, and to try to
      break or even to limit his power was like commanding the tide or the sun.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Events moved quickly to their culmination, justifying the worst of
      Lizzie's fears. The shops were seething with discontent, and agitators
      seemed fairly to spring out of the ground; some of them paid by Jerry
      Coleman, no doubt, others taking their pay in the form of gratification of
      those grudges with which the profit-system had filled their hearts.
      Noon-meetings would start up, quite spontaneously, without any
      prearrangement; and presently Jimmie learned that men were going about
      taking the names of all who would agree to strike.
    </p>
    <p>
      The matter was brought to a head by the Empire managers, who, of course,
      were kept informed by their spies. They discharged more than a score of
      the trouble-makers; and when this news spread at noon-time, the whole
      place burst into a flame of wrath. &ldquo;Strike! strike!&rdquo; was the cry. Jimmie
      was one of many who started a procession through the yards, shouting,
      singing, hurling menaces at the bosses, challenging all who proposed to
      return to work. Less than one-tenth of the working force made any attempt
      to do so, and for that afternoon the plant of the Empire Machine Shops,
      which was supposed to be turning out shell-casings for the Russian
      government, was turning out labour-union, Socialist, and I. W. W. oratory.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins was beside himself with excitement. He danced about and
      waved his cap, he shouted himself hoarse, he almost yielded to the impulse
      to jump upon a pile of lumber and make a speech himself. Presently came
      Comrades Gerrity and Mary Allen, who had got wind of the trouble, and had
      loaded a whole edition of the Worker into a Ford; so Jimmie turned
      newsboy, selling these papers, hundreds of them, until his pockets were
      bursting with the weight of pennies and nickels. And then he was pressed
      into service running errands for those who were arranging to organize the
      workers; he carried bundles of membership-cards and application-blanks,
      following a man with a bull voice and a megaphone, who shouted in several
      languages the location of union headquarters, and the halls where various
      foreign language meetings would be held that evening. Evidently someone
      had foreseen the breaking of this trouble, and had been at pains to plan
      ahead.
    </p>
    <p>
      Late in the afternoon Jimmie was witness of an exciting incident. In one
      of the shops a number of the men had persisted in returning to work, and
      an immense throng of strikers had gathered to wait for them. They were
      afraid to come out, but stayed in the building after the quitting-whistle,
      while those outside jeered and hooted and the bosses telephoned
      frantically for aid. The greater part of the Leesville police-force was on
      hand, and in addition, the company had its own guards and private
      detectives. But they were needed all over the place. You saw them at the
      various entrances, menacing, but not quite so sure of themselves as usual;
      their hands had a tendency to slip back to the bulge on their right hips.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie and another fellow had got themselves an empty box and were
      standing on it, leaning against the wall of the building and shouting &ldquo;Ya!
      Ya!&rdquo; at every &ldquo;scab&rdquo; head that showed itself. They saw an automobile come
      in at the gate, its horn honking savagely, causing the crowd to leap to
      one side or the other. The automobile was packed with men, sitting on one
      another's knees, or hanging to the running-boards outside. There came a
      second car, loaded in the same fashion. They were guards, sent all the way
      from Hubbardtown; for of course the Hubbard Engine Company would help out
      its rivals in an emergency such as this. That was the solidarity of
      capitalism, concerning which the Socialists never wearied of preaching.
    </p>
    <p>
      The men leaped from the cars, and spread themselves fanwise in front of
      the door. They had nightsticks in their hands, and grim resolution in
      their faces; they cried, &ldquo;Stand back! Stand back!&rdquo; The crowd hooted, but
      gave slightly, and a few minutes later the doors of the building opened,
      and the first of the timid workers emerged. There was a howl, and then
      from somewhere in the throng a stone was thrown. &ldquo;Arrest that man!&rdquo;
       shouted a voice, and Jimmie's attention was attracted to the owner of this
      voice&mdash;a young man who had arrived in the first automobile, and was
      now standing up in the seat, from which position he could dominate the
      throng. &ldquo;Arrest that man!&rdquo; he shouted again, pointing his finger; and
      three of the guards leaped into the crowd at the spot indicated. The man
      who had thrown the missile started to run, but he could not go fast in the
      crowd, and in a moment, as it seemed, the guards had him by the collar. He
      tried to jerk away, and they struck him over the head, and laid about them
      to keep the rest of the throng at bay. &ldquo;Take him inside!&rdquo; the young man in
      the car kept shouting. And one of the guards twisted his hand in the
      collar of the wretched stone-thrower, until he grew purple in the face,
      and so half-dragged and half-ran him into the building.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The young man in the car turned toward the crowd which was blocking the
      way to the exit. &ldquo;Get those men out of the way!&rdquo; he yelled to the guards.
      &ldquo;Drive them along&mdash;God damn them, they've got no business in here.&rdquo;
       And so on, with a string of dynamic profanity, which stung both guards and
      policemen into action, and made them ply their clubs upon the crowd.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you know who that is?&rdquo; asked Jimmie's companion on the box. &ldquo;That's
      Lacey Granitch.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie started, experiencing a thrill to the soles of his ragged shoes.
      Lacey Granitch! In the four years that the little machinist had worked for
      the Empire, he had never caught a glimpse of the young lord of Leesville&mdash;something
      which may easily be believed, for the young lord considered Leesville &ldquo;a
      hole of a town&rdquo;, and honoured it with his presence only once or twice a
      year. But his spirit brooded over it; he was to Leesville a mythological
      figure, either of wonder and awe, or of horror, according to the
      temperament of the contemplator. One day &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; had arisen in the
      local, and held aloft a page from the &ldquo;magazine supplement&rdquo; of one of the
      metropolitan &ldquo;yellows&rdquo;. There was an account of how Lacey Granitch had
      broken the hearts of seven chorus-girls by running away with an eighth. He
      fairly &ldquo;ate 'em alive&rdquo;, according to the account; in order to give an idea
      of the atmosphere in which the young hero abode, the whirl of delight
      which was his life, the artist of the Sunday supplement had woven round
      the border of the page a maze of feminine ankles and calves in a delirium
      of lingerie; while at the top was a supper-table with champagne-corks
      popping, and a lady clad in inadequate veils dancing amid the dishes.
    </p>
    <p>
      This had happened while the local was in the midst of an acrimonious
      controversy over &ldquo;Section Six&rdquo;. Should the Socialist party bar from its
      membership those who advocated sabotage, violence and crime? Young Norwood
      was pleading for orderly methods of social reconstruction; and here stood
      &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;, ripping to shreds the reputation of the young plutocrat of
      the Empire Shops. &ldquo;That's what you geezers are sweating for! That's why
      you've got to be good, and not throw monkey-wrenches in the machinery&mdash;so
      the seven broken-hearted chorus-girls can drown their sorrows in
      champagne!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And now here was the hero of all these romantic escapades, forsaking the
      white lights of Broadway, and coming home to help the old man keep his
      contracts. He stood in the seat of the automobile, glancing this way and
      that, swiftly, like a hunter on the alert for dangerous game. His dark
      eyes roamed here and there, his proud face was pale with anger, his tall,
      perfectly groomed figure was eloquent of mastership, of command. He was
      imperious as a young Caesar, terrible in his vengeance; and poor Jimmie,
      watching him, was torn between two contradictory emotions. He hated him&mdash;hated
      him with a deadly and abiding hatred. But also he admired him, marvelled
      at him, cringed before him. Lacey was a wanton, a cursing tyrant, a brutal
      snob; but also he was the master, the conqueror, the proud, free, rich
      young aristocrat, for whom all the rest of humanity existed. And Jimmie
      Higgins was a poor little worm of a proletarian, with nothing but his
      labour-power to sell, trying by sheer force of his will to lift himself
      out of his slave-psychology!
    </p>
    <p>
      There is an old adage that &ldquo;a cat may look at a king&rdquo;. But this can only
      have been meant to apply to house-cats, cats of the palace, accustomed to
      the etiquette of courts; it cannot have been meant for proletarian cats of
      the gutter, the Jimmie Higgins variety of red revolutionary yowlers.
      Jimmie and his companion stood on their perch, shouting &ldquo;Ya! Ya!&rdquo; and
      suddenly the crowd melted away in front of them, exposing them to the
      angry finger of the young master. &ldquo;Get along now! Beat it! Quick!&rdquo; And
      Jimmie, poor little ragged, stunted Jimmie, with bad teeth and
      toil-deformed hands, wilted before this blast of aristocratic wrath, and
      made haste to hide himself in the throng. But it was with blazing soul
      that he went; every instant he imagined himself turning back, defying the
      angry finger, shouting down the imperious voice, even smashing it back
      into the throat from which it came!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie did not even stop for supper. The greater part of the night he
      worked at helping to organize the strikers, and all next day he spent
      arranging Socialist meetings. He worked like a man possessed, lifted above
      the limitations of the flesh. For everywhere that day he carried with him
      the image of the proud, free, rich young aristocrat, with his dark eyes
      roaming swiftly, his tall, perfectly groomed figure eloquent of
      mastership, his voice ringing with challenge. Jimmie was for the time
      utterly possessed by hatred; and he saw about him thousands of others
      sharing the mood and shouting it aloud. Every speaker who could be found
      was turned loose to talk till he was hoarse, and in the evening there was
      to be half a dozen street meetings. That was always the way when there
      were strikes; then the working man had time to listen&mdash;and also the
      desire!
    </p>
    <p>
      So came the final crisis, when the little machinist had to show the stuff
      he was made of. He was holding aloft the torch at the regular
      meeting-place on the corner of Main and Third Streets, and Comrade Gerrity
      was explaining the strike and the ballot as two edges of the sword of
      labour, when four policemen came suddenly round the corner and pushed
      their way through the crowd. &ldquo;You'll have to stop this!&rdquo; declared one.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop?&rdquo; cried Gerrity. &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's to be no more street-speaking during the strike.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who says so?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Orders from the chief.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But we've got a permit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All permits revoked. Cut it out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But this is an outrage!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We don't want any argument, young man&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But we're within our rights here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Forget it, young feller!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Gerrity turned swiftly to the throng.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fellow-citizens,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;we are here in the exercise of our rights as
      American citizens! We are conducting a peaceable and orderly political
      meeting, and we know our rights and propose to maintain them. We&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come down off that box, young feller!&rdquo; commanded the officer; and the
      crowd hooted and booed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fellow-citizens!&rdquo; began Gerrity again; but that was as far as he got, for
      the policeman seized him by the arm and pulled; and Gerrity knew the ways
      of American policemen too well to resist. He came down&mdash;but still
      talking. &ldquo;Fellow-citizens&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Are you goin' to shut up?&rdquo; demanded the other, and as Gerrity still went
      on orating, he announced: &ldquo;You are under arrest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There were half a dozen Socialists with the party, and this was a
      challenge to the self-respect of everyone of them. In an instant Comrade
      Mabel Smith had leaped on to the stand. &ldquo;Fellow workers!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Is
      this America, or is it Russia?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That'll do, lady,&rdquo; said the policeman, as considerately as he dared; for
      Comrade Mabel wore a big picture-hat and many other signs of youth and
      beauty.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have a right to speak here, and I mean to speak,&rdquo; she declared.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We don't want to have to arrest you, lady&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You either have to arrest me, or else allow me to speak.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm sorry, lady, but it's orders. You are arrested.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then came the turn of Comrade Stankewitz. &ldquo;Vorking men, it is for the
      rights of the vorkers ve are here.&rdquo; And so they jerked him off.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;. This hundred per cent, middle-of-the-road
      proletarian had been hanging on the outskirts of the meeting, having been
      forbidden by the local to take part in the speaking, because of the
      intemperate nature of his utterances; but now, of course, all rules went
      down, and Bill leaped on to the shaking platform. &ldquo;Are we slaves?&rdquo; he
      yelled. &ldquo;Are we dogs?&rdquo; And it would seem that the police thought so, for
      they yanked him off the platform, and one of them seized him by the wrist
      and twisted so that his oration ended in a shriek of pain.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then came Johnny Edge, a shy youth with an armful of literature, which he
      hung on to in spite of police violence; and then&mdash;then there was one
      more!
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor Jimmie! He did not in the least want to get arrested, and he was
      terrified at the idea of making even so short a speech as was here the
      order of the night. But, of course, his honour was at stake, there was no
      way out. He handed his torch to a bystander, and mounted the scaffold. &ldquo;Is
      this a free country?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Do we have free speech?&rdquo; And Jimmie's
      first effort at oratory ended in a jerk at his coat-tail, which all but
      upset the frail platform upon which he stood.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were four policemen, with six prisoners, and a throng about them
      howling with indignation, perhaps ready to become violent&mdash;who could
      say? The guardians of order had been prepared however. One of them stepped
      to the corner and blew his whistle, and a minute later came the shriek of
      a siren, and round the corner came swinging the city's big patrol-wagon,
      the &ldquo;Black Maria&rdquo;. The crowd gave way, and one by one the prisoners were
      thrust in. One of them, &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;, feeling himself for a moment released
      from the grip of his captors, raised his voice, shouting through the wire
      grating of the wagon: &ldquo;I denounce this outrage! I am a free American&mdash;&rdquo;
       And suddenly Jimmie, who was next in the wagon, felt himself flung to one
      side, and a policeman leaped by him, and planted his fist with terrific
      violence full in the orator's mouth. &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; went down like a bullock
      under the slaughter-man's axe, and the patrol-wagon started up, the cry of
      its siren drowning the protests of the crowd.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor Bill! He lay across the seat, and Jimmie, who had to sit next to him,
      caught him in his arms and held him. He was quivering, with awful motions
      like a spasm. He made no sound, and Jimmie was terrified, thinking that he
      was dying. Before long Jimmie felt a hot wetness stealing over his hands,
      first slimy, then turning sticky. He had to sit there, almost fainting
      with horror; he dared not say anything, for maybe the policeman would
      strike him also. He sat, clutching in his arms the shaking body, and
      whispering under his breath, &ldquo;Poor Bill! Poor Bill!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They came to the station-house, and Bill was carried out and laid on a
      bench, and the others were stood up before the desk and had their
      pedigrees taken. Gerrity demanded indignantly to be allowed to telephone,
      and this demand was granted. He routed Lawyer Norwood from a party, and
      set him to finding bail; and meantime the prisoners were led to cells.
    </p>
    <p>
      They had been there only a couple of minutes when there came floating
      through the row of steel cages the voice of a woman singing. It was
      Comrade Mabel Smith in that clear sweet voice they had so often listened
      to on &ldquo;social evenings&rdquo; in the local. She was singing the Internationale:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
    Arise, ye prisoners of starvation.
    Arise, ye wretched of the earth!
</pre>
    <p>
      The sound thrilled them to the very bones, and they joined in the chorus
      with a shout. Then, of course, came the jailer: &ldquo;Shut up.&rdquo; And then again:
      &ldquo;Shut up!&rdquo; And then a third time: &ldquo;Will ye shut up?&rdquo; And then came a
      bucket of water, hurled through the cell bars. It hit Jimmie squarely in
      the mouth, and in the words of the poet, &ldquo;the subsequent proceedings
      interested him no more!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      About midnight came Lawyer Norwood and Dr. Service. Both of these men had
      protested against the street-speaking at this time; but of course, when it
      came to comrades in trouble, they could not resist the appeal to their
      sympathies. Such is the difficulty of entirely respectable and decorous
      &ldquo;parlour&rdquo; Socialists, in their dealings with the wayward children of the
      movement, the &ldquo;impossibilists&rdquo; and &ldquo;direct actionists&rdquo; and other sowers of
      proletarian wild oats. Dr. Service produced a wad of bills and bailed out
      all the prisoners, and delivered himself of impressive indignation to the
      police-sergeant, while waiting for an ambulance to carry &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; to
      the hospital. Jimmie Higgins, who had always hitherto shouted with the
      &ldquo;wild&rdquo; ones, realized suddenly how pleasant it is to have a friend who
      wears black broadcloth, and carries himself like the drum-major of a band,
      and is reputed to be worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie went home; and there was Lizzie, pacing the floor and wringing her
      hands in anxiety&mdash;for there had been no way to get word to her what
      had happened. She flung herself into his arms, and then recoiled in fright
      when, she discovered that he was wet. He told her the story; and would you
      believe it&mdash;Lizzie, being a woman, and only in the A-B-C stage of
      revolutionary education, actually did not know that it was a glorious and
      heroic adventure to be arrested! She thought it a disgrace, and tried to
      persuade him to keep the dreadful secret from the neighbourhood! And when
      she found that he was not through yet, but had to go to court in the
      morning and be tried, she wept copiously, and woke up Jimmie Junior, and
      started him to bawling. She was only to be pacified when Jimmie Senior
      agreed to take off his wet clothes at once, and drink a cup or two of
      boiling hot tea, and let himself be covered up with blankets, so that he
      might not die of pneumonia before he could get to court.
    </p>
    <p>
      Next morning there was a crowded court-room and a stern and solemn judge
      frowning over his spectacles, and Lawyer Norwood making an impassioned
      defence of the fundamental American right of free speech. It was so very
      thrilling that Jimmie could hardly be kept from applauding his own lawyer!
      And then Comrade Dr. Service arose, and in his most impressive voice gave
      the professional information that &ldquo;Wild Bill's&rdquo; nose had been broken, and
      three of his front teeth knocked out, and that he was in the hospital and
      unable to come to court; and all the other prisoners were called upon to
      testify what &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; had done to bring this fate upon him. The
      policeman who had struck the blow testified that the prisoner had resisted
      arrest; a second policeman testified, &ldquo;I seen the prisoner hit him first,
      your Honour,&rdquo;&mdash;which caused Comrade Mabel Smith to cry out, &ldquo;Oh, the
      ungrammatical prevaricator!&rdquo; The upshot of the trial was that each of the
      defendants was fined ten dollars. Comrade Gerrity led off with an
      indignant refusal to pay the fine; the rest of them followed suit&mdash;even
      Comrade Mabel! This caused evident distress of mind to the judge, for
      Comrade Mabel with her indignant pink cheeks and her big picture-hat
      looked more than ever the lady, and it is a fact known even to judges that
      American jails have not been constructed for ladies. The matter was
      settled by Lawyer Norwood paying her fine, in spite of her protests, and
      her demand to be sent to jail.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The five men were led away, over the &ldquo;Bridge of Sighs&rdquo;, as it was called,
      to the city jail, where they had their pedigrees taken again, and their
      pictures and their finger-prints&mdash;which for the first time impressed
      upon their minds the fact that they were dangerous criminals. Their
      clothes were taken away, and shirts and trousers given them, whose faded
      blue colour seemed to have been impregnated with the misery of scores of
      previous wearers. They were led through steel-barred doors, and along
      dark, steel-barred passages to one of the &ldquo;tanks&rdquo;. A &ldquo;tank&rdquo;, you
      discovered, was one floor of this four-storied packing box; on each side
      of it were a row of a dozen barred cells, each with four bunks, so that
      the total maximum population which might be crowded into the central space
      of the &ldquo;tank&rdquo; was ninety-six; however, this only happened on Monday
      mornings, when the &ldquo;drunks&rdquo; had all been brought in, and before the courts
      had had time to sort them out.
    </p>
    <p>
      After you had lain down on your bunk for a few minutes, or had leaned
      against the wall of the &ldquo;tank&rdquo;, you felt an annoying stinging sensation
      somewhere on you. You began to rub and scratch; before long you would be
      rubbing and scratching in a dozen different places, and then you would
      observe your neighbour watching you with a grin. &ldquo;Seam-squirrels?&rdquo; he
      would say; and he would bid you take off your coat, and engage in the
      popular hunting game of the institution. Jimmie remembered having heard a
      speaker refer to the city jail as the &ldquo;Leesville Louseranch&rdquo;; he had
      thought that a good joke at the time, but now it seemed otherwise to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was splendid to stand up in court and to take your stand as a martyr;
      but now Jimmie discovered, as many an unfortunate has discovered before
      him, that being a martyr is not the sport it is cracked up to be. There
      were no heroics now, no singing. If you even so much as hummed, they took
      you out and shut you up in a dark hole called the &ldquo;cooler&rdquo;! Nor could you
      read, for there was no light in your cell, and perpetual twilight in the
      central gathering place of the &ldquo;tank&rdquo;. Apparently the only things the
      authorities of Leesville wished you to do were to hunt &ldquo;seam-squirrels&rdquo;,
      to smoke cigarettes, to &ldquo;shoot craps&rdquo;, and to make the acquaintance of a
      variety of interesting young criminals, so that when you were ready to
      resume your outside life you might decide whether you wanted to be a
      hold-up man, a safe-cracker, a forger, or a second-story operator.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins, of course, brought a different psychology from that of the
      average jail-inmate. Jimmie could do his kind of work just as well in jail
      as anywhere else; and barring the torment of vermin, the diet of bread and
      thin coffee and ill-smelling greasy soup, and the worry about his helpless
      family outside, he really had a happy time-making the acquaintance of
      tramps and pickpockets, and explaining to them the revolutionary
      philosophy. A man who went in to remedy social injustice all by himself
      could never get very far. It was only when he realized himself as a member
      of a class, and stood as a class and acted as a class, that he could
      accomplish a permanent result. Some of the workers had discovered this,
      and had set out to educate their fellows. They brought the wondrous
      message, even to those in jail; holding out to them the vision of a world
      made over in justice and kindness, the co-operative commonwealth of
      labour, in which every man should get what he produced, and no man could
      exploit his fellows.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Three days passed, and then one afternoon Jimmie was summoned to see a
      visitor. He could guess who the visitor was, and he went with his heart in
      his throat, and looked through the dark mesh of wire, and saw Lizzie
      standing&mdash;stout, motherly Lizzie, now very pale, and breathing hard,
      and with tears running in little streamlets down her cheeks. Poor Lizzie,
      with her three babies at home, and her plain, ordinary, non-revolutionary
      psychology, which made going to jail a humiliation instead of a test of
      manhood, a badge of distinction! Jimmie felt a clutch in his own throat,
      and an impulse to tear down the beastly wire mesh and clasp the dear
      motherly soul in his arms. But all he could do was to screw his face into
      a dubious smile. Sure, he was having the time of his life in this jail! He
      wouldn't have missed it for anything! He had made a Socialist out of
      &ldquo;Dead-eye Mike&rdquo;, and had got Pete Curley, a fancy &ldquo;con&rdquo; man, to promise to
      read &ldquo;War, What For?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was only one thing which had been troubling him, and that was, how
      his family was getting on. They had had practically nothing in the house,
      he knew, and poor Meissner could not feed four extra mouths. But Lizzie,
      also screwing her face into a smile, assured him that everything was all
      right at home, there was no need to worry. In the first place, Comrade Dr.
      Service had sent her a piece of paper with his name written on it; it
      appeared that this was called a cheque, and the groceryman had exchanged
      it for a five dollar bill. And in the next place there was a domestic
      secret which Lizzie had to confide&mdash;she had put by some money,
      without letting Jimmie know it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But how?&rdquo; cried Jimmie, in wonder&mdash;for he had thought he knew all
      about his household and its expenses.
    </p>
    <p>
      So Lizzie explained the trick she had played. Jimmie had committed an
      extravagance, treating her to a new dress out of his increased earnings: a
      gorgeous contrivance of several colours, looking like silk, even if it
      wasn't. Lizzie had stated that the cost was fifteen dollars, and he, the
      dupe, had believed it! The truth was she had bought the dress in a
      second-hand shop for three dollars, and had put twelve dollars away for
      the time of the strike!
    </p>
    <p>
      And Jimmie went back to his &ldquo;tank&rdquo;, shaking his head and philosophizing:
      &ldquo;Gee! Can you beat these women?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VII. JIMMIE HIGGINS DALLIES WITH CUPID
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The strike was over when Jimmie came out of jail; it had been settled by
      the double-barrelled device of raising the wages of the men and putting
      their leaders behind bars. Jimmie presented himself at his old place of
      working, and the boss told him to go to hell; so Jimmie went to
      Hubbardtown, and stood in the long line of men waiting at the gate of the
      engine company. Jimmie knew about black-lists, so when his time came to be
      questioned, he said his name was Joe Aronsky, and he had last worked in a
      machine-shop in Pittsburg; he had come to Hubbardtown because he had heard
      of high pay and good treatment. While he was answering these questions, he
      noticed a man sitting in the corner of the room studying his face, and he
      saw the boss turn and glance in that direction. The man shook his head,
      and the boss said: &ldquo;Nothin' doin'.&rdquo; So Jimmie understood that the Hubbard
      Engine Company was taking measures to keep its shops clear of the
      agitators from Leesville.
    </p>
    <p>
      He spent a couple of days trying other places in his home town, but all in
      vain&mdash;they had him spotted. At the brewery they were slower than
      elsewhere&mdash;they took him on for two hours. Then they found out his
      record, and &ldquo;fired&rdquo; him; and Jimmie &ldquo;kidded&rdquo; the boss, saying that they
      were too late&mdash;he had already given a Socialist leaflet to every man
      in the room!
    </p>
    <p>
      On Jefferson Street, an out of the way part of the town, was a
      bicycle-shop kept by an old German named Kumme. One of the comrades told
      Jimmie that he wanted a helper, and Jimmie went there and got a job at two
      dollars a day. That was poor pay at present prices, but Jimmie liked the
      place, because his boss was a near-Socialist, a pacifist&mdash;for all
      countries except Germany. He got round it by saying that every nation had
      a right to defend itself; and Germany was the nation which had been
      attacked in this war. A good part of the energies of the old man went into
      proving this to his customers; if there were any customers who did not
      like it, they could go elsewhere.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those who came were largely Germans, and so Jimmie was kept fully supplied
      with arguments against the munitions industry, which they called a trade
      in murder, and in favour of the programme of &ldquo;Feed America First&rdquo;. Among
      those who frequented the place was Jerry Coleman, who was still on the
      job, and as well supplied with ten-dollar bills as ever. He had now
      revealed himself as an organizer for a new propaganda society, called
      &ldquo;Labour's National Peace Council&rdquo;. Inasmuch as Labour and Peace were the
      phrases upon which Jimmie lived, he saw no reason why he should not back
      this organization. Coleman assured Jimmie he hated the Kaiser, but that
      the German &ldquo;people&rdquo; must be defended. So Jimmie became, without having the
      least idea of it, one of the agencies whereby the Kaiser was subsidizing
      social discontent in America.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Jimmie was more careful now in his agitations. He had brought such
      distress into his home by his jail sentence, that he had been forced to
      make promises to Lizzie. Her anxiety for her children could no longer be
      kept to herself; and this caused a certain amount of friction between
      them, and sent Jimmie out grumbling at his lot in life. What was the use
      of trying to educate a woman, who could see no farther than her own
      kitchen-stove? When you wanted to be a world-saviour, to walk tip-toe on
      the misty mountain-tops of heroism, she dragged you down and chained you
      to the commonplace, taking all the zest and fervour out of your soul! The
      memories of &ldquo;seam-squirrels&rdquo; and of thin coffee and ill-smelling and
      greasy soup had slipped somewhat into the background of Jimmie's mind, and
      he lived again the sublime hour when he had confronted the court and stood
      for the fundamental rights of an American citizen. He wanted to have that
      act of daring appreciated at its true value. Poor, blind, home-keeping
      Lizzie, who could not fulfil these deeper needs of her husband's soul!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had been, so far in his married life, as well domesticated as could
      be expected of a proletarian propagandist. He had yearned to own a home of
      his own, and meantime had manifested his repressed wish by getting a big
      packing-box and some broken shingles, and building a model play-house for
      Jimmie Junior in the back yard. He had even found time on his tired and
      crowded Sundays to start a garden in midsummer, the season when the local
      was least active. But now, of course, the war had come to obsess his mind,
      driving him to terror for the future of humanity, tempting him to
      martyrdoms and domestic irritations.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It was at this critical period in Jimmie's life that there appeared in
      Leesville a vivid young person by the name of Evelyn Baskerville. Evelyn
      was no tired kitchen slave&mdash;with her fluffy brown hair, her pert
      little dimples, her trim figure, her jaunty hat with a turkey feather
      stuck on one side of her head. Evelyn was a stenographer and proclaimed
      herself an advanced feminist; at her first visit she set the local upside
      down. It happened to be &ldquo;social evening&rdquo;, when all the men smoked, and
      this &ldquo;free&rdquo; young thing took a cigarette from her escort and puffed it all
      over the place. This, of course, would not have made a stir in great
      centres of culture such as London and Greenwich Village; but in Leesville
      it was the first time that the equality of women had been interpreted to
      mean that the women should adopt the vices of the men.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then Evelyn had produced from her handbag some leaflets on Birth Control,
      and proposed that the local should undertake their distribution. This was
      a new subject in Leesville, and while the members supposed it was all
      right, they found it embarrassing to have the matter explained too fully
      in open meeting. Evelyn wanted a &ldquo;birth strike&rdquo;, as the surest means of
      ending the war; she wanted the Worker to take up this programme, and did
      not conceal her contempt for reactionaries in the movement who still
      wanted to pretend that babies were brought by storks. The delicate subject
      was finally &ldquo;tabled&rdquo;, and when the meeting adjourned and the members
      walked home, everyone was talking about Miss Baskerville&mdash;the men
      mostly talking with the men, and the women with the women.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pretty soon it became evident that the vivid and dashing young person was
      setting her cap for Comrade Gerrity, the organizer. As Gerrity was an
      eligible young bachelor, that was all right. But then, a little later, it
      began to be suspected that she had designs upon Comrade Claudel, the
      Belgian jeweller. Doubtless she had a right to make her choice between
      them; but some of the women were of the opinion that she took too long to
      choose; and finally one or two malicious ones began to say that she had no
      intention of choosing&mdash;she wanted both.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then fell a thunderbolt into Jimmie's life. It was just after his
      arrest when fame still clung to him; and after the meeting Comrade
      Baskerville came up and engaged him in conversation. How did it feel to be
      a jailbird? When he told her that it felt fine, she bade him not be too
      proud&mdash;she had served thirty days for picketing in a shirt-waist
      strike! As she looked at him, her pretty brown eyes sparkled with
      mischief, and her wicked little dimples lost no curtain-calls. Poor,
      humble Jimmie was stirred to his shoe-tips, for he had never before
      received the attentions of such a fascinating creature&mdash;unless
      perchance it had been to sell her a newspaper, or to beg the price of a
      sandwich in his tramp days. Here was one of the wonderful things about the
      Socialist movement, that it broke down the barriers of class, and gave you
      exciting glimpses of higher worlds of culture and charm!
    </p>
    <p>
      Comrade Baskerville continued to flash her dimples and her wit at Jimmie,
      despite the fact that Comrade Gerrity and Comrade Claudel and several
      other moths were hovering about the candle-flame, and all the women in the
      local watching out of the corners of their eyes. Finally, to Jimmie's
      unutterable consternation, the vivid young goddess of Liberty inquired,
      &ldquo;Wouldn't you like to walk home with me, Comrade Higgins?&rdquo; He stammered,
      &ldquo;Yes&rdquo;; and they went out, the young goddess plying him with questions
      about conditions in the jail, and displaying most convincing erudition on
      the subject of the economic aspects of criminology&mdash;at the same time
      seeming entirely oblivious to the hoverings of the other moths, and the
      disgust of the unemancipated ladies of Local Leesville.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They walked down the street together, and first Comrade Baskerville
      shivered with horror at the &ldquo;seam-squirrels&rdquo;, and then exclaimed with
      delight over the conversion of &ldquo;Dead-eye Mike&rdquo; to Socialism, and then made
      merry over the singing of the Internationale in the police-station. Had
      she discovered a &ldquo;character&rdquo; in this seemingly insignificant little
      machinist? At any rate, she plied him with questions about his past life
      and his ideas. When he told her of his starved and neglected childhood,
      she murmured sympathetically, and it seemed to the fascinated Jimmie that
      here was a woman who understood instinctively all the cravings of his
      soul. She laid her hand on his arm, and it was as if an angel were
      touching him&mdash;strange little thrills ran like currents of electricity
      all over him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, Comrade Baskerville could appreciate his sufferings, because she had
      suffered too. She had had a stepmother, and had run away from home at an
      early age and fought her own way. That was why she stood so firmly for
      woman's emancipation&mdash;she knew the slavery of her sex through bitter
      experience. There were many men who believed in sex-equality as a matter
      of words, but had no real conception of it in action; as for the women&mdash;well,
      you might see right here in the local the most narrow, bourgeois ideas
      dominating their minds. Jimmie did not know what ideas Comrade Baskerville
      meant, but he knew that her voice was musical and full of quick changes
      that made him shiver.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was supposed to be taking her home; but he had no idea where she lived,
      and apparently she had no idea either, for they just wandered on and on,
      talking about all the wonderful new ideas that were stirring the minds of
      men and women. Did Comrade Higgins believe in trial marriages? Comrade
      Higgins had never heard of this wild idea before, but he listened, and
      bravely concealed his dismay. What about the children? The eager feminist
      answered there need not be any children. Unwanted children were a crime!
      She proposed to get the working-class women together and instruct them in
      the technique of these delicate matters; and meantime, lacking the women,
      she was willing to explain it to any inwardly embarrassed and quaking man
      who would lend his ear.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly she stopped and cried, &ldquo;Where are we?&rdquo; And there came a peal of
      merry laughter, as she discovered they had gone far astray. They turned
      and set off in the right direction, and meantime the lecture on advanced
      feminism continued. Poor Jimmie was in a panic&mdash;tumbled this way and
      that. He had considered himself a radical, because he believed in
      expropriating the expropriators; but these plans for overthrowing the
      conventions and disbanding the home&mdash;these left him aghast. And
      trilled into his ear by a vivid and amazing young thing with a soft hand
      upon his arm and a faint intoxicating perfume all about her! Why was she
      telling these things to him? What did she mean? What? WHAT?
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They came to the house where she lived. It was late at night, and the
      street was deserted. It was up to Jimmie to say good night, but somehow he
      did not know how to say it. Comrade Evelyn gave him her hand, and for some
      reason did not take it away again. Of course it would not have been polite
      for Jimmie to have pushed it away. So he held it, and looked at the
      shadowy form before him, and felt his knees shaking. &ldquo;Comrade Higgins,&rdquo;
       said the brave, girlish voice, &ldquo;we shall be friends, shall we not?&rdquo; And of
      course, Jimmie answered that they would&mdash;always! And the girlish
      voice replied, &ldquo;I am GLAD!&rdquo; And then suddenly it whispered, &ldquo;Good night!&rdquo;
       and the shadowy form turned and flitted into the house.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie walked away with the strangest tumult in his soul. It was something
      which the poets had been occupied for centuries in trying to portray, but
      Jimmie Higgins had no acquaintance with the poets, and so it was a brand
      new thing to him, he was left to experience the shock of it and to resolve
      the problems of it all alone. To be rolled and tossed about like a man in
      a blanket at a college ragging! To be a prey to bewilderment and fear,
      hope and longing, despair and rebellion, delicious excitement, angry
      self-contempt and tormenting doubt! Truly did that poet divine who first
      conceived the symbol of the mischievous little god, who steals upon an
      unsuspecting man and shoots him through the heart with a sharp and
      tormenting arrow!
    </p>
    <p>
      The worst of it was, Jimmie couldn't tell Lizzie about it. The first time
      in four years that he had had a trouble he could not tell Lizzie! He even
      felt ashamed, as he came home and crawled into bed&mdash;as if he had done
      some dreadful wrong to Lizzie; and yet, he would have been puzzled to tell
      just what the wrong was, or how he could have avoided it. It was not he
      who had made the young feminist so delicious and sweet and frank and
      amazing. It was not he who had made the little god, and brewed the poison
      for the arrow's tip. No, it was some power greater than himself that had
      prepared this situation, some power cruel and implacable, which plots
      against domestic tranquillity; perhaps it was some hireling of capitalism,
      which will not permit a propagandist of social justice to do his work in
      peace of soul.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie tried to hide what was going on; and of course&mdash;poor, naive
      soul&mdash;he had never learned to hide anything in his life, and now was
      too late to begin. The next time the local met, the women were saying that
      they were disappointed in Comrade Higgins; they had thought he was really
      devoted to the cause, but they saw now he was like all the rest of the men&mdash;his
      head had been turned by one smile on a pretty face. Instead of attending
      to his work, he was following that Baskerville creature about, gazing at
      her yearningly, like a moon-calf, making a ninny of himself before the
      whole room. And he with a wife and three babies at home, waiting for him
      and thinking he was hustling for the cause. When the meeting adjourned,
      and the Baskerville creature accepted the invitation of Comrade Gerrity to
      escort her home, the dismay of Comrade Higgins was so evident as to be
      ludicrous to the whole room.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      In the interest of common decency it was necessary for the women of the
      local to take action on this matter. At least, a couple of them thought
      so, and quite independently and without pre-arrangement they called on
      Lizzie next day and told her that she should come more frequently to
      meetings, and keep herself acquainted with the new ideas of advanced
      feminism. And so when Jimmie came home that night, he found his wife
      dissolved in tears and there was a most harrowing scene.
    </p>
    <p>
      For poor Elizabeth Huszar, pronounced Eleeza Betooser, had had no chance
      whatever to familiarize herself with the new ideas of advanced feminism.
      Her notions of &ldquo;free unions&rdquo; had been derived from a quite different
      world, whose ideas were not new, but on the contrary very, very old, and
      were &ldquo;advanced&rdquo; only on the road to perdition. She judged Jimmie's
      behaviour according to thoroughly old standards, and she was
      broken-hearted, overwhelmed with grief and shame. He was like all the rest
      of men&mdash;and when she had fondly thought he was different! He despised
      her and spit upon her&mdash;a woman he had picked up in a brothel.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor Jimmie was stunned. He was conscious of no disrespect for Lizzie, it
      had not occurred to him to think that she might take the matter that way.
      But so she had taken it, beyond doubt, and with intensity that frightened
      him. He would not have believed that so many tears could stream from one
      woman's eyes&mdash;nor that his good, broad-faced, honest wife could be so
      abject in her misery. &ldquo;Oh, I knowed it, I knowed it all along&mdash;it
      would be that way! I hadn't never ought to married you&mdash;you know I
      told you so?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Lizzie!&rdquo; pleaded the husband. &ldquo;You're mistaken. That hadn't nothin'
      to do with it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She turned upon him wildly, her fingers stuck out as if she would claw
      him. &ldquo;You mean to tell me if you hadn't 'a married a woman off the street,
      you'd 'a gone chasin' a fluffy-haired girl? If you'd 'a had a decent wife,
      that you knowed had some rights&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lizzie!&rdquo; he protested in consternation. &ldquo;Listen here&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But she was not to be stopped. &ldquo;Everybody said I was a fool; but I went
      an' done it, 'cause you swore you'd never hold it up to me! An' I went an'
      had them children&rdquo;&mdash;Lizzie swept her arm at the children, as if to
      wipe them off the earth, to which they had come by a cruel mistake.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie Junior, who was old enough to know that something serious was
      happening, and whose instinct was all against being wiped off the earth,
      began to howl wildly; and that set off the little ones&mdash;soon they
      were all three of them going at the top of their lungs. &ldquo;Boo-hoo-hoo!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was truly a terrible climax to a romance. Jimmie, almost distracted,
      seized the hand of his injured spouse. &ldquo;It's all nonsense!&rdquo; he cried.
      &ldquo;What they been tellin' you! I ain't done a thing, Lizzie! I only walked
      home with her one night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Lizzie answered that one night was plenty enough&mdash;she knew that
      from intimate and hateful experience. &ldquo;And I know them fluffy-headed kind
      that frizzes their hair. What does she want to walk home at night with
      married men fer? And talkin' about the things she does&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She don't mean no harm, Lizzie&mdash;she's tryin' to help workin' women.
      It's what's called birth control&mdash;she wants to teach women&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If she wants to TEACH women, why don't she TALK to the women! What's she
      all the time talkin' to MEN fer? You think you can tell me tales like that&mdash;me,
      that's been what I have?&rdquo; And Lizzie went off into another fit, worse than
      ever.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie found that it was with romance as with martyrdom&mdash;there was a
      lot of trouble about it which the romancers did not mention. He really
      felt quite dreadful, for he had a deep regard for this mother of his
      little ones, and he would not have made her suffer for anything. And she
      was right, too, he had to admit&mdash;her shots went deep home. &ldquo;How'd you
      feel, if you was to find out I'd been walkin' home with some man?&rdquo; When it
      was put to him that way, he realized that he would have felt very badly
      indeed.
    </p>
    <p>
      A flood of old emotions came back to him. He went in memory with his group
      of roystering friends to the house of evil where he had first met
      Elizabeth Huszar, pronounced Eleeza Betooser. She had taken him to her
      room, and instead of making herself agreeable in the usual way, had burst
      into tears. She had been ill-treated, and was wretchedly lonely and
      unhappy. Jimmie asked why she did not quit the life, and she answered that
      she had tried more than once, but she could not earn a living wage; and
      anyhow, because she was big and handsome, the bosses would never let her
      alone, and what was the difference, if you couldn't keep away from the
      men?
    </p>
    <p>
      They sat on the bed and talked, and Jimmie told her a little about his
      life, and she told about hers&mdash;a pitiful and moving story. She had
      been brought to America as an infant; her father had been killed in an
      accident, and her mother had supported several children by scrub-work.
      Lizzie had grown up in a slum on the far east side of New York, and she
      could not remember a time when she had not been sexually preyed upon; lewd
      little boys had taught her tricks, and men would buy her with candy or
      food. And yet there had been something in her struggling for decency; of
      her own volition she had tried to go to school, in spite of her rags; and
      then, when she was thirteen she had answered an advertisement for work as
      a nursemaid. That story had made an especial impression upon Jimmie&mdash;it
      was truly a most pitiful episode.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her place of employment had been a &ldquo;swell&rdquo; apartment, with a hall-boy and
      an elevator&mdash;the most wonderful place that Lizzie had ever beheld; it
      was like living in Heaven, and she had tried so hard to do what she was
      told, and be worthy of her beautiful mistress and the lovely baby. But she
      had been there only two days when the mistress had discovered vermin on
      the baby, and had come to Lizzie and insisted on examining her head. And
      of course she had found something. &ldquo;Them's only nits!&rdquo; Lizzie had said;
      she had never heard of anybody who did not have &ldquo;nits&rdquo; in their hair. But
      the beautiful lady had called her a vile creature, and ordered her to pack
      up her things and get out of the house at once. And so Lizzie had had to
      wait until she became an inmate of a brothel before anybody took the
      trouble to teach her how to get the &ldquo;nits&rdquo; out of her hair, and how to
      bathe, and to clean her finger-nails and otherwise be physically decent.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie recalled all that, and he fell on his knees before his wife, and
      caught her two hands by main force, and swore to her that he had not done
      any wrong; he went on to tell her exactly what wrong he had done, which
      was the best way to convince her that he had not done any worse. He vowed
      again and again that he would never, never dally with Cupid again&mdash;he
      would see Comrade Baskerville at once and tell her it was &ldquo;all off&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <p>
      And so Lizzie looked up through her tears. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you don't need
      to see her at all!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What shall I do, then?'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Just let her alone&mdash;don't tell her nothin'. She'll know it's off all
      right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      But when you have a dead romance, you cannot leave it to rot on the
      highway; you are driven irresistibly to bury it decently. In spite of his
      solemn promises, Jimmie found himself thinking all the time about Comrade
      Baskerville, and how he would act when he met her next time&mdash;all the
      noble and dignified speeches he would make to her. He must manage to be
      alone with her; for of course he could not say such things with the
      jealous old hags of the local staring at him. The best thing, he decided,
      would be to tell her the frank and honest truth; to tell her about Lizzie,
      and how good and worthy she had been, and how deeply he realized his duty
      to her. And then tears would come into Comrade Baskerville's lovely eyes,
      and she would tell him that she honoured his high sense of marital
      responsibility. They must renounce; but of course they would be dear and
      true friends&mdash;always, always. Jimmie was holding her hands, in his
      fancy, as he said these affecting words: Always! Always! He knew that he
      would have to let go of the hands, but he was reluctant to do so, and he
      had not quite got to the point of doing it when, walking down Jefferson
      Street on his way home from work&mdash;behold, in front of him a trim,
      eager little figure, tripping gaily, with a jaunty hat with a
      turkey-feather stuck on one side! Jimmie knew the figure a block away, and
      as he saw it coming nearer, his heart leaped up and hit him in the bottom
      part of his neck, and all his beautiful speeches flew helter-skelter out
      of his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      She saw him, and the vivid, welcoming smile came upon her face. She came
      up to him, and their hands clasped. &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;What a pleasant
      meeting!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie gulped twice, and then began, &ldquo;Comrade Baskerville&mdash;&rdquo; And then
      he gulped again, and began, &ldquo;Comrade Baskerville&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She stopped him. &ldquo;I'm not Comrade Baskerville,&rdquo; she declared.
    </p>
    <p>
      He could not get the meaning of these unexpected words.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Haven't you heard the news?&rdquo; she said, and beamed on him. &ldquo;I'm Comrade
      Mrs. Gerrity.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He stared at her, utterly bewildered. &ldquo;I've been that for twenty-four
      whole hours! Congratulate me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Little by little the meaning of the words began to dawn in Jimmie's stupid
      head. &ldquo;Comrade Mrs. Gerrity!&rdquo; he echoed. &ldquo;But&mdash;but&mdash;I thought
      you didn't believe in marriage.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There came the most bewitching smile, a smile decorated with two rows of
      pearly white teeth. &ldquo;Don't you understand, Comrade Higgins? No woman
      believes in marriage&mdash;until she meets the right man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This was much too subtle. Jimmie was still gaping open-mouthed. &ldquo;But then,
      I thought&mdash;I thought&mdash;&rdquo; he stopped again; for in truth, he had
      not known quite what he thought, and anyway, it seemed futile to try to
      formulate it now.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, of course, she knew, without his telling her; she knew the meaning of
      his look of dismay, and of his stammering words. Being a kind little
      creature, she laid her hand on his arm. &ldquo;Comrade Higgins,&rdquo; she said,
      &ldquo;don't think I'm too mean!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mean?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Why, no! What? How&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Try to imagine you were a girl, Comrade Higgins. You can't propose to a
      man, can you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, no&mdash;that is&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That is, not if you want him to accept! You have to make him do it. And
      maybe he's shy, and don't do it, and you have to put the idea in his head
      for him. Or maybe he's not sure he wants you, and you have to make him
      realize how very desirable you are! Maybe you have to scare him, making
      him think you're going to run off with somebody else! Don't you see how it
      is with a girl?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was still bady dazed, but he saw enough to enable him to stammer,
      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; And Comrade Baskerville&mdash;that is, Comrade Mrs. Gerrity&mdash;gave
      him her hand again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Comrade Higgins,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you're a dear, sweet fellow, and you won't
      be too angry with me, will you? We'll be friends, won't we, Comrade
      Higgins?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And Jimmie clasped the soft, warm hand, and gazed into the shining brown
      eyes, and he made a part of the wonderful speech which he had been
      planning as he walked. He said: &ldquo;Always! Always!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The world struggle continued with constantly increasing ferocity. All
      summer long the Germans hammered at the French and British lines; while
      the British hammered at the gates of Constantinople, and the Italians at
      the gates of Trieste. The Germans sent their giant airships to drop loads
      of bombs on London and their submarines to sink passenger-steamers and
      hospital-ships. Each fresh outrage against international law became the
      occasion of more letters of protest from the United States, and of more
      controversies in the newspapers, and in Congress, and in Kumme's
      bicycle-shop on Jefferson Street, Leesville.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this last place, to be sure, the discussions were rather one-sided.
      Practically all who came there regarded the munitions industry as an
      accursed thing, and made no secret of their glee at the misfortunes which
      befell it; at shipyards which caught fire and burned up, at railroad
      bridges and ships at sea destroyed by mysterious explosions. Kumme, a
      wizened-up, grizzle-haired old fellow with a stubby nose and a
      bullet-head, would fall to cursing in a mingling of English and German
      when anyone so much as mentioned the fleets of ships that went across the
      water, loaded with shells to kill German soldiers; he would point a skinny
      finger at whoever would listen to him, declaring that the Germans in this
      country were not slaves, and would protect their Fatherland from the
      perfidious British and their Wall Street hirelings. Kumme took a newspaper
      printed in German, and a couple of weeklies published in English for the
      promotion of the German cause; he would mark passages in these papers and
      read them aloud&mdash;everything that the mind of man could recall or
      invent that was discreditable to Britain, to France and Italy, to Wall
      Street, and to the nation which allowed Wall Street to bamboozle and
      exploit it. There were many Americans who had &ldquo;muck-raked&rdquo; their own
      country in the interests of social reform, and had praised the social
      system of Germany. These arguments the German propagandists now found
      useful, and Jimmie would take them to the Socialist local and pass them
      about. From the meeting of the local he and Meissner would go to the
      saloon where they had rendezvous with Jerry Coleman, who would distribute
      more ten-dollar bills to be used in the printing of anti-war literature.
    </p>
    <p>
      Old Kumme had a nephew by the name of Heinrich, who paid him a visit now
      and then. He was a tall, fine-looking fellow, who spoke much better
      English than his uncle, and wore better clothes. Finally he came to stay,
      and Kumme announced that he was to help in the shop. They didn't need any
      help that Jimmie could see, and certainly not from a fellow like Heinrich,
      who couldn't tell a spoke from a handle-bar; but it was none of Jimmie's
      business, so Heinrich put on working clothes, and spent a couple of weeks
      sitting behind the counter conversing in low tones with men who came to
      see him. After a while he took to going out again, and finally announced
      that he had secured a job in the Empire.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      And then to the hangers-on in the shop there was another addition&mdash;an
      Irish working man named Reilly. The Irishman was a peculiar problem in the
      war&mdash;the thorn of the Allied conscience, the weak spot in their
      armour, the broken link in their chain of arguments; and so every German
      was happy when an Irishman entered the room. This fellow Reilly came to
      have a punctured tyre mended, and stopped to tell what he thought about
      the world-situation. Old man Kumme slapped him over the back, and shook
      him by the hand, and told him he was the right sort, and to come again. So
      Reilly took to hanging about; he would pull from his pocket a paper called
      Hibernia, and Kummc would produce from under the counter a paper called
      Germania, and the two would denounce &ldquo;perfidious Albion&rdquo; by the hour.
      Jimmie, bending over the straightening of a sprocket, would look up and
      grin, and exclaim, &ldquo;You bet!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was winter-time, and darkness came early, and Jimmie was doing his work
      by electric light in the back of the shop, when Reilly came and
      mysteriously drew him into a corner. Did he really mean what he said about
      hatred of war, and willingness to fight against it? The Empire Shops were
      now turning out thousands of shell-casings every day, to be used in the
      murder of men. It was useless to try to start a strike, there were so many
      spies at work, and they fired every man who opened his mouth; if an
      outsider tried it they would send him to jail&mdash;for, of course, old
      Granitch had the city government in his vest-pocket.
    </p>
    <p>
      All this was an old story to Jimmie; but now the Irishman went on to a new
      proposition. There was a way to stop the work of the Empire, a way that
      had been tried in other places, and had worked. Reilly knew where to get
      some T.N.T.&mdash;an explosive many times more powerful than dynamite.
      They could make bombs out of the steel tubing of bicycles, and Jimmie,
      knowing the Empire Shops as he did, could find a way to get in and arrange
      matters. There was big money in it&mdash;the fellows who did that job
      might live on Easy Street the rest of their lives.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was stunned. He had been perfectly sincere in classifying German
      spies with sea-serpents; and here was a sea-serpent right before his eyes,
      raising his head through the floor of Kumme's bicycle-shop!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie answered that he had never had anything to do with that sort of
      thing. That wasn't the way to stop war; that was only making more war. The
      other began to argue with him, showing that it wouldn't hurt anybody; the
      explosion would take place at night, and all that would be damaged would
      be Abel Granitch's purse. But Jimmie was obdurate; fortunately one thing
      that had been incessantly pounded into his head at the local was that the
      movement could not use conspiracy, it must work by open propaganda,
      winning the minds and consciences of men.
    </p>
    <p>
      First the Irishman became angry, and called him a coward and a
      molly-coddle. Then he became suspicious, and wanted to know if Jimmie
      would sell him out to the Empire. Jimmie laughed at this; he had no love
      for Abel Granitch&mdash;the damned old skunk might do his own spying.
      Jimmie would simply have nothing to do with the matter, one way or the
      other. And so the project was dropped; but the little machinist was moved
      to keep his eyes open after that, and he made note of how many Germans,
      all strangers, were making the shop a meeting-place; also the quick
      intimacy which had developed between the Irishman and Heinrich, Kumme's
      nephew, who held himself so straight and had no back to his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      Matters came to a climax with startling suddenness&mdash;the explosion of
      a bomb, though not the kind which Jimmie was expecting. It was an evening
      in February, just as he was about to close up, when he saw the door of the
      shop open, and four men walk in. They came with a peculiar, business-like
      air, two of them to the puzzled Jimmie, and the other two to Kumme. One
      turned back the lapel of his coat, showing a large gold star, and
      announcing, &ldquo;I am an agent of the government, and you are under arrest.&rdquo;
       And at the same time the other seized Jimmie's arms and slipped a pair of
      handcuffs over his wrists. He passed his hands over his prisoner, a
      ceremony known as &ldquo;frisking&rdquo;; and at the same time the other men had
      seized Kumme. Jimmie saw two more men enter at the rear door of the shop,
      but they had nothing to do, for both Jimmie and Kumme had been too much
      startled to make any move to escape.
    </p>
    <p>
      They were led out to an automobile, shoved in and whirled away. No
      questions were answered, so after a bit they stopped asking questions and
      sat still, reflecting upon all the sins they had ever committed in their
      lives, and upon the chances of these sins being known to the police.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie thought he was going to jail, of course; but instead they took him
      to the Post Office building, to an upstairs room. Kumme was taken to
      another room, and Jimmie did not see him again; all that Jimmie had time
      to know or to think about was a stern-faced young man who sat at a desk
      and put him on a griddle. &ldquo;It is my duty to inform you that everything you
      state may be used against you,&rdquo; said this young man; and then, without
      giving Jimmie a chance to grasp the meaning of these words he began firing
      questions at him. All through the ordeal the two detectives stood by his
      side, and in a corner of the room, at another desk, a stenographer was
      busily recording what he said. Jimmie knew there were such things as
      stenographers&mdash;for had he not come near falling in love with one only
      a short time before?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your name?&rdquo; said the stern-faced young man; and then, &ldquo;Where do you
      live?&rdquo; And then, &ldquo;Tell me all you know about this bomb-conspiracy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I don't know nothin'!&rdquo; cried Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are in the hands of the Federal government,&rdquo; replied the young man,
      &ldquo;and your only chance will be to make a clean breast. If you will help us,
      you may get off.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I don't know nothin'!&rdquo; cried Jimmie, again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have heard talk about dynamiting the Empire Shops?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Y&mdash;yes, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A man&mdash;&rdquo; Jimmie got that far, and then he recollected the promise he
      had given. &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't tell!&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It wouldn't be right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you believe in dynamiting buildings?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir!&rdquo; Jimmie put into this reply a note of tense sincerity, and so
      the other began to argue with him. Atrocious crimes had been committed all
      over the country, and the government wished to put a stop to them; surely
      it was the duty of a decent citizen to give what help he could. Jimmie
      listened until a sweat of anxiety stood out on his forehead; but he could
      not bring himself to &ldquo;peach&rdquo; on fellow working men. No, not if he were
      sent to jail for ten or twenty years, as the stern-faced young man told
      him might happen.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You told Reilly you wouldn't have anything to do with bombs?&rdquo; asked the
      young man; and Jimmie answered &ldquo;Sure, I did!&rdquo; And his poor head was so
      addled that he didn't even realize that in his reply he had told what he
      had been vowing he would never tell!
    </p>
    <p>
      The questioner seemed to know all about everything, so it was easy for him
      to lead Jimmie to tell how he had heard Kumme cursing the Empire Shops,
      and the country, and the President; how he had seen Kumme whispering to
      Reilly, and to Germans whose names he had not learned, and how he had seen
      Heinrich, Kumme's nephew, cutting up lengths of steel tubing. Then the
      questioner asked about Jerry Coleman. How much money had Jimmie got, and
      just what had he done with it? Jimmie refused to name other people; but
      when the young man made the insinuation that Jimmie might have kept some
      of the money for himself, the little machinist exclaimed with passionate
      intensity&mdash;not one dollar had he kept, nor his friend Meissner
      either; they had given statements to Jerry Coleman, and this though many a
      time they had been hard up for their rent. The police could ask Comrade
      Gerrity and Comrade Mary Allen, and the other members of the local.
    </p>
    <p>
      So the questioner led Jimmie on to talk about the Germans in the movement.
      Schneider, the brewer, for example&mdash;he was one of those who cursed
      the Allies most vehemently, and he had been in this bomb-conspiracy.
      Jimmie was indignant; Comrade Schneider was as good a Socialist as you
      could find, and Socialists had nothing to do with bombs! But young Emil
      Forster&mdash;he had been making explosives in his spare hours, had he
      not? At which Jimmie became still more outraged. He knew young Emil well;
      the boy was a carpet-designer and musician, and if anybody had told such
      tales about him, they were lying, that was all. The questioner went on for
      an hour or so, tormenting poor Jimmie with such doubts and fears; until
      finally he dropped a little of his sternness of manner, and told Jimmie
      that he had merely been trying him out, to see what he knew about various
      men whose pro-German feelings had brought them under suspicion. No, the
      government had no evidence of crime against Schneider or Forster, or any
      of the bona-fide Socialists. They were just plain fools, letting
      themselves be used as tools of German plotters, who were spending money
      like water to make trouble in munition factories all over the country.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The questioner, who explained himself as a &ldquo;special agent&rdquo; of the
      Department of Justice, went on to read Jimmie a lecture. A sincere man
      like himself ought to be ashamed to let himself be taken in by German
      conspirators, who were trying to break up American industry, to lead
      American labour by the nose.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But they want to stop the making of munitions!&rdquo; cried Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But's that's only so that Germany can make more munitions!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I'm opposed to their being made in Germany, too!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What can you do to stop it in Germany?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm an international Socialist. When I oppose war in my own country, I
      help the Socialists to oppose it in other countries. I ain't a-going to
      stop&mdash;not so long as I've got any breath left in me!&rdquo; And here was
      Comrade Jimmie, delivering a sermon on pacifism to the &ldquo;special agent&rdquo; of
      the government, who held his fate in his hands! But no one was going to
      defend war to Jimmie Higgins and not be answered&mdash;even though Jimmie
      might go to jail for the rest of his life!
    </p>
    <p>
      The young man laughed&mdash;more genially than Jimmie would have thought
      possible at the start of this grilling. &ldquo;Higgins,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you're a
      good-natured idiot. You can thank your lucky stars that one of the men you
      trusted happened to be a government detective. If we didn't know the truth
      about you, you might have had a hard time clearing yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie's jaw had fallen. &ldquo;A government detective! Who is the government
      detective?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Reilly,&rdquo; said the young man.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Reilly? But it was him that tempted me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, congratulate yourself that you resisted temptation!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But maybe he tempted Heinrich, too!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, Heinrich didn't have to be tempted. It was on account of Heinrich
      that we began the investigation. He has been making explosives and
      planting them all over the country. His name isn't Heinrich, and he isn't
      a nephew of Kumme; his name is von Holtz, and he's a Prussian officer, a
      personal friend of the Kaiser.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was speechless. For the love of Mike! He had been sitting in the
      back part of old Kumme's bicycle-shop, filling his pipe from the
      tobacco-pouch of a personal friend of the Kaiser. He had called this
      personal friend of the Kaiser a fool and a jackass, informing him that a
      real mechanic could put a ball-bearing together while he, the personal
      friend of the Kaiser, was spitting on his hands. Could you beat it?
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Harrod, the &ldquo;special agent&rdquo;, informed Jimmie that he would have to
      testify as to what he knew; and Jimmie was so indignant at the way he had
      been taken in that he was willing to do so. He would have to give bond to
      appear, added the other; did he know anyone who would vouch for him?
      Jimmie racked his harassed brain. Comrade Dr. Service might consent, if he
      were quite sure that Jimmie had not really meant to help the Germans. Mr.
      Harrod kindly consented to give this assurance, and called up Dr. Service,
      whom he seemed to know, and told him the circumstances. Dr. Service
      finally said that he would put up a couple of thousand dollars to
      guarantee Jimmie's appearance before the grand jury and at the trial. Mr.
      Harrod added that if Dr. Service would promise to come in the morning and
      attend to the matter, the government would take his word and let the
      witness go for the night. The doctor promised, and Jimmie was told that he
      was free till ten o'clock next morning. He went out like a skylark
      escaping from a cage!
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      He had been warned not to talk to anyone, so he told Lizzie that he had
      been kept late to make repairs on a motor-cycle. And next morning he got
      up at the usual hour, to avoid exciting suspicion, and went and stared at
      the shop, which was locked up, with a policeman on guard. He bought a copy
      of the Leesville Herald, and read the thrilling story of the German plot
      which had been unearthed in Leesville. There were half a dozen
      conspirators under arrest, and more than a dozen bombs had been found, all
      destined to be set off in the Empire Shops. Franz Heinrich von Holtz, who
      had blown up a bridge in Canada and put an infernal machine on board a big
      Atlantic liner, had been nailed at last!
    </p>
    <p>
      Half an hour before time, Jimmie was waiting at the Post Office building,
      and when Comrade Dr. Service arrived, they went in and signed the bond.
      Coming out again, the grim and forbidding doctor ordered Jimmie into his
      car, and oh, what a dressing-down he did give him! He had Jimmie where he
      wanted him&mdash;right over his knees&mdash;and before he let him up he
      surely did make him burn! The little machinist had been so cock-sure of
      himself; going ahead to end the war, by stopping the shipping of
      munitions, and paying no heed to warnings from men older and wiser than
      himself! And now see what he had got himself in for&mdash;arrested with a
      gang of fire-bugs and desperadoes, under the control and in the pay of a
      personal friend of the Kaiser!
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor Jimmie couldn't put up much of a defence: he was cowed, for once. He
      could only say that he had had no evil intention&mdash;he had merely been
      agitating against the trade in munitions&mdash;a wicked thing&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wicked?&rdquo; broke in the Comrade Doctor. &ldquo;The thing upon which the freedom
      of mankind depends!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;W&mdash;what?&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmie; for these words sounded to him like
      sheer lunacy.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other explained. &ldquo;A nation that means to destroy its neighbours sets
      to work and puts all its energies into making guns and shells. The free
      peoples of the world won't follow suit&mdash;you can't persuade them to do
      it, because they don't believe in war, they can't realize that their
      neighbours intend to make war. So, when they are attacked their only
      chance for life is to go out into the open market and buy the means of
      defence. And you propose to deprive them of that right&mdash;to betray
      them, to throw them under the hoofs of the war-monster! You, who call
      yourself a believer in justice, make yourself a tool of such a conspiracy!
      You take German money&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I never took no German money!&rdquo; cried Jimmie, wildly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Didn't Kumme pay you money?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I worked in his shop&mdash;I done my ten hours a day right straight!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And this fellow Jerry Coleman? Hasn't he given you money?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But that was for propaganda&mdash;he was agent for Labour's National
      Peace Council&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And the Comrade Doctor fairly snorted. &ldquo;How could you be such an ass?
      Don't you read the news? But no&mdash;of course, you don't&mdash;you only
      read German dope!&rdquo; And the Comrade Doctor drew out his pocket-book, which
      was bursting with clippings, and selected one from a New York paper,
      telling how the government was proceeding against the officials of an
      organization called &ldquo;Labour's National Peace Council&rdquo; for conspiring to
      cause strikes and violence. The founder of the organization was a person
      known as &ldquo;the Wolf of Wall Street&rdquo;; the funds had been furnished by a
      Prussian army officer, an attache of the German legation, who had used his
      official immunity to incite conspiracy and wholesale destruction of
      property in a friendly country. What had Jimmie to say to that?
    </p>
    <p>
      And poor Jimmie for once had nothing to say. He sat, completely crushed.
      Not merely the money which he had got from Kumme on Saturday night, but
      also the ten-dollar bills which Jerry Coleman had been slipping into his
      hand&mdash;they, too, had come from the Kaiser! Was the whole radical
      movement to be taken over by the Kaiser, and Jimmie Higgins put out of his
      job?
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IX. JIMMIE HIGGINS RETURNS TO NATURE
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Kumme's bicycle-shop went out of business, and its contents were sold at
      auction. Jimmie Higgins watched the process wistfully, reflecting how, if
      he had not wasted his substance on Socialist tracts, if he had saved a bit
      of his wages like any normal human being, he might have bought this little
      business and got a start in life. But alas, such hopes were not for
      Jimmie! He must remain in the condition which the President of his country
      described as &ldquo;industrial serfdom&rdquo;; he must continue to work for some other
      man's profit, to be at the mercy of some other man's whim.
    </p>
    <p>
      He found himself a job in the railroad shops; but in a couple of weeks
      came an organizer, trying to start a union in the place. Jimmie, of
      course, joined; how could he refuse? And so the next time he went to get
      his pay he found a green slip in his envelope informing him that the
      Atlantic Western Railroad Company would no longer require his services. No
      explanation was given, and none sought&mdash;for Jimmie was old in the
      ways of American wage-slavery, euphemistically referred to as &ldquo;industrial
      serfdom&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <p>
      He got another start as helper to a truckman. It was the hardest work he
      had yet done&mdash;all the harder because the boss was a dull fellow who
      would not talk about politics or the war. So Jimmie was discontented;
      perhaps the spring-time was getting into his blood; at any rate, he hunted
      through his Sunday paper, and came on an advertisement of a farmer who
      wanted a &ldquo;hand&rdquo;. It was six miles out in the country, and Jimmie,
      remembering his walk with the Candidate, treated himself to a Sunday
      afternoon excursion. He knew nothing about farm-work, and said so; but the
      munition-factories had drained so much labour from the land that the
      farmer was glad to get anybody. He had a &ldquo;tenant-house&rdquo; on his place, and
      on Monday morning Jimmie hired his former boss&mdash;and truckman&mdash;to
      move his few sticks of furniture; he bade farewell to his little friend
      Meissner, and next day was learning to milk cows and steer a plough.
    </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie came back to the bosom of his ancient Mother. But alas, he came,
      not to find joy and health, not as a free man, to win his own way and make
      a new life for himself; he came as a soil-slave, to drudge from dawn to
      dark for a hire that barely kept him going. The farmer was the owner of
      Jimmie's time, and Jimmie disliked him heartily, because he was
      surly-tempered and stingy, abusing his horses and nagging at his hired
      man. Jimmie's education in farm-economics was not thorough enough to
      enable him to realize that John Cutter was as much of a slave as himself&mdash;bound
      by a mortgage to Ashton Chalmers, President of the First National Bank of
      Leesville. John drudged from dawn to dark, just as Jimmie did, and in
      addition had all the worry and fear; his wife was a sallow and
      hollow-chested drudge, who took as many bottles of patent-medicine as poor
      Mrs. Meissner.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Jimmie kept fairly cheerful because he was learning new things, and
      because he saw how good it was for the babies, who were getting fresh air
      and better food than they had ever had in their little lives before. All
      summer long he ploughed and harrowed and hoed, he tended horses and cows
      and pigs and chickens, and drove to town with farm produce to be sold. He
      would be too tired at night even to read his Socialist papers; for six
      months he let the world go its way unhindered&mdash;its way of desperate
      strife and colossal anguish. It was the time when the German hordes hurled
      themselves against the fortifications of Verdun. For five horrible months
      they came on, wave upon endless wave; the people of France set their teeth
      and swore, &ldquo;They shall not pass!&rdquo; and the rest of civilization waited,
      holding its breath.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The only chance Jimmie had to talk about these matters was of a Saturday
      night when he strolled up to the store at a near-by cross-roads. The men
      he met here were of a new type to him&mdash;as different from factory
      people as if they came from another planet. Jimmie had been taught to
      laugh at them as &ldquo;hayseeds&rdquo;; intellectually he regarded them as relics of
      a vanished age so, of course, he could not listen to their talk very long
      without &ldquo;butting in&rdquo;. He began with the declaration that the Allies were
      as bad as the Germans. He got away with that, because they had all been
      taught to hate the &ldquo;Britishers&rdquo; in their school-books, and they didn't
      know very much about Frenchmen and &ldquo;Eye-talians&rdquo;. But when Jimmie went on
      to say that the American government was as bad as the German government&mdash;that
      all governments were run by capitalists, and all went to war for foreign
      markets and such plunder&mdash;then what a hornet's nest he brought about
      his ears! &ldquo;You mean to say American armies would do what them Proosians
      done in Belgium?&rdquo; And when Jimmie answered &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; an indignant citizen
      rose from his seat on a cracker-box, and tapped him on the shoulder and
      said: &ldquo;Look here, young feller, you better run along home. You'll git
      yerself a coat of tar and feathers if you talk too much round these
      parts.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie shut up for a while; and when he went out with his armful of
      purchases, an aged, white-whiskered patriarch who had been listening got
      up and followed him out. &ldquo;I'm going your way,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Git in with me.&rdquo;
       Jimmie climbed into the buggy; and while the bony old mare ambled along
      through the summer night the driver asked questions about Jimmie's life.
      Where had he been brought up? How had it been possible for a man to live
      all his life in America, and know so little about his native land?
    </p>
    <p>
      Peter Drew was this old farmer's name, and he had been in the first battle
      of Bull Run, and had fought with the Army of Northern Virginia all the way
      to Richmond. So he knew how American armies behave; he could tell Jimmie
      about a million free men who had rushed to arms to save their nation's
      integrity, and had made a clean job of it, and then gone quietly back to
      their work at farm and forge. Jimmie had heard Comrade Mary Allen, the
      Quaker, make the statement that &ldquo;Force never settled anything&rdquo;. He
      repeated this now, and the other replied that an American ought to be the
      last person in the world to make such a statement, for his country had
      provided the best illustration in history of the importance of a good job
      of spanking. It was force that had settled the slavery question&mdash;and
      settled it so that now you might travel in the South and have a hard time
      to find a man that would want to unsettle it.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Jimmie knew nothing about all that; he knew nothing about anything in
      America. The old man said it frightened him to realize that the country
      had let a man grow up in it with so little understanding of its soul. All
      that precious tradition, utterly dead so far as Jimmie was concerned! All
      those heroes who had died to make free the land in which he lived, and to
      keep it free&mdash;and he did not know their names, he did not even know
      the names of the great battles they had fought! The old man's voice
      trembled and he laid his hand on Jimmie's knee.
    </p>
    <p>
      The little Socialist tried to explain that he had dreams of his own. He
      was fighting for international freedom&mdash;his patriotism was higher and
      wider than any one country. And that was all right, said the other, but
      why kick down the ladder by which you had climbed&mdash;and especially
      when you had perhaps not entirely finished climbing? Why not know the
      better side of your own country, and appeal to it? Peter Drew went on to
      tell of a speech he had heard Abraham Lincoln make, and to quote things
      Lincoln had said; could Jimmie doubt that Lincoln would have opposed the
      rule of the country by Wall Street? And when a country had been shaped and
      guided by such men as Lincoln, why trample its face and besmirch its good
      name&mdash;just because there were in it some evil men contending against
      its ideals of freedom and democracy?
    </p>
    <p>
      This old soldier lived about a mile from Jimmie, and asked his new friend
      to come and see him. So the next afternoon, which was Sunday, Lizzie put
      on a newly starched dress, and Jimmie packed the two smallest infants in
      the double perambulator, and took Jimmie Junior's chubby hand and they
      trudged down the road to the farmhouse which the old man's father had
      built. Mrs. Drew was a sweet-faced, rather tired looking old lady, but her
      pale eyes seemed to smile with hospitality, and she brought out a basket
      of ripe peaches, and sat and chatted sympathetically with Lizzie about the
      care of babies, while Jimmie and the old man sat under the shade of an elm
      tree by the kitchen-door and discussed American history. Jimmie listened
      to stories of battle and imprisonment, of monster heroisms and
      self-immolations. Up to this time he had been looking at war from the
      outside, as it were; but now he got a glimpse of the soul of it, he began
      to understand how a man might be willing to leave his home and his loved
      ones, and march out to fight and suffer and die to save his country in
      which he believed.
    </p>
    <p>
      And here was another new idea: this old fellow had been a soldier, had
      fought through four years of incessant battles, and yet he had not lost
      his goodness. He was kind, gentle, generous; he gave dignity to the
      phrases at which Jimmie had been taught to mock. It was impossible not to
      respect such a man; and so little by little Jimmie was made to reflect
      that there might be such a thing as the soul of America, about which Peter
      Drew was all the time talking. Perhaps there was really more to the
      country than Wall Street speculators and grafting politicians, policemen
      with clubs and militiamen with bayonets to stick into the bodies of
      working-men who tried to improve their lot in life!
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      In the course of the summer Jimmie had to take several days off and go
      into Leesville to attend the trial of the German plotters. He had to take
      the witness-stand and tell all he knew about Kumme and Heinrich and the
      other men who had frequented the bicycle-shop. It was a very serious
      experience, and before it was over Jimmie was heartily glad that he had
      rejected the invitation to help blow up the Empire Machine Shops. The
      trial ended with a sentence of six months for Jimmie's old employer, and
      of two years each for Heinrich and his pals. The law allowed no more&mdash;to
      the intense disgust of the Leesville Herald. The Herald was in favour of a
      life-sentence for anyone who interfered with the industry upon which the
      prosperity of the city depended.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among those who came to the trial was Comrade Smith, editor of the Worker,
      and Jimmie sat with him in Tom's &ldquo;Buffeteria&rdquo;, and heard an account of the
      latest developments in the Empire Shops. The movement of discontent had
      been entirely crushed; the great establishment was going at full blast,
      both day and night. They were taking on hundreds of new hands, mostly
      women and girls, speeding them faster and faster, turning out tens of
      thousands of shell-casings every day. And still they were not satisfied;
      new buildings were going up, the concern was spreading like a huge blot
      over the landscape. There was talk of an explosive factory near-by, so
      that shells might be filled as fast as they were made.
    </p>
    <p>
      The &ldquo;boom&rdquo; conditions continued in Leesville; speculators were reaping
      harvests, it seemed as if the masters of the city were all on a spree.
      Comrade Smith advised Jimmie to stay where he was, for it was getting to
      be harder and harder for the workers in Leesville to get anything to eat.
      But out on the heights along the river front, the part of the city called
      &ldquo;Nob Hill&rdquo;, new palaces were rising. And it was that way all over the
      Eastern part of the country, said the young editor; the rich no longer
      knew what to do with their millions.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the day the trial ended, Jimmie stayed in town to attend a meeting of
      the local and pay his back dues. So he met all his old friends, and heard
      &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; get up and deliver one of his tirades. Bill had in his hand a
      newspaper clipping telling of the amazing madness that had struck Wall
      Street. Munition stocks were soaring to prices beyond belief;
      &ldquo;war-babies&rdquo;, men called them, with unthinkably cynical wit. On the &ldquo;Great
      White Way&rdquo;, to which they rushed to celebrate these new Arabian Nights,
      there was such an orgy of dissipation as the world had never seen. &ldquo;And is
      this what we have to slave for!&rdquo; yelled &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;&mdash;looking wilder
      than ever since the police had broken his nose and knocked out his three
      front teeth. &ldquo;This is why we are chained to our jobs&mdash;shut up in jail
      if we so much as open our mouths! Piling up millions for old man Granitch,
      so that young Lacey can marry chorus-girls and divorce them&mdash;or steal
      away another man's wife, as they say he's doing just now!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then young Emil Forster spoke, explaining to Jimmie the inner significance
      of terrific world-events. Russia was in the midst of a gigantic offensive,
      which was meant to overwhelm Austria; England at the same time was hurling
      in her new armies on the Somme; for these two giant movements they wanted
      shells&mdash;millions and millions of shells from America, which alone
      could make enough of them. The railroads were clogged with them, they were
      piled mountain-high at the terminals and ports; whole fleets of steamers
      were loading up with them, and proceeding to England and France, and to
      Russia by way of Archangel. And, of course, the German submarines were out
      to stop them; the whole world was like a powder-magazine over the issue.
      The President, by his series of notes, had forced Germany to agree not to
      sink passenger-vessels; but this promise was not easy to keep&mdash;accidents
      kept happening, and the temper of the peoples was rising, America was
      being drawn nearer every hour to the vortex of this dreadful strife. Such
      was the picture which Jimmie carried back to the farm; you could hardly
      wonder if he missed that peace and joy which men are supposed to imbibe at
      the bosom of their Mother Nature!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER X. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE OWNER
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It was late at night when Jimmie left the Socialist local, and took the
      trolley out into the country. He had to walk nearly two miles from where
      he got off, and a thunder-storm had come up; he got out and started to
      trudge through the darkness and the floods of rain. Several times he
      slipped off the road into the ditch, and once he fell prone, and got up
      and washed the mud from his eyes and nose with the stream of fresh water
      pouring about his head. While he was thus occupied he heard the sound of a
      horn, and saw a glare of light rushing up. He jumped into the ditch again,
      and a big automobile went by at a fast pace, spattering showers of mud all
      over him. He plodded on, swearing to himself. Some of them
      munition-millionaires, no doubt&mdash;tearing over the country at night
      honking their horns like they owned the roads, and covering poor walking
      people with their splashings!
    </p>
    <p>
      And so on, until Jimmie came round a turn of the road and saw the white
      glare of light again, this time standing still. It seemed to be pointing
      up into the trees; and when he got nearer he made out the reason&mdash;it
      had run off the road into the ditch, and then up the other slope, and
      there rolled over on to its side.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello!&rdquo; said a voice, as Jimmie came slopping up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello!&rdquo; he answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How far is it to the nearest house?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Maybe half a mile.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who lives there?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have you got a horse and buggy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's one at the big house, just a piece beyond.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you suppose we could get enough men to turn this car over?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I dunno; there ain't many about here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Damn!&rdquo; muttered the man to himself. Then, after a moment, &ldquo;Well, there's
      no use staying here.&rdquo; This to his companion, whom Jimmie made out to be a
      woman. She was standing still, with the cold rain pouring over her. The
      man put his arm about her, and said to Jimmie, &ldquo;Lead the way, please.&rdquo; So
      Jimmie set out, slopping through the mud as before.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing more was said until they reached the &ldquo;tenant-house&rdquo; where the
      Jimmies lived. But meantime the little Socialist's mind was busy; it
      seemed to him that the man's voice was familiar, and he was trying to
      recall where and how he had heard it before. They came to the house, which
      was dark, and the couple stood on the porch while Jimmie went in and
      groped for a match and lighted the single smoky oil-lamp on which the
      household depended. Carrying it in his hand, he went to the door and
      invited the couple in. They came; and so Jimmie got a glimpse of the face
      of the man, and almost dropped the lamp right there where he stood. It was
      Lacey Granitch!
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The young lord of Leesville was too much occupied with his own affairs to
      notice the look on the face of the yokel before him; or perhaps he was so
      used to being recognized, and to being stared at by yokels. He looked
      about the room and saw a stove. &ldquo;Can you get us a fire, so this lady can
      get dry?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Y&mdash;yes,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;I&mdash;I suppose so.&rdquo; But he made no move;
      he stood rooted to the spot.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lacey,&rdquo; put in the woman, &ldquo;don't stop for that. Get the car started, or
      get another.&rdquo; And Jimmie looked at her; she was rather small, and very
      beautiful&mdash;quite the most beautiful human creature that Jimmie had
      ever looked at. One could see that she was expensively dressed, even
      though everything she had on was soaked with rain.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; exclaimed Lacey. &ldquo;You can't travel till you get dry&mdash;you'd
      be ill.&rdquo; And he turned upon Jimmie. &ldquo;Get a fire, won't you?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
      &ldquo;A big fire. I'll make it worth while to you for whatever you do. Only
      don't stand there gaping all night,&rdquo; he added impatiently.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie leaped to obey; partly because he had been in the habit of leaping
      to obey all his life&mdash;but also partly because he was sorry for the
      beautiful wet lady, and because, if he stood and stared any longer, Lacey
      Granitch might recognize him. The moment when Jimmie had been singled out
      in the herd of strikers and cursed by the young master of the Empire
      Machine Shops was one of the most vivid memories of Jimmie's rebellious
      life, and it did not occur to him that the incident might not have equally
      impressed the other participant.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a few minutes the stove was hot; and urged by her escort, the lady took
      off her driving-coat and hat, and hung them over a chair. Everything
      underneath was wet, and the man urged her to take off her skirt and
      blouse. &ldquo;What does he matter?&rdquo; he argued, referring to Jimmie; but the
      lady would not do it. She stood by the stove, shivering slightly, and
      pleading with her escort to make haste, to find some way to get the car
      running again. They might be followed&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, nonsense, Helen!&rdquo; cried Lacey. &ldquo;You are tormenting yourself with
      nightmares. Be sensible and get dry.&rdquo; He piled the wood into the stove,
      and ordered Jimmie to get another armful; and Jimmie obeyed with his hands
      and feet&mdash;but meantime his rebellious little brain was taking in
      every detail of the situation, putting this and that together.
    </p>
    <p>
      The talking had waked up Lizzie, so Jimmie rushed into the next room and
      whispered, &ldquo;Lacey Granitch is here!&rdquo; If he had told her that the Angel
      Gabriel was there, or Jehovah with all his thunders and his retinue of
      seraphim, poor Lizzie could not have been more stunned. Jimmie ordered her
      to get up, and get on her dress and shoes, and get a cup of coffee for the
      lady; the dazed woman obeyed&mdash;though she would rather have crawled
      under the bed than face the celestial personages who had taken possession
      of her home.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Lacey ordered Jimmie to accompany him, to find some help to get the car
      into travelling condition. They went out together, and on the porch,
      before they braved the rain again, young Granitch stopped and spoke: &ldquo;See
      here, my man; I want you to help me get a gang together, and I want you to
      keep quiet, please&mdash;say nothing about who was in the car. If any
      other people come along and ask questions, keep your mouth shut, and I'll
      make it worth while to you&mdash;well worth while. Do you understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Every instinct in Jimmie Higgins was ready to answer, &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo; That was
      what he had always answered to such commands&mdash;he, and his father, and
      his father's fathers before him. But something else within him resisted
      this instinct&mdash;the new revolutionary psychology which he had so
      painfully acquired, and which made continual war upon his old-time
      docilities. It seemed that this was the moment, if ever in his life, to
      show the stuff he was made of. He clenched his hands, and everything in
      him turned to iron. &ldquo;WHO IS THAT LADY?&rdquo; he demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lacey Granitch was so taken aback that he started visibly. &ldquo;What do you
      mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I mean&mdash;is she your wife? Or is she some other man's wife?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why you damned&mdash;&rdquo; And the young lord of Leesville stopped,
      speechless. Jimmie fell back a couple of steps, as a matter of precaution,
      but he did not weaken in his rigid resolve.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know you, Mr. Granitch,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and I know what you're doing. You
      might as well know you ain't foolin' nobody.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What the hell is it to you?&rdquo; cried the other; but then he stopped again,
      and Jimmie heard him breathing hard. Evidently he made an effort to keep
      his self-control; when he spoke again, his voice was quieter. &ldquo;Listen, my
      good fellow,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You have a chance to make a good deal of money
      to-night&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't want your money!&rdquo; broke in Jimmie. &ldquo;I wouldn't touch your filthy
      money, that you get by murdering men!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; said Lacey Granitch; and then, weakly: &ldquo;What have you got
      against me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What have I got? I was workin' in the Empire, an' I went on strike for my
      rights, an' you cursed me like I was a dog, an' you sent the police an'
      had me arrested, an' they smashed Wild Bill's nose, an' sent me up for ten
      days when I hadn't done nothin'&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! So that's it, is it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquldquo;Yes, that's it; but I wouldn't mind that so much&mdash;if it wasn't for
      them shells you're makin' to kill men over in Europe. And you spendin' the
      money drinkin' champagne with chorus-girls, an' runnin' off with other
      men's wives!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You&mdash;&rdquo; and Lacey uttered a foul oath, and leaped at Jimmie; but
      Jimmie had expected that, he was looking out for himself. There was no
      railing to the little porch on which he stood, and he leaped off to the
      ground and away. Because he knew the lay of the land, he could run faster
      in the darkness than his pursuer.
    </p>
    <p>
      He sped down the path and out into the road&mdash;and there was the
      headlight of an automobile, almost upon him. The vehicle came to an
      instant stop, and a startled voice cried, &ldquo;Hey, there!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hey, there!&rdquo; answered Jimmie, and stopped in the light; for he did not
      believe that his enemy would dare pursue him there.
    </p>
    <p>
      The voice from the car spoke again. &ldquo;There's an automobile off the road a
      ways back here. Do you know anything about who the people are that were
      driving it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure I do!&rdquo; answered Jimmie promptly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where are they?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They're up in that house&mdash;Lacey Granitch an' a lady named Helen&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And instantly the door of the car was flung open. A man leaped out, and
      another man, and another; they kept coming&mdash;Jimmie would not have
      believed that an automobile could have held so many people. Not one of
      them said a word, but all started on the run for Jimmie's house as if they
      were charging in a battle.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie followed behind. He heard sounds of a scuffle on the lawn, and
      screams from inside. At first the little farm-hand could not make up his
      mind what to do, but finally he ran to the house; and there in the front
      room he saw the beautiful lady, with her wet hair streaming down her back,
      and the tears streaming down her face, sunk on her knees, before the man
      who had hailed Jimmie from the automobile. She had caught his coat with
      her two hands, and clung to it with such desperation that when he tried to
      draw away he dragged her along the floor. &ldquo;Paul!&rdquo; she was screaming. &ldquo;What
      are you going to do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Be quiet! Be quiet!&rdquo; commanded the man. He was young, tall and
      superhumanly handsome; his face had the white light of a passionate
      resolve, his lips were set like those of a man who is marching to his
      death in battle. &ldquo;Answer me!&rdquo; cried the woman again and again; until
      finally he said: &ldquo;I shan't kill him; but I mean to teach him his lesson.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Paul, Paul, have mercy!&rdquo; sobbed the woman; she went on pleading
      hysterically, in the most dreadful distress that Jimmie had ever seen or
      heard. &ldquo;It wasn't his fault, Paul, it was mine! I did it all! Oh, for
      Christ's sake! You are driving me mad!&rdquo; She moaned, she implored, she
      sobbed till she choked herself; and when the man tried to tear her hands
      loose she fought with him, he could not get free of her.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're not going to move me, Helen,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;You might as well get
      that clear.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I tell you it was my fault, Paul! I ran away with him!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; answered the man, grimly. &ldquo;I'll fix him so no other man's
      wife will ever run away with him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her clamour continued more wildly than ever, until two other men came into
      the room. &ldquo;Joe,&rdquo; said Paul, to one of them, &ldquo;take her down to the car and
      keep her there. Don't let her call for help&mdash;if anybody comes along,
      keep her quiet, keep your hand tight over her mouth.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Paul, you're a fiend!&rdquo; shrieked the woman. &ldquo;I'll kill you for this!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're welcome to,&rdquo; answered the man. &ldquo;I shouldn't care&mdash;but I'm
      going to do this job before I die.&rdquo; And he tore the woman's hands away
      from him, and by his stern anger he gave the other two men the necessary
      resolution. They carried her, half-fainting, out of the room.
    </p>
    <p>
      All this time Jimmie Higgins had been standing like one turned to stone;
      and Lizzie had shrunk into a far corner of the room, all but paralysed
      with terror. Now the man turned to them. &ldquo;My good people,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we
      want to borrow your room for a half-hour or so. We'll pay you well for it&mdash;enough
      to buy the whole house if you want to.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;W&mdash;w&mdash;what are you goin' to do?&rdquo; stammered Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We're going to teach a little fundamental morality to a young man whose
      education has been neglected,&rdquo; replied the other. That somehow did not
      tell Jimmie very much, but he forebore to speak again, for never in all
      his life had he seen a man who conveyed to him the impression of such
      resistless force as this man. He was truly a superhuman creature,
      terrifying, panoplied in lightnings of wrath.
    </p>
    <p>
      The door of the house opened again, and Lacey Granitch came in, with a man
      on each side holding him by the arms and a pair of handcuffs on his
      wrists. Of all the dreadful spectacles that Jimmie had seen that dreadful
      night, the worst was the face of the young master of the Empire Machine
      Shops. It was green&mdash;absolutely and literally green. His knees
      trembled so that he seemed about to sink to the floor, and his dark eyes
      were those of an animal in a trap.
    </p>
    <p>
      There came another man behind him carrying two black cases in his hands.
      He opened one, and took out some instrument with wires attached, and hung
      part of it to a hook on the wall; he pressed a switch, and a soft white
      radiance flooded the room. The man who was in command, the one whom the
      lady had called &ldquo;Paul&rdquo;, now turned to Jimmie and his wife. &ldquo;You may take
      your lamp,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Go into the other room and stay there till we call
      you, please.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;W&mdash;w&mdash;what are you goin' to do?&rdquo; Jimmie found courage to
      stammer again. But the other merely bade him to go into the other room and
      stay, and it would be all right, and he would be well paid for his time
      and trouble. There was no use trying to interfere; no use trying to get
      away, for the house would be watched.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie Junior had been wakened by the uproar, and was whimpering; so
      Lizzie hurried to quiet him, and Jimmie set the little smoky lamp on the
      dresser, and went and sat on the bed beside her, holding her hand in his.
      Both their hands were shaking in a way that was amazing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Every sound from the other room was plainly audible. Lacey was pleading,
      and &ldquo;Paul&rdquo; commanded him to hold his tongue. There was a scuffle, and then
      terrified moans, which died away. There began to steal into the Higgins's
      bedroom a most ghastly odour; they could not imagine what it was. And then
      they began to hear wild clamour from Lacey Granitch, as if he were
      suffering in hell. It was awful beyond words; the perspiration came out in
      beads on the faces of the listeners, and Jimmie was just about making up
      his mind that it was his duty to rush in and protest, or perhaps to climb
      out of the window and make an effort to steal away and summon help, when
      the door opened and the man called &ldquo;Paul&rdquo; came in, closing the door behind
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's all right,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;People always make a fuss when they're given
      an anaesthetic, so don't let it frighten you.&rdquo; And he stood there waiting,
      rigid, grim, while the sounds went on. Finally they died away and silence
      fell&mdash;a long, long silence. He opened the door and went back into the
      other room, and the two Jimmies were left holding each other's shaking
      hands.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now and then they heard a man speak in a low voice, or someone move across
      the room; and always that ghastly, overpowering odour kept creeping in,
      making them think they would die of suffocation, and their three babies
      also. The suspense and horror had become almost unbearable&mdash;when
      finally they began to hear Lacey Granitch again, moaning, sobbing&mdash;most
      harrowing sounds. &ldquo;My God! My God!&rdquo; whispered Lizzie, &ldquo;What are they
      doing?&rdquo; And when Jimmie did not answer, she whispered again. &ldquo;We ought to
      stop them! We ought to get help!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But then once more the door opened, and &ldquo;Paul&rdquo; came in. &ldquo;It's all right
      now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He's coming out.&rdquo; Neither of the Jimmies had the least
      idea what &ldquo;coming out&rdquo; meant, but they were reassured to know that the
      masterful person at least was satisfied. They waited; they heard Lacey
      vomiting, as it seemed&mdash;and then they heard him cursing, in between
      his feeble gasps. He called the men the same foul name that he had called
      Jimmie; and that somehow made the whole affair seem better&mdash;it
      brought one down to earth again!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Paul&rdquo; went out and stayed for a while, and when he came back, he said,
      &ldquo;We're going now; and understand, there's nothing for you to worry about.
      We shall leave the patient here, and as soon as we get to a telephone,
      we'll notify the hospital to send an ambulance. So all you have to do is
      to wait, and keep quiet and don't worry. And here's something for the use
      of your house&mdash;&rdquo; The man put out his hand with a roll of bills, which
      Jimmie mechanically took&mdash;&ldquo;and if anybody asks you about what
      happened to-night, just say you didn't see anything and don't know
      anything whatever about it. I'm sorry to have troubled you, but it
      couldn't be helped. And now, good night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And so the masterful young man went out, and they heard him and his
      companions tramping down the porch-steps. They listened, until they heard
      the automobile start up and disappear in the darkness. Then from the next
      room they heard a moan.
    </p>
    <p>
      Trembling with terror, Jimmie got up and stole to the door, and opened it
      a tiny crack. The room was in utter darkness. &ldquo;Get me some water!&rdquo; the
      voice of Lacey groaned; and Jimmie tiptoed back and got the little smoky
      lamp, and came to the door again. He peered in, and saw that Lacey was
      lying on the floor with a sheet over him&mdash;everything but his head,
      which was resting on a pillow. His face was yellow and twisted with pain.
      &ldquo;Water! Water!&rdquo; he sobbed; and Jimmie rushed to get a glass and fill it
      from the pail. When he brought it, Lacey first tried to drink, and then
      began to vomit; then he lay, sobbing softly to himself. He saw Jimmie
      staring at him, and his eyes filled with sudden hate and he whispered,
      &ldquo;This is what you got me in for, you damned little skunk!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XI. JIMMIE HIGGINS FACES THE WAR
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The ambulance arrived, and the two attendants who came with it brought in
      a stretcher and carried young Granitch away. Jimmie opened the windows to
      get rid of the odour of ether, and meantime he and Lizzie sat for hours
      discussing every aspect of the dreadful scene they had witnessed, and
      speculating as to its meaning. When Jimmie investigated the roll of bills
      which had been slipped into his hand, he found that there were ten of
      them, new, crisp, and bright yellow, each having the figure twenty printed
      upon it. It was more money than these two humble little people had ever
      had or expected to have in all their lives. It was literally blood-money
      they felt, but it would be hard to see who would be benefited if they
      rejected it. Certainly the deed which had been done that night could not
      be undone&mdash;not for all the money that old Granitch had heaped up in
      his vaults.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie kept quiet, as he had been bidden, and apparently no one told about
      his part in the affair&mdash;no reporters came out to his country home to
      ask for interviews. But when he went to the cross-roads store a couple of
      nights later he found that the storm was all over&mdash;nobody was talking
      or thinking about anything else. The news, in fact, had gone by telegraph
      all over the world, and wherever people read it they shuddered with
      horror, and the Socialists had a choice illustration of the effect of
      excessive wealth upon morals.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were half a dozen versions of the story, Jimmie found; some declared
      that the outraged husband had caught young Granitch in his home and had
      fetched a surgeon there; others that he had taken him to a hospital;
      others that the operation had been performed in a road-house near by. But
      none mentioned the tenant-house on the farm of John Cutter, and Jimmie
      wrapped himself in his pride of superior knowledge, and let the loungers
      in the country store chatter on. He would go back each night for new
      gossip; and first he heard that old man Granitch was meaning to have all
      the conspirators arrested and sent to jail; but then it was said that
      young Lacey had left the hospital and vanished, no one knew where. And
      they never knew; never again did he appear to curse the strikers at the
      Empire, nor to break the hearts of chorus-girls on the Great White Way!
      His grim old father's hair turned grey in a few weeks; and while he went
      on to fill his contracts with the Russian government, all men knew that
      his heart was eaten out with grief and rage and shame.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie and his wife held numerous confabulations over those twenty-dollar
      bills. What should they do with their fortune? The Worker, always in need
      of funds, was just now issuing bonds in small denominations, and Jimmie
      could not imagine any better financial investment than a working-class
      paper; but Lizzie, alas, could not be made to see it. And then his eye was
      caught by an advertisement of an oil-company, published in a Socialist
      paper, which lifted it above suspicion. But again Lizzie blocked the way.
      She begged her visionary husband to turn the money over to her; she argued
      that half of it belonged to her anyhow&mdash;had she not done her part to
      earn it? &ldquo;What part?&rdquo; Jimmie asked; and she answered that she had kept
      quiet&mdash;and what more had he done?
    </p>
    <p>
      Eleeza Betooser wanted that treasure to insure safety for the children
      through whatever troubles might come to their propagandist father. And
      finally the propagandist father gave way, and the woman proceeded to
      secure the money in the ancient way of her sex. She took the ten crisp
      bills and sewed them in a layer of cloth, and wound the cloth about the
      ankle of her right leg, and sewed it there, and put a stocking over it to
      hide it. And that apparatus would stay there&mdash;day or night, winter or
      summer, it would never part from its owner. She would be a walking bank, a
      bank that she knew was safe from panic or crisis; the feeling of the two
      hundred dollars about her ankle would be communicated to every part of
      Lizzie&mdash;warming her heart, delighting her brain, and stimulating her
      liver and digestion.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      And soon the chances of life caused Jimmie to be glad of the innate
      conservatism of the feminine nature. The giant British offensive was
      drowned in mud and blood on the Somme, and the Russian offensive went to
      pieces before Lemberg; and meantime John Cutter stowed his barrels of
      apples in the cellar, and got the last of his corn-crop husked, and drove
      his load of pumpkins to market; and then one Saturday night, after the
      cows had come in, wet and steaming with November rain, he informed his
      hired man that he would not need his services after that month, he would
      no longer be able to afford &ldquo;help&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie stared at him in consternation&mdash;for he had thought that he had
      a permanent job, having learned the work and having heard no serious
      complaints.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; explained Cutter, &ldquo;the work's all done. Do you expect me to pay you
      to sit round? I'll be glad to take you on next spring, of course.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And what'll I do in the meantime?&rdquo; Jimmie glared, and all his hatred of
      the villainous profit-system welled up in his heart. So much food he had
      helped to raise and store away&mdash;and not a pound of it his! &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he
      remarked, &ldquo;I know what you want! Some kind of a trained bear, that'll work
      all summer, and go to sleep in winter an' not eat nothin'!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The little Socialist was all the crosser, because he knew that his boss
      had just made a lucky stroke&mdash;they were running a spur on the
      railroad out to the vast explosives plant they were constructing in the
      country, and Cutter had got the price of his mortgage for a narrow strip
      of land that was nothing but wood-lot. Jimmie had seen the deal made, and
      had put in a useful word as to the value of that &ldquo;timber&rdquo;, but now he had
      no share in the deal. He must be content with an offer of the tenant-house
      for five dollars a month through the winter, and a job with the rail-road
      company, grading track.
    </p>
    <p>
      There came rain and snow and blizzards, but the rail-road construction
      stopped for nothing. It went on in three shifts, day and night; for half
      the world was clamouring for the means to blow itself up, and the other
      half must work like the devil to furnish the means. At least that was the
      way the matter presented itself to Jimmie Higgins, who took it as a
      personal affront the way this diabolical war kept pursuing him. He had
      fled into the country from it, bringing his little family to a
      tenant-house on an obscure, worn-out farm, several miles from the nearest
      town; but here all of a sudden came a gang of Dagoes with picks and
      shovels. They lifted up and set to one side the chicken-house where Lizzie
      kept her eleven hens and one rooster, and the pig-sty where one little hog
      gobbled up their table-scraps; and two days later came a huge machine,
      driven by steam, creeping on a track, picking up rails and ties from a car
      behind it, swinging them round and laying them in front of it, and then
      rolling ahead over the bed it had made. So the railroad just literally
      walked out into the country, and before long whole train-loads of cement
      and sand and corrugated iron walls and roofing came rattling and banging
      past the Higgins's back-door. Day and night this continued; and a little
      way beyond they knew that a two-mile square of scrubby waste was being
      laid out with roads and tracks and little squat buildings, set far apart
      from each other. In a few months the frightened family would lie awake at
      night and listen to trains rattling past, coming out from the explosives
      plant, piled to the tops with loads of trinitrotoluol, and such
      unpronounceable instruments of murder and destruction. And this was the
      fate which capitalism had handed out to an ardent anti-militarist, a
      propagandist of international fraternity!
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins went into the Socialist local now and then, to pay his dues
      and to refresh his soul on pacifist speeches. Just before Christmas the
      President of the United States wrote a letter to all the warring nations
      pleading with them to end the strife; intimating that all the belligerents
      were on a par as to badness, and stating explicitly that America had
      nothing to do with their struggle. This, of course, brought intense
      satisfaction to the members of Local Leesville of the Socialist party; it
      was what they had been proclaiming for two years and four months! They had
      never expected to have a capitalist President in agreement with them, but
      when the opportunity came, they made the most of it; clamouring that the
      capitalist President should go farther&mdash;should back up his words by
      actions. If the warring nations would not make peace, let America at least
      clear her skirts by declaring an embargo, refusing to furnish them with
      the means of self-destruction!
    </p>
    <p>
      But for some reason incomprehensible to Jimmie Higgins, the capitalist
      President would not take this further step; and time moved on, and at the
      end of January fell a thunder-bolt, in the shape of a declaration from the
      German government that beginning next day it rescinded its agreement to
      visit and search steamers, and declared war to the death against all
      vessels sailing in barred zones. Jimmie went to a meeting of the local a
      few days after that, and found the gathering seething with excitement. The
      President had appeared before Congress that day and made a speech calling
      for war; and the Germans and Austrians in the local were wild with
      indignation, shaking their fists and clamouring against the unthinkable
      outrage of an attack upon the Fatherland. There was a new edition of the
      Worker just out, filled with bitter protests, and the Germans and the
      pacifists wanted to pledge the local to a movement for a general strike of
      labour throughout the country. Street-meetings had been resumed&mdash;for,
      of course, since the strike in the Empire had been settled, the police had
      had no pretext to prevent them. The extremists now wanted anti-war
      speakers on every corner, and anti-war leaflets shoved under every
      doorstep; they were willing to put up the money and to pledge their time
      for these activities.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lawyer Norwood rose and revealed the split that was now full-grown in the
      party. For the United States to lie down before that insolent declaration
      of the German government would be to imperil everything which a lover of
      liberty held dear. It would mean that Britain would be starved out of the
      war, and British sea-power shattered&mdash;that British sea-power upon
      which free government had based itself throughout the world. Norwood was
      unable to get any further for the tempest of jeering and ridicule that
      overwhelmed him. &ldquo;Freedom in Ireland!&rdquo; shrieked Comrade Mary Allen. &ldquo;And
      in India! And in Egypt!&rdquo; bellowed Comrade Koeln, the glass-blower, whose
      mighty lungs had been twenty years preparing for this emergency.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was hard to stop the laughter&mdash;it seemed so funny that a man who
      called himself a Socialist should be defending British battleships! But
      Comrade Gerrity, the chairman, pounded with his gavel, and insisted that
      the meeting should give fair play, that every speaker should be heard in
      his turn. So Norwood went on. He understood that no government in this
      world was perfect, but some were better than others, and it was a fact of
      history, whether or not they chose to admit it, that such freedom as had
      already been secured in the world&mdash;in Britain and Canada and
      Australia and New Zealand and the United States&mdash;had rested under the
      protection of British battleships. If those battleships went down, it
      would mean that every one of those free communities would begin building
      up a military force many times as strong as they had now. If the United
      States did not maintain the established customs of sea-commerce in the
      present crisis, it would mean one thing and one only&mdash;that America
      would spend the next thirty years devoting her energies to preparing for a
      life-and-death struggle with German Imperialism. If we were not to fight
      later, we must fight now&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right, you fight!&rdquo; shouted Comrade Schneider, the brewer, his purple
      face more purple than ever before in the history of Local Leesville.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm going to fight all right,&rdquo; answered the young lawyer. &ldquo;This is my
      last speech here or anywhere else&mdash;I'm leaving for an officers'
      training-camp to-morrow. I have come here to do my duty, to warn you
      comrades&mdash;even though I know it will be in vain. The time for debate
      has passed&mdash;the country is going into war&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm not going into war!&rdquo; roared Schneider.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Be careful,&rdquo; answered the other. &ldquo;You may find yourself in before you
      know it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And the big brewer laughed to shake the plaster off the walls. &ldquo;I'd like
      to see them send me! To fight for the British sea-power! Ho! Ho! Ho!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It was a stormy speech young Norwood made, but he persisted to the end, so
      that, as he said, his conscience might be clear, he might know that he had
      done what he could to protect the movement from its greatest blunder. He
      warned them that the temper of the country was rising; you could see it
      rising hour by hour, and things which had been tolerated in the past would
      be tolerated no longer. Democracy would protect its life&mdash;it would
      show that in a crisis it was as strong as militarism&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, and turn itself into militarism to do it!&rdquo; cried Comrade Mary Allen.
      The Quaker lady was almost beside herself; she, more even than the
      Germans, saw in what was transpiring the violation of her most sacred
      convictions.
    </p>
    <p>
      America, her own country, was giving itself to war, making ready to turn
      its resources to the wholesale mutilation of men! Comrade Mary's thin face
      was white; her lips were tight with resolve, but her feelings betrayed
      themselves by the quivering of her nostrils. And oh, what a speech she
      made! Such torrents of furious hatred in the cause of universal love!
      Comrade Mary quoted a Socialist writer who had said that just as
      gladiatorial combats had continued until Christian monks were willing to
      throw themselves into the arena, so war would continue until Socialists
      were willing to throw themselves beneath the hoofs of the cavalry. And in
      this Quaker spinster you saw one Socialist who was ready to go out that
      very night and throw herself beneath the hoofs of cavalry, infantry, or
      artillery, or even of a police automobile.
    </p>
    <p>
      And that was the sentiment of the meeting as a whole. If America entered
      the European strife, it would be because the Socialist organization had
      exhausted its means of protest in vain. They would call meetings, they
      would distribute literature, they would voice their convictions on the
      streets and in the shops and wherever the people might be reached. They
      would have no part in this wicked strife, either now or later; they would
      continue in the future, as in the past, to denounce and to expose the
      capitalist politicians and the capitalist newspapers who caused war and
      thrived upon war. And in proportion to the intensity of their feelings
      would be their bitterness and contempt for the few renegades who in this
      hour of crisis, this test of manhood and integrity, were deserting the
      movement and going to enrol themselves in officers' training-camps!
    </p>
    <p>
      And so when Jimmie went home that night he carried with him an armful of
      revolutionary literature, which during the noon-hour he proceeded to
      distribute among the workers on the construction-job, which was now inside
      the preserves of the explosives company. So naturally in the course of the
      afternoon he was summoned before the boss and discharged; they escorted
      him to the limits of the property, and told him that if he ever returned
      he would be shot on sight. And then at night he went up to the cross-roads
      store and tried to give out his literature there, and got into a
      controversy with some of the cracker-box loungers, one of whom jumped up
      and shook his fist in Jimmie's face, shouting, &ldquo;Get out of here, you dirty
      little louse! If you don't stop talking your treason round here, we'll
      come down some night and ride you out of the country on a rail!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XII. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS A PATRIOT
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The country, it seemed, was hell-bent for war; and Jimmie Higgins was
      hell-bent for martyrdom. If the great madness were to take possession of
      America, it would not be without his having done what he could to prevent
      it. He would stand in the path of the war chariot, he would throw himself
      beneath the hoofs of the cavalry; and block the road with his dead body.
      To which vivid programme there was only one obstacle&mdash;or, to be
      precise, four obstacles, one large and three small, the large one being
      Eleeza Betooser.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor Lizzie of course had no real comprehension of the world-forces
      against which her husband was contending; to Lizzie, life consisted of
      three babies, whom it was her duty to feed and protect, and a husband, who
      was her instrument for carrying out this duty. The world outside of these
      was to her a vague and shadowy place, full of vague and shadowy terrors.
      Somewhere up in the sky was a Holy Virgin who would help when properly
      appealed to, but Lizzie was handicapped in appealing to this Virgin by the
      fact that her husband despised the Holy One, and would cast insulting
      doubts upon her virtue.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now the shadowy terrors of this vast outside world were moving to ends of
      their own, and her poor, puny husband persisted in putting himself in
      their way. He had got turned out of his job, for the fourth or fifth time
      since Lizzie had known him, and he was in imminent danger of getting into
      jail, or into a coat of tar and feathers. As the controversy grew hotter
      and the peril greater, Lizzie came to a condition which might have been
      diagnosed as chronic impending hysteria. Her eyes were red from secret
      weeping, and at the slightest provocation she would burst into floods of
      tears and throw herself into her husband's arms. This would start off
      Jimmie Junior and the little ones, who always took their cue from him. And
      Jimmie Senior would stand perplexed and helpless. Here was a new aspect of
      the heroic life, not dealt with in the books. He wondered&mdash;had there
      ever in history been such a thing as a married martyr? If so, what had
      this martyr done with his family?
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie would try to explain this to his distressed spouse. It was a
      question of saving a hundred million people from the horrors of war; what
      did one man matter, in comparison with that? But alas, the argument did
      not carry at all, the simple truth being that the one man mattered more to
      Lizzie than all the other ninety-nine million, nine hundred and
      ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. And besides, what
      could the one man do? One poor, obscure, helpless working-man out of a job&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But it's the organization!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;It's all of us together&mdash;it's
      the party! We promised to stand together, so we got to do it! If I drop
      out, I'm a coward, a traitor! We must make the workers understand&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you can't!&rdquo; cried Lizzie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But we're doin' it! Come see!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And what can they do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Which of course started Jimmy off on a propaganda speech. What could the
      workers do? Say rather, what could they not do! How could any war be
      fought without the workers? If only they would stand together, if they
      would rise against their capitalist oppressors&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But they won't!&rdquo; sobbed the woman. &ldquo;They got no use for you at all! You
      go an' get fired&mdash;or you get your face beat in, like poor Bill Murray&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But is that any worse than goin' to war?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You ain't got to go to war!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who says I ain't? I got to go, if the country goes. They'll drag me off
      and make me! If I refuse they'll shoot me! Ain't they doin' that in
      England and France an' Roosia an' all them countries?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But will they do it here?&rdquo; cried Lizzie, aghast.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure they will! That's exactly what they're gettin' ready for&mdash;what
      we're fightin' to stop them from! You don't know what's goin' on in this
      country&mdash;listen here!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And Jimmie hauled out the last issue of the Worker, which quoted speeches
      made in Congress, calling for conscription, declaring that such a measure
      was an essential war-step. &ldquo;Don't you see what they're up to? An' if we're
      goin' to stop them, we gotta act now, before it's too late. Hadn't I just
      as good go to jail here in Leesville as be shipped over to Europe to be
      shot&mdash;or maybe drowned by a submarine on the way?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And thus a new terror was introduced into Lizzie's life&mdash;robbing her
      of sleep for many a night thereafter, planting in her mother-heart for the
      first time the idea that she might be concerned in the world-war. &ldquo;What'd
      become of the babies?&rdquo; she wailed; and Jimmie answered: Whose business was
      it to bother about working-class babies, under the hellish capitalist
      system?
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      So Jimmie had his way for a bit&mdash;he went into Leesville and helped
      distribute literature, and held the torch at street-meetings, where some
      people hooted at them and others defended them, and the police had to
      interfere to prevent a riot. It was at this time that a militant majority
      was trying to drive through the Senate a declaration of war against
      Germany, and a handful of pacifists blocked the way in the closing hours
      of the session, thus causing a delay of several weeks. How you regarded
      this action depended upon your point of view. The President denounced them
      as &ldquo;wilful men&rdquo;, and the Wall Street newspapers apparently wanted them
      lynched; whereas Jimmie and his fellows in the local hailed them as heroes
      and friends of mankind. The Socialists argued that the President had been
      re-elected, only four months before, by pacifist votes, and upon a
      pacifist platform; and now he was sweeping the country into war, and
      denouncing those who stood upon his former convictions!
    </p>
    <p>
      On top of this came another event which set Jimmie almost beside himself
      with excitement. For three days all news from Petrograd was cut off; and
      then came a report, electrifying the world&mdash;the Tsar had been
      overthrown, the Russian people were free! Jimmie could hardly believe his
      eyes; he went in to the meeting of the local three nights later, to find
      his comrades celebrating as if the world was theirs. Here was the thing
      they had been preaching, day in and day out, all these weary years, amid
      ridicule, hatred and persecution; here was the Social Revolution, knocking
      at the gates of the world! It would spread to Austria and Germany, to
      Italy, France, England&mdash;and so to Leesville! Everywhere the people
      would come into their own, and war and tyranny would vanish like a hateful
      nightmare!
    </p>
    <p>
      Speaker after speaker got up to proclaim this glorious future; they sang
      the Marseillaise and the Internationale, and the Russians who were present
      clasped one another in their arms, with tears running down their cheeks.
      It was voted that they must hold a mass-meeting immediately, to explain
      this epoch-making event to the people of the city; also they must stand
      more firmly than ever by their programme of opposition to war. Now, with
      Social Revolution knocking at the gates of the world, what was the use of
      America's going in for militarism?
    </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie set to work with redoubled fervour, giving all his time to
      agitation. He had apparently no chance of getting a job, and for the
      moment he gave up trying. The keeper of the cross-roads store, being down
      on him because of his ideas, refused him any more credit; and so poor
      Lizzie was driven to do what she had vowed never to do&mdash;take off the
      stocking from her right leg, and unsew the bandage from her ankle, and
      extract one of the ten precious twenty-dollar bills. Their bright yellow
      was considerably faded now, their beautiful crispness gone entirely; but
      the store-keeper made no kick on that account&mdash;he returned the
      change, and incidentally took occasion to give her a friendly warning
      concerning her husband's reckless talk. There was trouble coming to him,
      and his wife had better shut him up before it was too late. So poor Lizzie
      ceased being a pacifist, and went home to have more hysterics on her
      husband's bosom.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Being unable to hold him back, she sent word by the mail-carrier to old
      Peter Drew to come up and help; the old farmer hitched up his bony mare
      and drove to see them, and for a couple of hours talked America while
      Jimmie talked Russia. Was America to lie down before the Kaiser? Jimmie
      would answer that they were going to bring down the Kaiser in the same way
      they had brought down the Tsar. The workers of Russia having shown the
      way, never more would the workers of any nation bow to the yoke of
      slavery. Yes, even in the so-called republics, such as France, which was
      ruled by bankers, and America, which was ruled by Wall Street&mdash;even
      here, the workers would read the lesson of revolt!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But in America the people can get anything they want!&rdquo; cried the
      bewildered old man. &ldquo;They only have to vote&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;VOTE?&rdquo; snarled Jimmie. &ldquo;An' have their votes thrown out by some rotten
      political gang, like they got here in Leesville? Don't talk to me about
      votin'&mdash;they told me I'd moved into a new district an' lost my vote&mdash;lost
      it because I lost my job! So it's old man Granitch has the say whether I
      can vote or not! You'll find the same thing true of two-thirds of the men
      in the Empire Shops&mdash;half the unskilled men in the country got no
      votes, because they got no home, no nothin'.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; argued the old soldier, &ldquo;how will you run your new working-class
      government, if not by votes?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, we'll run it by votes,&rdquo; Jimmie answered&mdash;&ldquo;but first we'll turn
      out the capitalists; they won't have the money to buy political machines;
      they won't own the newspapers an' print lies about us. Look at this
      Leesville Herald right now&mdash;just plain downright lies they print&mdash;we
      can't get any truth at all to the people.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And so it went. It was of no use for the old man to plead for the
      &ldquo;country&rdquo;; to Jimmie the &ldquo;country&rdquo; had let itself be lost, suppressed,
      taken over by the capitalists, the &ldquo;plutes&rdquo;. Jimmie's sense of loyalty was
      not to his country, but to his class, which had been exploited, hounded,
      driven from pillar to post. In past times the government had allowed
      itself to be used by corporations; so now it was in vain that the
      President made appeals for justice and democracy, using the beautiful
      language of idealism. Jimmie did not believe that he meant it; or anyhow,
      Wall Street would see that nothing came of his promises. The &ldquo;plutes&rdquo;
       would take his words and twist them into whatever sense they wished; and
      meantime they went on pouring abuse on Jimmie Higgins&mdash;throwing the
      same old mud into his eyes, blinding him with the same old hatred. So
      there was no way for an old soldier and patriot to break through the
      armour of Jimmie's prejudice.
    </p>
    <p>
      IV. Next day was to be the great mass-meeting in celebration of the
      Russian revolution; and would you believe it, Lizzie was hoping to
      persuade Jimmie to stay away; she had brought Mr. Drew to help persuade
      him! Poor Lizzie had visions of everybody in the hall being carted off to
      jail, of Jimmie getting up and shouting something, causing the police to
      fall on him and beat in his skull with their clubs. It was in vain he
      declared that he was going to do nothing more romantic than sell
      literature and act as usher. She clasped him in her arms, weeping
      copiously, and when he was still obdurate, she declared that she would go
      with him. She would try to persuade Mrs. Drew to take care of the babies
      for one night.
    </p>
    <p>
      Old Peter Drew answered that he would be interested to attend the meeting
      himself. How would it do for him to come for Lizzie and the little ones,
      and leave the latter at his home, and then drive with Lizzie to the
      meeting? They could meet Jimmie at the Opera-house, where he would be
      spending the day decorating. Then after the meeting they could all drive
      back together. &ldquo;Fine!&rdquo; said Jimmie, who had visions of the old soldier
      becoming infected with revolutionary fever.
    </p>
    <p>
      But alas, it did not work out that way. To Jimmie's consternation the old
      man turned up at the Opera-house in a faded blue uniform with brass
      buttons all over it! Everybody stared, of course; and they stared all the
      harder because they saw this military personage in company with Comrade
      Higgins. The old boy gazed about at the swarms of people, many of them
      with red buttons, the women with red ribbons or sashes; he gazed at the
      decorations&mdash;the huge flag and the long red streamers, the banner of
      the Karl Marx Verein, and the banner of the Ypsels, or Young Peoples'
      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. He turned to Jimmie and said, &ldquo;Where's the
      American flag?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Liederkranz sang the Marseillaise, and after the audience had cheered
      and waved red handkerchiefs and shouted itself hoarse, Comrade Gerrity,
      the chairman, made a little speech. For many years all Socialists had been
      accustomed to employ a metaphor by which to describe conditions in their
      country, and now they would no longer be able to use it, for Russia was
      free, and America would follow her example when she had the sense. He
      introduced Comrade Pavel Michaelovitch, who had come all the way from New
      York to tell them the meaning of the greatest event of history. Comrade
      Pavel, a slender, frail, scholarly-looking man with a black beard and
      black-rimmed spectacles, said a few words in Russian, and then he talked
      for an hour in broken English, explaining how the Russians had won their
      way to freedom, and now would use it to set free the rest of the
      proletariat. And then came Comrade Schultze, of the Carpet Weavers' Union,
      assuring them that there was no need to go to war with Germany, because
      the German workers had been shown the way to freedom, and would follow
      very soon; Schultze knew, because his brother was editor of a Socialist
      paper in Leipzig, and he had inside information as to what was going on in
      the Fatherland.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then Comrade Smith, the editor of the Worker, was introduced, and the
      trouble began. The young editor wasted no time in preliminaries; he was an
      international revolutionist, and no capitalist government was going to
      draft him for its bloody knaveries. Never would he be led out to murder
      his fellow-workers, whether in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria or Turkey; the
      masters of Wall Street would find that when they set out to drive American
      free men to the slaughter-pen, they had made the mistake of their greedy
      lives. &ldquo;Understand me,&rdquo; declared Comrade Smith&mdash;though there seemed
      so far to have been nothing in which anyone could possibly have
      misunderstood him&mdash;&ldquo;understand me, I am no pacifist, I am not opposed
      to war&mdash;it is merely that I purpose to choose the war in which I
      fight. If they try to put a gun into my hands, I shall not refuse to take
      it&mdash;not much, for I and my fellow wage-slaves have long wished for
      guns! But I shall use my own judgement as to where I aim that gun&mdash;whether
      at enemies in front of me, or at enemies behind me&mdash;whether at my
      brothers, the working-men of Germany, or at my oppressors, the exploiters
      of Wall Street, their newspaper lackeys and military martinets!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The sentences of this speech came like the blows of a hammer, and they
      struck forth a clamour of applause from the audience. But suddenly the
      cheering crowd became aware that something out of the ordinary was
      happening. An aged, white-whiskered man clad in a faded blue uniform had
      risen from his seat in the middle of the hall and was shouting and waving
      his arms. People near him were trying to pull him down into his seat, but
      he would not be squelched, he went on shouting; and the audience in part
      fell silent out of curiosity. &ldquo;Shame! Shame!&rdquo; they heard him cry. &ldquo;Shame
      upon you!&rdquo; And he pointed a trembling finger at the orator, declaring,
      &ldquo;You are talking treason, young man!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sit down!&rdquo; shrieked the crowd. &ldquo;Shut up!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the old man turned upon them. &ldquo;Are there no Americans at all in this
      audience? Will you listen to this shameless traitor without one word?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      People caught him by the coat-tails, men shook their fists at him; at the
      other side of the hall &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; leaped upon a chair, shrieking: &ldquo;Cut
      his throat, the old geezer!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Two policemen came running down the aisle, and the &ldquo;old geezer&rdquo; appealed
      to them: &ldquo;What are you here for, if not to protect the flag and the honour
      of America?&rdquo; But the policemen insisted that he stop interrupting the
      meeting, and so the old man turned and stalked out from the hall. But he
      did not go until he had turned once more and shaken his fist at the crowd,
      yelling in his cracked voice, &ldquo;Traitors! Traitors!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Poor Jimmie remained in his seat, overwhelmed. That he, the most devoted
      of workers for Socialism, should have been the cause of such a disgraceful
      scene&mdash;bringing to this revolutionary meeting a man in the uniform of
      a killer of the working-class! He could not stay and face the comrades;
      before the speaking had finished, he gave Lizzie a nudge, and the two got
      up and stole out, dodging everyone they knew.
    </p>
    <p>
      Outside they stood in perplexity. They thought, of course, that the old
      man would have driven away without them; they pictured the long walk from
      the trolley-line in the darkness and mud&mdash;and with Lizzie dressed in
      her only Sunday-go-to-meeting! But when they went to the place where Mr.
      Drew had left his buggy, to their surprise they found him patiently
      waiting for them. Seeing them hesitate, he said, &ldquo;Come! Get in!&rdquo; They were
      much embarrassed, but obeyed, and the old mare started her amble towards
      home.
    </p>
    <p>
      They rode for a long time in silence. Finally Jimmie could not stand it,
      and began, &ldquo;I'm so sorry, Mr. Drew. You don't understand&mdash;&rdquo; But the
      old man cut him off. &ldquo;There's no use you and me tryin' to talk, young
      man.&rdquo; So they rode the rest of the way without a sound&mdash;except that
      once Jimmie imagined he heard Lizzie sobbing to herself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie really felt terribly about it, for he had for this old soldier a
      deep respect, even an affection. Mr. Drew had made his impression not so
      much by his arguments, which Jimmie considered sixty years out of date, as
      by his personality. Here was one patriot who was straight! What a pity
      that he could not understand the revolutionary point of view! What a pity
      that he had to be made angry! It was one more of the horrors of war, which
      tore friends apart, and set them to disputing and hating one another.
    </p>
    <p>
      At least, that was the way it seemed to Jimmie that night, while he was
      still full of the speeches he had heard. But at other times doubts
      assailed him&mdash;for, of course, a man cannot defy and combat a whole
      community without sometimes being led to wonder whether the community may
      not have some right on its side. Jimmie would hear of things the Germans
      had done in the war; they were such dirty fighters, they went out of their
      way to do such utterly revolting and useless, almost insane things! They
      made it so needlessly hard for anyone who tried to defend them to think of
      them even as human beings. Jimmie would argue that he did not mean to help
      the Germans; he would resent bitterly the charges of the Leesville
      newspapers that he was a German agent and a traitor; but he could not get
      away from the uncomfortable fact that the things he was doing DID have a
      tendency to further German interests, at least for a time.
    </p>
    <p>
      When that was pointed out to him by some patriot in a controversy, his
      answer would be that he was appealing to the German Socialists to revolt
      against their military leaders; but then the patriot would begin to find
      fault with the German Socialists, declaring that they were much better
      Germans than Socialists, and citing utterances and actions to prove it.
      One German Socialist had stood up in the Reichstag and declared that the
      Germans had two ways of fighting&mdash;their armies overcame their enemies
      in the field, while their Socialists undermined the morale of the workers
      in enemy countries. When that passage was read to Jimmie, he answered that
      it was a lie; no such speech had ever been made by a Socialist. He had no
      way of proving it was a lie, of course; he just knew it! But then, when he
      went away and thought it over, he began to wonder; suppose it were true!
      Suppose the German workers had been so drilled and schooled in childhood
      that even those who called themselves revolutionists were patriots at
      heart! Jimmie would begin to piece this and that together&mdash;things he
      had heard or read. Certainly these German Socialists were not displaying
      any great boldness in fighting their government!
    </p>
    <p>
      The answer was that they could not oppose their government, because they
      would be put in jail. But that was a pretty poor answer; it was their
      business to go to jail&mdash;if not, what right had they to expect Jimmie
      Higgins to go here in America? Jimmie presented this problem to Comrade
      Meissner, who answered that if Jimmie would go first, then doubtless the
      German comrades would follow. But Jimmie could not see why he should be
      first; and when they tried to clear up the reason, it developed that down
      in his heart Jimmie had begun to believe that Germany was more to blame
      for the war than America. And not merely would Comrade Meissner not admit
      that, but he became excited and vehement, trying to convince Jimmie that
      the other capitalist governments of the world were the cause of the war&mdash;Germany
      was only defending herself against them! So there they were, involved in a
      controversy, just like any two non-revolutionary people! Repeating over
      the same arguments which had gone on in the local between Norwood, the
      lawyer, and Schneider, the brewer; only this time Jimmie was taking the
      side of Norwood! Jimmie found himself face to face with the disconcerting
      fact that his devoted friend Meissner was a German&mdash;and therefore in
      some subtle way different from him, unable to see things as he did!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS DODGES TROUBLE
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      War or no war, the soil had to be ploughed and seed sown; so John Cutter
      came to his tenant and proposed that he should resume his job as
      farm-hand. Only he must agree to shut up about the war, for while Cutter
      himself was not a rabid patriot, he would take no chances of having his
      tenant-house burned down some night. So there was another discussion in
      the Higgins family. Lizzie remembered how, during the previous summer,
      Jimmie had worked from dawn till dark, and been too tired even to read
      Socialist papers, to say nothing of carrying on propaganda; which seemed
      to the distracted wife of a propagandist the most desirable condition
      possible! Poor Eleeza Betooser&mdash;twice again she had been compelled to
      take down the stocking from her right leg, and unsew the bandage round her
      ankle, and extract another of those precious yellow twenty-dollar bills;
      there were only seven of them left now, and each of them was more valuable
      to Lizzie than her eye-teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie finally agreed that he would gag himself, so far as concerned this
      country-side. What was the use of trying to teach anything to these
      barnyard fools? They wanted war, let them go to war, and be blown to bits,
      or poisoned in the trenches! If Jimmie had propaganding to do, he would do
      it in the city, where the working-men had brains, and knew who their
      enemies were. So once more Jimmie harnessed up John Cutter's horses to the
      plough, and went out into John Cutter's field to raise another crop of
      corn for a man whom he hated. All day he guided the plough or the harrow,
      and at night he fed and cared for the horses and the cows, and then he
      came home and ate his supper, listening to the rattling of the long
      freight-train that went through his backyard, carrying materials for the
      making of TNT.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the great explosives plant was now working day and night, keeping the
      war in Jimmie's thoughts all the time, whether he would or not. In the
      midnight hours the trains of finished materials went out, making Jimmie's
      windows rattle with their rumble and clatter, and bearing his fancies away
      to the battle-line across the seas, where men were soon to be blown to
      pieces with the contents of these cars. One night something went wrong on
      the track, and the train stopped in his backyard, and in the morning he
      saw the cars, painted black, with the word &ldquo;danger&rdquo; in flaming red
      letters. On top of the cars walked a man with a club in his hand and a
      bulge on his hip, keeping guard.
    </p>
    <p>
      It appeared that someone had torn up a rail in the night, evidently for
      the purpose of wrecking the train; so there came a detective to Jimmie,
      while he was working in the field, to cross-question him. They had
      Jimmie's record, and suspected him of knowing more than he would tell.
      &ldquo;Aw, go to hell!&rdquo; exclaimed the irate Socialist. &ldquo;D'you suppose, if I'd
      wanted to smash anything, I'd done it on the place where I work?&rdquo; And
      then, when he went home to dinner, he found that they had been after
      Lizzie, and had frightened her out of her wits. They had threatened to
      turn them out of their home; Jimmie saw himself hounded here and there by
      this accursed war&mdash;until it finished by seizing him and dragging him
      to the trenches!
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The new Congress had met, and declared a state of war with Germany, and
      the whole country was rushing into arms. Men were enlisting by hundreds of
      thousands; but that was not enough for the militarists&mdash;they wanted a
      conscription-law, so that every man might be compelled to go. If they were
      so sure of themselves and their wonderful war, why weren't they satisfied
      to let those fight it who wanted to? So argued the rebellious Jimmie and
      his anti-militarist associates. But no! the militarists knew perfectly
      well that the bulk of the people did not want to fight, so they proposed
      to make them fight. Every energy of the Socialist movement was now
      concentrated on the blocking of this conscription scheme.
    </p>
    <p>
      Local Leesville hired the Opera-house again, organizing a mass-meeting of
      protest, and the capitalist papers of the city began clamouring against
      this meeting. Was the patriotism and loyalty of Leesville to be affronted
      by another gathering of sedition and treason? The Herald told all over
      again the story of the gallant old Civil War veteran who had risen in his
      seat and shouted his protest against the incitements of &ldquo;Jack&rdquo; Smith, the
      notorious &ldquo;red&rdquo; editor. The Herald printed a second time the picture of
      the gallant old veteran in his faded blue uniform, and the list of battles
      in which he had fought, from the first Bull Run to the last siege of
      Richmond. Some farmer passing by handed a copy of this paper to Lizzie,
      adding that if there was any more treason-talk in this locality there was
      going to be a lynching bee. So Jimmie found his wife in tears again. She
      was absolutely determined that he should not go to that meeting. For three
      days she wept and argued with him, and for a part of three nights.
    </p>
    <p>
      It would have been comical if it had not been so tragic. Jimmie would use
      the old argument, that if he did not succeed in stopping the war, he would
      be dragged into the trenches and killed. So, of course, Lizzie would
      become a pacifist at once. What right had the war to take Jimmie from her?
      The little Jimmies had a right to their father! All children had a right
      to their fathers! But then, after Lizzie had expressed these tearful
      convictions, Jimmie would say, &ldquo;All right, then, he must go to that
      meeting, he must do what he could to prevent the war.&rdquo; And poor Lizzie
      would find herself suddenly confronting the terrors of the police with
      their clubs and the patriots with their buckets of tar and bags of
      feathers! No, Jimmie must not carry on any propaganda, Jimmie must not go
      to the meeting! Poor Jimmie would try to pin her down; which way did she
      want him killed, by the Germans, or by the police and the mobs? But Lizzie
      did not want him killed either way! She wanted him to go on living!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie would try to arrange a compromise for the present. He would go to
      the meeting, but he would promise not to say a word. But that did not
      console Lizzie&mdash;she knew that if anything happened, her man would get
      into it. No, if he were determined to go, she would go, too,&mdash;even if
      they had to load the three babies into the perambulator, and push them two
      or three miles to the trolley! If Jimmie tried to make a speech, she would
      hang on to his coat-tails, she would clasp her hands over his mouth, she
      would throw herself between him and the clubs of the policemen!
    </p>
    <p>
      So matters stood, when on the afternoon before the meeting there came a
      heavy rain, and the road to the trolley was rendered impossible for a
      triple-loaded baby-carriage. So there were more hysterics in the family;
      Jimmie took his wife's hand in his and solemnly swore to her that she
      might trust him to go to this meeting, he would not do anything that could
      by any possibility get him into trouble. He would not try to make a
      speech, he would not get up and shout&mdash;no matter what happened, he
      would not say a word! He would merely sell pamphlets, and show people to
      their seats, as he had done at a hundred meetings before. To make sure of
      his immunity, he would even leave off the red badge which he was
      accustomed to display on Socialist occasions! By these pledges repeated
      over and over, he finally succeeded in pacifying his weeping spouse, and
      gently removed her clutch on his coat-tails, and departed, waving his hand
      to her and the kids.
    </p>
    <p>
      The last thing he saw through the rain was Jimmie Junior, flourishing a
      red handkerchief which Lizzie at the last moment had extracted from her
      husband's pocket. The last sound he heard was Jimmie Junior's voice,
      shouting:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You be good now! You shut up!&rdquo; Jimmie went off, thinking about this
      little tike; he was five years old, and growing so that you could notice
      the difference overnight. He had big black eyes like his mother, and a
      grin full of all the mischief in the world. The things he knew and the
      questions he asked! Jimmie and Lizzie never got tired of talking about
      them; Jimmie recalled them one by one, as he trudged through the mud&mdash;and,
      as always, he set his lips and clenched his hands, and took up anew the
      task of making the world a fit place for a working-man's child to grow up
      in!
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The principal orator of the evening was a young college professor who had
      been turned out of his job for taking the side of the working-class in his
      public utterances, and who was therefore a hero to Jimmie Higgins. This
      young man had the facts of the war at his finger-tips; he made you see it
      as a gigantic conspiracy of capitalists the world over to complete their
      grip on the raw materials of wealth, and on the bodies and souls of the
      workers. He bitterly denounced those who had forced the country into the
      war; he denounced the Wall Street speculators and financiers who had made
      their billions already, and would be making their tens of billions. He
      denounced the plan to force men to fight who did not wish to fight, and
      his every sentence was followed by a burst of applause from the throng
      which packed the Opera-house. If you judged by this meeting, you would
      conclude that America was on the verge of a revolution against the war.
    </p>
    <p>
      The young professor sat down, wiping the perspiration from his pale
      forehead; and then the Liederkranz sang again&mdash;only it was not called
      the Liederkranz now, it had become known as the &ldquo;Workers' Singing
      Society&rdquo;, out of deference to local prejudice. Then arose Comrade Smith,
      editor of the Worker, and announced that after the collection the orator
      would answer questions; then Comrade Smith launched into a speech of his
      own, to the effect that something definite ought to be done by the workers
      of Leesville to make clear their opposition to being dragged into war. For
      his part he wished to say that he would not yield one inch to the
      war-clamour&mdash;he was on record as refusing to be drafted in any
      capitalist war, and he was ready to join with others to agree that they
      would not be drafted. The time was short&mdash;if anything were to be
      done, they must act at once&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      And then suddenly came an interruption&mdash;this time not from an old
      soldier, but from a sergeant of police, who had been standing at one side
      of the stage, and who now stepped forward, announcing, &ldquo;This meeting is
      closed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; shouted the orator.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This meeting is closed,&rdquo; repeated the other. &ldquo;And you, young man, are
      under arrest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a howl from the audience, and suddenly from the pit in front of
      the stage, whence ordinarily the orchestra dispensed sweet music, there
      leaped a line of blue-uniformed men, distributing themselves between the
      public and the speaker. At the same time down the centre aisle came a
      dozen soldiers marching, with guns in their hands and bayonets fixed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is an outrage!&rdquo; shouted Comrade Smith.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not another word!&rdquo; commanded the police official; and two policemen who
      had followed him grabbed the orator by each arm and started to lead him
      off the stage.
    </p>
    <p>
      Comrade Gerrity leaped to the front of the platform. &ldquo;I denounce this
      proceeding!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;We are holding an orderly meeting here&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A policeman laid hold of him. &ldquo;You are under arrest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then came Comrade Mabel Smith, sister of the editor of the Worker. &ldquo;For
      shame! For shame!&rdquo; she cried. And then, to a policeman, &ldquo;No, I will not be
      silent! I protest in the name of free speech! I declare&mdash;&rdquo; And when
      the policeman seized her by the arm, she continued to shout at the top of
      her lungs, driving the crowd to frenzy.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were disturbances all over the audience. Mrs. Gerrity, wife of the
      organizer, sprang up in her seat and began to protest. It happened that
      Jimmie Higgins was in the aisle not far from her, and his heart leaped
      with strange, half-forgotten emotions as he saw this trim little figure,
      with the jaunty hat and the turkey feather stuck on one side. Comrade
      Evelyn Baskerville, of Greenwich Village, she of the fluffy brown hair and
      the pert little dimples and the bold terrifying ideas, she who had so
      ploughed up the soul of Jimmie Higgins and almost broken up the Higgins'
      home&mdash;here she was, employing a new variety of coquetry, by which she
      compelled three soldiers with rifles and bayonets to devote their
      exclusive attention to her!
    </p>
    <p>
      And then Comrade Mary Allen, the Quaker lady, who believed in moral force
      applied through the ear-drums. She stood in the aisle with her armful of
      pamphlets and her red sash over her shoulder, proclaiming, &ldquo;In the name of
      liberty and fair play I protest against this outrage! I will not see my
      country dragged into war without asserting my right of protest! I stand
      here, in what is supposed to be a Christian city; I speak in the name of
      the Prince of Peace&mdash;&rdquo; and so on, quite a little speech, while
      several embarrassed young men in khaki were trying to find out how to hold
      their rifles and a shouting Quakeress at the same time.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then Comrade Schneider, the brewer. He had been up on the stage with
      the singers, and now got somehow to the front. &ldquo;Haf we got no rights in
      America left?&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Do we in this audience&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shut up, you Hun!&rdquo; roared someone on the front of the crowd, and three
      policemen at once leaped for Comrade Schneider, and grabbed him by the
      collar, twisting so hard that the German's face, always purple when he was
      excited, took on a dark and deadly hue.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor Jimmie Higgins! He stood there with his armful of &ldquo;War, What For?&rdquo;&mdash;trembling
      with excitement, itching in every nerve and sinew to leap into this
      conflict, to make his voice heard above the uproar, to play his part as a
      man&mdash;or even as a Comrade Mabel Smith, or a Comrade Mary Alien, or a
      Comrade Mrs. Gerrity, nee Baskerville. But he was helpless, speechless&mdash;bound
      hand and foot by those solemn pledges he had given to Eleeza Betooser, the
      mother of babies.
    </p>
    <p>
      He looked about, and near him in the aisle he saw another man, also bound
      hand and foot&mdash;bound by the memory of the smash in the face which had
      broken his nose and knocked out three of his front teeth! &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; saw
      a policeman watching him now, eager for another pretext to leap on him and
      pound him; so he was silent, like Jimmie. The two of them had to stand
      there and see the fundamental constitutional rights of American citizens
      set at naught, to see liberty trampled in the dust beneath the boots of a
      brutal soldiery, to see justice strangled and raped in the innermost
      shrine of her temple. At least, that was what you had seen if you read the
      Leesville Worker; if on the other hand you read the Herald&mdash;which
      nine out of ten people did&mdash;then you learned that the forces of
      decency and order had at last prevailed in Leesville, the propaganda of
      the Hun was stifled for ever, the mouthers of sedition had felt the heavy
      hand of public indignation.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Outside, a crowd gathered to jeer while the prisoners were loaded into the
      patrol-wagon; but the police drove them away, keeping everybody moving,
      and breaking up several attempts at street-oratory. Jimmie found himself
      with half a dozen other comrades, wandering aimlessly down Main Street,
      talking over and over what had happened, each explaining why and how he
      had not shared the crown of martyrdom. Some had shouted as loud as the
      rest, but had been missed by the police; some had thought it wiser to run
      away and live to shout another day; some wanted to start that very night
      to print a leaflet and call another mass-meeting. They adjourned to Tom's
      &ldquo;Buffeteria&rdquo; to talk things over; they took possession of a couple of
      tables, and got their due quotas of coffee and sandwiches, or pie and
      milk, and had just got fairly started on the question of raising bail
      without the help of Comrade Dr. Service&mdash;when suddenly something
      happened which drove all thoughts of the meeting out of their minds.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was like a gigantic blow, striking the whole world at once; a cosmic
      convulsion, quite indescribable. The air became suddenly a living thing,
      which leaped against your face; the windows of the little eating-place
      flew inward in a shower of glass, and the walls and tables shook as if
      with palsy. The sound of it all was a vast, all-pervasive sound, at once
      far off and near, tailing away in the clatter and crash of innumerable
      panes of glass falling from innumerable windows. Then came silence, a
      sinister, frightful silence, it seemed; men stared at one another, crying,
      &ldquo;My God! What's that?&rdquo; The answer seemed to dawn upon everyone at once:
      &ldquo;The powder-plant!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Yes, that must be it, beyond doubt. For months they had been talking about
      it and thinking about it, speculating as to the probabilities and the
      consequences. And now it had happened. Suddenly one of the company gave a
      cry, and they turned and stared at his white face, and realized the terror
      that clutched his heart. Comrade Higgins, whose home was so near the place
      of peril!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gee, fellers, I gotta go!&rdquo; he gasped; and several of the comrades jumped
      up and ran with him into the street. If there was a single pane of glass
      left intact in Leesville, you would not have thought it as you trod those
      pavements.
    </p>
    <p>
      If Jimmie had been trained in efficiency, and accustomed to spending money
      more freely, he might perhaps have found out something by the telephone or
      by inquiry at the newspaper offices; but the one thing he thought of was
      to take the trolley and get to his home. The comrades ran with him,
      speculating with eager excitement, trying to reassure him&mdash;it could
      be nothing worse than some glass and some dishes smashed. Some had thought
      of going all the way with him, but they remembered they would be too late
      for the last trolley back, and they had their jobs in the morning. So they
      put him on the car and bade him good-bye.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The trolley was packed with people going out to see what had happened, so
      Jimmie had plenty of company and conversation on the way. But when he came
      to his stop, he got off and walked alone, for the others were going to the
      explosives plant, and they rode a mile or so farther on the car.
    </p>
    <p>
      Never would Jimmie forget that journey&mdash;that walk of nightmares. The
      road was pitch-dark, and before he had gone more than half the distance,
      he stumbled over something, and fell head-foremost. He got up, and groped,
      and discovered that it was a tree, lying prone across the road. He
      searched his mind, and remembered a great dead tree that stood at that
      spot. Could the explosion have knocked it down?
    </p>
    <p>
      He went on, feeling his way more cautiously, yet goaded to greater speed
      by his fears. A little way further was a farm-house, and he went into the
      yard and shouted, but got no reply. The yard was covered with shingles,
      apparently blown from the roof. He went on, more frightened than ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      He came to a turn in the road which he knew was less than half a mile from
      his home; and here there were several horses and wagons tied, but no one
      to answer his calls. The road passed through a wood; but apparently there
      was no road any more&mdash;the trees had been picked up bodily and thrown
      across it. Jimmie had to grope this way and that, and he ran a piece of
      broken branch into his cheek, and by that time was almost ready to cry
      with fright. He knew that his home was two miles from the explosives
      plant, and he could not conceive how an explosion could have done such
      damage at such a distance.
    </p>
    <p>
      He saw a lantern ahead, bobbing this way and that, and he shouted louder
      than ever, and finally succeeded in persuading the bearer of the lantern
      to wait for him. It proved to be a farmer who lived some way back; he knew
      no more than Jimmie did, and they made their way together. Beyond the
      woods, the road was littered with loose dirt, bushes, bits of fence and
      rubbish, burned black. &ldquo;It must have been near here,&rdquo; declared the man,
      and added words which caused Jimmie's heart almost to stand still. &ldquo;It
      must have been on the railroad track!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They came to a little rise, from which in day-time the line of the
      railroad was visible. They saw lanterns, many of them, moving here and
      there like a swarm of fire-flies. &ldquo;Come this way,&rdquo; Jimmie begged of the
      farmer, and ran towards his home. The road was buried under masses of
      earth, as if thousands of steam-shovels had emptied their contents on it.
      When they came to where the fence of Jimmie's house ought to have been,
      they found no fence, but a slide of loose earth that had never been there
      before. Where the apple-tree had been there was nothing; where the lawn
      had been there was a pitch down a hill, and where the house had been was a
      huge valley, seeming in the darkness a bottomless abyss!
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie was distracted. He grabbed the lantern from the other man, and ran
      this way and that, looking for some of the familiar landmarks of his home&mdash;the
      chicken-house, the pig-sty, the back fence with the broken elm tree in the
      corner, the railroad beyond. He could not believe that he had come to the
      place at all&mdash;he could not credit the reality of such nightmare
      sights as his eyes reported to him. He rushed about, stumbling over
      mountains of upheaved brown dirt, sliding down into craters that were
      filled with a strange, penetrating odour which caused his eyes to smart;
      and then clambering out again and running after men with lanterns,
      shouting questions at them and not waiting for an answer. It seemed to him
      that if he ran just a little farther he must surely find the house and the
      other things he was looking for; but he found nothing but more craters and
      more mountains of dirt; and little by little the horrible truth became
      clear to him, that all the way down the railroad track, as far as he could
      see or run, this gigantic trough extended, a valley of raw dirt with
      mountains on each side, crowned here and there with wheels and axles and
      iron trucks of blown-up freight-cars, and filled in the bottom with the
      deadly fumes of trinitrotoluol!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie cried out to the men and women with lanterns, asking had they seen
      his wife and babies. But no one had seen them&mdash;no one had notified
      them of the impending explosion! Jimmie was sobbing, calling out
      distractedly; he ran out to the road, and after much searching found a
      charred tree-stump which gave him his precise bearings, so that he knew
      where the house should have been, and could assure himself that it was
      precisely where that frightful slope started down into the abyss. He slid
      around on this slope, calling aloud, as if he expected the spirits of his
      loved ones might have remained there, defying all the power of suddenly
      expanding gases. He ran back across the road and called, as if they might
      have fled that way.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last he ran into Mr. Drew; old Mr. Drew, who a couple of weeks before
      had taken Eleeza Betooser and her three little ones driving in his buggy!
      That memory was the nearest Jimmie could get to them, and so he clutched
      the old soldier's arm, and held on to it, weeping like a little child.
    </p>
    <p>
      The old man tried to draw him away, to get him to his home. But Jimmie
      must stay on the spot, he was held by a spell of horror. He wandered
      about, dragging Mr. Drew with him, pleading with people to no purpose; now
      and then he would break out with curses against war-makers, and especially
      those who made explosives and transported them in freight-trains through
      other men's back-yards. For once people heard him without threats of
      lynching.
    </p>
    <p>
      So on through this night of anguish. Jimmie lost old man Drew in the
      darkness, and was all alone when the dawn came, and he could see the sweep
      of desolation about him, and the awe-stricken faces of the spectators.
      Soon afterwards came the climax. He saw a crowd gathered, and as he came
      up, this crowd parted for him. Nobody seemed to want to speak, but they
      all watched, as if curious to see what he would do. One of the men bore a
      burden, wrapped in a horse-blanket; Jimmie gazed, and after a moment's
      hesitation the man threw back part of the blanket and there before
      Jimmie's eyes was a most horrible sight&mdash;a human leg, a large white
      leg, the lower half covered with a black stocking tied at the top with a
      bit of tape. It was such a leg as you see in the windows of stores where
      they sell pretty things for ladies; only this leg was soft, mangled at the
      top, smeared with blood, and partly charred black. One glance was enough
      for Jimmie, and he put his hands over his eyes and turned and ran&mdash;out
      to the road and away, away&mdash;anywhere from this place of nightmares!
    </p>
    <h3>
      VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie's whole world was wiped out, ended. He had no place to go, no care
      what became of him. He stumbled on till he came to the trolley-track, and
      got on the first car which came along. It was pure chance that it happened
      to be going back to Leesville, for Jimmie had no longer any interest in
      that city. When the car came to the barn, he got out and wandered
      aimlessly, until he happened to pass a saloon where he had been accustomed
      to meet Jerry Coleman, distributor of ten-dollar bills. Jimmie went in and
      ordered a drink of whisky; he did not tell the saloon-keeper what had
      happened, but took the drink to a table and sat down by himself. When he
      had finished, he ordered another, because it helped him not to think; he
      sat there at the table, drinking steadily for an hour or more. And so upon
      his confused mind there dawned a strange, a ghastly idea, climax of all
      that night of horror. Which leg of Lizzie was it the man had been carrying
      wrapped in a horse-blanket? The right leg or the left? If it was the left
      leg, why, nothing; but if it was the right, why then, under the stocking
      was sewed a bandage, and in that bandage was wrapped a package containing
      seven faded yellow twenty-dollar bills!
    </p>
    <p>
      And what would they do about it? Would they bury the leg without
      investigation? Or would the man who had found it happen to undress it? And
      what was Jimmie to do? A hundred and forty dollars was not to be sneezed
      at by a working-man&mdash;it was more money than he had ever had in his
      life before, or might ever have again. But could he go to the man and say,
      &ldquo;Did you find any money on my wife's leg?&rdquo; Could he say, &ldquo;Please give me
      my wife's leg, so that I can undress it and unsew the bandage and get the
      money that I was paid for keeping quiet about the surgical operation on
      Lacey Granitch, that was done in my house before it was blown to pieces by
      the explosion.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie thought it all over while he took a couple more drinks, and finally
      settled it to himself: &ldquo;Aw, hell! What do I want with money? I ain't
      a-goin' to live no more!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIV. JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins was wandering down the street, when he ran into &ldquo;Wild
      Bill&rdquo;, 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 &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Say, old pal,
      that's bum luck! By God, I'm sorry!&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; listened, until he knew the story through and then he said,
      &ldquo;See here, old pal, let's you and me quit this town.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Quit?&rdquo; said Jimmie, stupidly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where'll we go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anywhere&mdash;what's the diff? It's coming summer. Let's slam the
      gates.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was willing&mdash;why not? They went back to the lodging-house
      where Bill lived, and he tied up his worldly goods in a gunny-sack&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;surface men&rdquo;, and proceeded
      to preach their gospel of revolt to the workers in a lousy company
      boarding-house. When they were found out, they &ldquo;jumped&rdquo; another freight,
      and repeated the performance in another part of the district.
    </p>
    <p>
      The companies were too vigilant for there to be any chance of a strike;
      but &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; whispered to the young workers that he knew a trick worth
      two of that&mdash;he would teach them the art of &ldquo;striking on the job&rdquo;!
      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 &ldquo;sabotage&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      To Jimmie, living the obscure and comparatively peaceful life of a
      Socialist propagandist, the question of &ldquo;sabotage, violence and crime&rdquo; had
      been a more or less academic one, about which the comrades debated
      acrimoniously, and against which they voted by a large majority. But now
      Jimmie was out among the &ldquo;wobblies&rdquo;, the &ldquo;blanket-stiffs&rdquo;&mdash;the
      unskilled workers who had literally nothing but their muscle-power to
      sell; here he was in the front-line trenches of the class war. These men
      wandered about from one job to another, at the mercy of the seasons and
      the fluctuations of industry. They were deprived of votes, and therefore
      of their status as citizens; they were deprived of a chance to organize,
      and therefore of their status as human beings. They were lodged in filthy
      bunk-houses, fed upon rotten food, and beaten or jailed at the least word
      of revolt. So they fought their oppressors with any and every weapon they
      could lay hands on.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the turpentine-country, in a forest, Jimmie and his pal came to a
      &ldquo;jungle&rdquo;, a place where the &ldquo;wobblies&rdquo; congregated, living off the
      country. Here around the camp-fires Jimmie met the guerillas of the
      class-struggle, and learned the songs of revolt which they sang&mdash;some
      of them parodies on Christian hymns which would have caused the orthodox
      and respectable to faint with horror. Here they rested up, and exchanged
      data on the progress of their fight, and argued over tactics, and cussed
      the Socialists and the other &ldquo;politicians&rdquo; and &ldquo;labour-fakirs&rdquo;, and sang
      the praises of the &ldquo;one big union&rdquo;, and the &ldquo;mass strike&rdquo;, and &ldquo;direct
      action&rdquo; against the masters of industry. They told stories of their
      sufferings and their exploits, and Jimmie sat and listened. Sometimes his
      eyes were wide with consternation, for he had never met men so desperate
      as these.
    </p>
    <p>
      For example, &ldquo;Strawberry&rdquo; Curran&mdash;named for his red hair and
      innumerable freckles&mdash;an Irish boy with the face of a choir-singer,
      and eyes that must have been taken straight out of the blue vault of
      Heaven. This lad told about a &ldquo;free speech fight&rdquo; in a far Western city,
      and how the chief of police had led the clubbing, and how they had got
      back at him. &ldquo;We bumped him off all right,&rdquo; said &ldquo;Strawberry&rdquo;; it was a
      favourite phrase of his&mdash;whenever anybody got in his way, he &ldquo;bumped
      him off&rdquo;. And then &ldquo;Flathead Joe&rdquo;, who came from the Indian country, was
      moved to emulation, and told how he had put dynamite under the supports of
      a mine-breaker, and the whole works had slid down a slope into a canyon a
      mile below. And then a lame fellow, &ldquo;Chuck&rdquo; Peterson, told about the
      imprisonment of two strike-leaders in the hop-country of California, and
      of the epidemic of fires and destruction that had plagued that region for
      several years since.
    </p>
    <p>
      All such things these men talked about quite casually, as soldiers would
      talk about the events of the last campaign. This class-war had been going
      on for ages, and had its own ethics and its own traditions; those who took
      part in it had their heroisms and sublimities, precisely like any other
      soldiers. They would have been glad to come into the open and fight, but
      the other side had all the guns. Every time the &ldquo;wobblies&rdquo; succeeded in
      organizing the workers and calling a big strike, all the agencies of
      capitalist repression were called in&mdash;they were beaten by capitalist
      policemen, shot by capitalist sheriffs, starved and frozen in capitalist
      jails, and so their strike was crushed and their forces scattered. After
      many such experiences, it was inevitable that the hot-headed ones should
      take to secret vengeance, should become conspirators against capitalist
      society. And society, forgetting all the provocations it had given, called
      the &ldquo;wobblies&rdquo; criminals, and let it go at that. But they were a strange
      kind of criminal, serving a far-off dream. They had their humours and
      their humanities, their literature and music and art. Among them were men
      of education, graduates of universities both in America and abroad; you
      might hear one of the group about these camp-fires telling about
      slave-revolts in ancient Egypt and Greece; or quoting Strindberg and
      Stirner, or reciting a scene from Synge, or narrating how he had astounded
      the family of some lonely farm-house by playing Rachmaninoff's &ldquo;Prelude&rdquo;
       on a badly out-of-tune piano.
    </p>
    <p>
      Also you met among them men who had kept their gentleness, their sweetness
      of soul, men of marvellous patience, whose dream of human brotherhood no
      persecution, no outrage had been able to turn sour. They clung to their
      vision of a world redeemed, made over by the outcast and lowly; a vision
      that was brought to the world by a certain Jewish Carpenter, and has
      haunted mankind for nineteen hundred years. The difference was that these
      men knew precisely how they meant to do it; they had a definite
      philosophy, a definite programme, which they carried as a gospel to the
      wage-slaves of the world. And they knew that this glad message would never
      die&mdash;not all the jails and clubs and machine-guns in the country
      could kill it, not obloquy and ridicule, not hunger and cold and disease.
      No! for the workers were hearing and understanding, they were learning the
      all-precious lesson of Solidarity. They were forming the &ldquo;one big union&rdquo;,
      preparing the time when they would take over industry and administer it
      through their own workers' councils, instead of through the medium of
      parliaments and legislatures. That was the great idea upon which the
      Industrial Workers of the World was based; it was this they meant by
      &ldquo;direct action&rdquo;, not the sinister thing which the capitalist newspapers
      made out of the phrase.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The country was going into its own war, which it considered of importance,
      and it called upon Jimmie Higgins and the rest of his associates to
      register for military service. In the month of June ten million men came
      forward in obedience to this call&mdash;but Jimmie, needless to say, was
      not among them. Jimmie and his crowd thought it was the greatest joke of
      the age. If the country wanted them, let it come and get them. And sure
      enough, the country came&mdash;a sheriff, and some thirty farmers and
      turpentine-workers sworn in as deputies and armed with shot-guns and
      rifles. Should their sons go overseas to be killed in battle, while these
      desperadoes continued to camp out on the country, living on hogs and
      chickens which honest men had worked to raise? They had wanted to break up
      this &ldquo;jungle&rdquo; for some time; now they could do it in the name of
      patriotism. They surrounded the camp, and shot one man who tried to slip
      out in the darkness, and searched the rest for weapons, and then loaded
      them into half a dozen automobiles and took them to the nearest lock-up.
    </p>
    <p>
      So here was Jimmie, confronting a village draft-board. How old was he? The
      truth was that Jimmie did not know definitely, but his guess was about
      twenty-six. The draft-limit being thirty, he swore that he was thirty-two.
      And what were they going to do about it? They didn't know where he had
      been born, and they couldn't make him tell&mdash;because he didn't know it
      himself! His face was lined with many cares, and he had a few grey hairs
      from that night of horror when his loved ones had been wiped out of
      existence.
    </p>
    <p>
      These farmers knew how to tell the age of a horse, but not how to tell the
      age of a man!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We'll draft ye anyhow!&rdquo; vowed the chairman of the board, who was the
      local justice of the peace, an old fellow with a beard like a billy-goat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Jimmie, &ldquo;but you'll get nothin' out o' me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What d'ye mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I mean I wouldn't fight; I'm a conscientious objector to war.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They'll shoot ye!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shoot away!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They'll send you to jail for life.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What the hell do I care?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was difficult to know what to do with a person like that. If they did
      put him in jail, they would only be feeding him at the expense of the
      community, and that would not help to beat the Germans. They could see
      from the flash in his eyes that he would not be an easy man to break.
      Local interest asserted itself, and the old fellow with the wagging beard
      demanded: &ldquo;If we let ye go, will ye get out o' this county?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What the hell do I care about your old county?&rdquo; replied Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      So they turned him loose, and &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; also, because it was evident at
      a glance that he was not long for this world and its wars. The two of them
      broke into an empty freight-car, and went thundering over the rails all
      night; and lying in the darkness, Jimmie was awakened by a terrified cry
      from his companion, and put out his hand and laid it in a mess that was
      hot and wet.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, my God!&rdquo; gasped Bill. &ldquo;I'm done for!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Haemorrhage.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The terrified Jimmie did not even know what that was. There was nothing he
      could do but sit there, holding his friend's trembling hand and listening
      to his moans. When the train stopped, Jimmie sprang out and rushed to one
      of the brakemen, who came with his lantern, and saw &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; lying in a
      pool of blood, already so far gone that he could not lift his head.
      &ldquo;Jesus!&rdquo; exclaimed the brakeman. &ldquo;He's a goner, all right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The &ldquo;goner&rdquo; was trying to say something, and Jimmie leaned his ear down to
      him. &ldquo;Good-bye, old pal,&rdquo; whispered Bill. That was all, but it caused
      Jimmie to burst out sobbing.
    </p>
    <p>
      The engine whistled. &ldquo;What the hell you stiffs doin' on this train?&rdquo;
       demanded the brakeman&mdash;but not so harshly as the words would
      indicate. He lifted the dying man&mdash;no very serious burden&mdash;and
      laid him on the platform of the station. &ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but we're
      behind schedule.&rdquo; He waved his lantern, and the creaking cars began to
      move, and the train drew away, leaving Jimmie sitting by the corpse of his
      pal. The world seemed a lonely place that long night.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the morning the station-agent came, and notified the nearest
      authorities, and in the course of the day came a wagon to fetch the body.
      What was the use of Jimmie's waiting? One &ldquo;Potter's field&rdquo; was the same as
      another, and there would be nothing inspiring about the funeral. The man
      who drove the wagon looked at Jimmie suspiciously and asked his age; they
      were scarce of labour in that country, he said-the rule was &ldquo;Work or
      fight&rdquo;. Jimmie foresaw another session with a draft-board, so he leaped on
      to another freight train, taking with him as a legacy &ldquo;Wild Bill's&rdquo; diary
      of the unemployed army.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It was harvest-time, and Jimmie went West to the wheat country. It was
      hard work, but the pay made your eyes bulge. Jimmie realized that war was
      not such a bad thing&mdash;for the ones that stayed at home! If you didn't
      like one farmer's way of speaking to you, or the kind of biscuits his wife
      offered you, you could move on to the next, and he would take you in at
      four bits more per day. It was the nearest approach to a working-man's
      paradise that Jimmie had ever encountered. There was really only one
      drawback&mdash;the pestiferous draft-boards that never stopped snooping
      round. They were for ever hauling you up and threatening and questioning
      you&mdash;putting you through the same scene over and over. Why couldn't
      the fools give you a card, showing that you had been through the mill, and
      let that settle it? But no, they wouldn't give you a card&mdash;they
      preferred to go on jacking you up because you had no card. It was all a
      trick, thought Jimmie, to wear him out and force him into their army by
      hook or by crook. But here was one time when they would not get away with
      it!
    </p>
    <p>
      However, Jimmie Higgins was not nearly so dangerous a character, now that
      &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; was gone out of his life. It was really not his nature to
      cherish hate, or to set out deliberately to revenge himself. Jimmie was a
      Socialist in the true sense of the word&mdash;he felt himself a part of
      society, and that peace and plenty and kindness which he desired for
      himself he desired for all mankind. He was not dreaming of a time when he
      could turn the capitalists out of power and treat them as they were now
      treating him; he meant the world to be just as good a place for the
      capitalists as for the workers&mdash;all would share alike, and Jimmie was
      ready to wipe out the old scores and start fair any day. His propaganda
      regained its former idealistic hue, and it was only when somebody tried to
      drag him into the slaughter-pen that he developed teeth and claws.
    </p>
    <p>
      So he became fairly happy again&mdash;happier than he had thought he could
      ever be. It was in vain he told himself that he had nothing to live for;
      he had the greatest thing in the world to live for, the vision of a just
      and sane and happy world. So long as anybody could be found to listen
      while he talked about it and explained how it might be achieved, life was
      worth while, life was real. It was only now and then that his bitter
      heartache returned to plague him&mdash;when he awakened in the night with
      his arms clasped about the memory of the soft, warm, kindly body of Eleesa
      Betooser; or when he came to a farmhouse where there were children, whose
      prattle reminded him of the little fellow who had been his prime reason
      for wanting a just and sane and happy world. Jimmie found that he could
      not bear to work in one farmhouse where there were children; and when he
      told the farmer's wife the reason, he and the woman declared a temporary
      truce to the class-war, and celebrated it with half a large apple-pie.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The Socialists held a National Convention at St. Louis, and drew up their
      declaration concerning the war. They called it the most unjustifiable war
      in history, &ldquo;a crime against the people of the United States&rdquo;; they called
      on the workers of the country to oppose it, and pledged themselves &ldquo;to the
      support of all mass movements in opposition to conscription&rdquo;. This was, of
      course, a serious step to take at such a time; the comrades realized it,
      and there were solemn gatherings to discuss the referendum, and not a
      little disagreement as to the wisdom of the declaration. In the town of
      Hopeland, near which Jimmie was working, there was a local, and he had got
      himself transferred from Leesville, and paid up his back dues, and had his
      precious red card stamped up-to-date. And now he would go in and listen to
      debates, just as exciting and just as bewildering as those he had heard at
      the outbreak of the war.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were some who pointed out the precise meaning of those words, &ldquo;all
      mass-movements in opposition to conscription.&rdquo; The leading dry-goods
      merchant of the town, he was a Socialist, declared that the words meant
      insurrection and mob violence, and the resolution would be adjudged a call
      to treason. At which there leaped to his feet a Russian Jewish tailor,
      Rabin by name; his first name was Scholem, which means Peace, and he cried
      in great excitement: &ldquo;Vot business have ve Socialists vit such vords? Ve
      might leaf dem to de enemy, vot?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      You might have thought you were in Leesville, listening to Comrade
      Stankewitz. The only difference was that there were not many Germans in
      this town, and those few confined their discussions to Ireland and India.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie would hear the arguments, back and forth and back again, and his
      mind would be in greater confusion than ever. He hated war as much as
      ever; but, on the other hand, he was learning to hate the Germans, too.
      The American government, going to war, had been forced to assert itself,
      and the stores and billboards were covered with proclamations and
      picture-posters, and the newspapers were full of recitals of the crimes
      which Germany had committed against humanity. Jimmie might refuse to read
      this &ldquo;Wall Street dope&rdquo;, as he called it, but the working-men with whom he
      was associating read it, and would fire it at him whenever they got into a
      controversy. Also the daily events in the news dispatches&mdash;the
      sinking of hospital-ships filled with wounded, the shelling of life-boats,
      the dragging away into slavery in coal-mines of Belgian children thirteen
      and fourteen years old! How could any man fail to hate and to fear a
      government which committed such atrocities? How could he remain untroubled
      at the thought that he might be assisting such a government to victory?
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was honest, he was trying to face the facts as he saw them; and
      when he stopped to think, when he remembered the things he had done in
      company with &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; and &ldquo;Strawberry&rdquo; Curran and &ldquo;Flathead Joe&rdquo; and
      &ldquo;Chuck&rdquo; Peterson, he could not deny that he had been, however
      unintentionally, helping the Kaiser to win the war. In his arguments with
      others, Jimmie dared not tell all he knew about such matters; so, when he
      argued with himself, his conscience was troubled, and doubt gnawed at his
      soul. Suppose it were true, as Comrade Dr. Service had tried to prove to
      him, that a victory for the Kaiser would mean that America would have to
      spend the next twenty or thirty years getting ready for the next war?
      Might it not then be better to forego revolutionary agitation for a while,
      until the Kaiser had been put out of business?
    </p>
    <p>
      There were not a few Socialists who argued this way&mdash;men who had been
      active in the movement and had possessed Jimmie's regard before the war.
      Now they denounced the St. Louis resolution&mdash;the &ldquo;majority report&rdquo; as
      it was called. When this report was carried in referendum by a vote of
      something like eight to one, these comrades withdrew from the party, and
      some of them bitterly attacked their former friends. Such utterances were
      taken up by the capitalist press; and this made Jimmie Higgins indignant.
      A fine lot of Socialists, to quit the ship in the hour of peril!
      Renegades, Jimmie called them, and compared them with Judas Iscariot and
      Benedict Arnold and such-like celebrities of past ages. They, being
      exactly the same sort of folk as Jimmie, answered by calling Jimmie a
      pro-German and a traitor; which did not make it easier to persuade Jimmie
      to listen to their arguments. So both sides became blinded with anger,
      forgetting about the facts in the case, and thinking only of punishing a
      hated antagonist.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      All over the country now men were sending their sons to the
      training-camps, and putting their money into &ldquo;liberty-bonds&rdquo;. So they were
      in no mood to listen to argument&mdash;they would fly into a rage at the
      least hint that the cause in which they were making sacrifices was not a
      perfectly just and righteous cause. There was an organization called the
      &ldquo;People's Council for Peace and Democracy&rdquo;, which attempted to hold a
      national convention; the gathering was broken up by mobs, and the
      delegates went wandering over the country, trying in vain to get together.
      The mayor of Chicago gave them permission to meet in that city, but the
      governor of the state sent troops to prevent it! You see, the people of
      the country had learned all about the organization for which Jerry Coleman
      had been working&mdash;&ldquo;Labour's National Peace Council&rdquo;; and here was
      another organization, bearing practically the same name, and carrying on
      an agitation which seemed the same to the average man. The distinction
      between hired treason and super-idealism was far too subtle for the people
      to draw in a time of such peril.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was becoming more and more the fashion to arrest Socialists and to
      suppress their papers; the government authorities in many places declared
      the &ldquo;majority report&rdquo; unmailable, and indicted state and national
      secretaries for having sent it out in the ordinary routine of their
      business. Jimmie received a letter from Comrade Meissner in Leesville,
      telling him that Comrade &ldquo;Jack&rdquo; Smith had been given two years in the
      penitentiary for his speech in the Opera-house, and the other would-be
      speakers had been fined five hundred dollars each. Several issues of the
      Worker had been barred from the mails, and now the police had raided the
      offices and forced the suspension of the publication. All over the country
      that sort of thing was happening, so now if you argued with Jimmie in
      favour of the war, his answer was that America was more Prussian than
      Prussia, and what was the use of fighting for Democracy abroad, if you had
      to sacrifice every particle of Democracy at home in order to win the
      fight?
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie really believed this&mdash;he believed it with most desperate and
      passionate intensity. He looked forward to a war won for the benefit of
      oppression at home; he foresaw the system of militarism and suppession
      riveted for ever on the people of America. Jimmie would admit that the
      President himself might be sincere in the fine words he used about
      democracy; but the great Wall Street interests which had run the country
      for so many decades&mdash;they had their secret purposes, for which the
      war-frenzy served as a convenient cloak. They were going to make universal
      military service the rule in America; they were going to see to it that
      every school-child learned the military lessons of obedience and
      subordination. Also they were going to put the radical papers out of
      business and put a stop to all radical propaganda. Those Socialists who
      had been trapped into supporting the President's war-programme would wake
      up some morning with a fearful dark-brown taste in their mouths!
    </p>
    <p>
      No, said Jimmie Higgins, the way to fight war was to resist the
      subterfuges, however cunning and plausible, by which men sought to
      persuade you to support war. The way to fight war was the way of the
      Russians. The propaganda of proletarian revolt, the glorious example which
      the Russian workers had set, would do more to break down the power of the
      Kaiser than all the guns and shells in the world. But the militarists did
      not want it broken that way&mdash;Jimmie suspected that many of them would
      rather have the war won by the Kaiser than have it won by the Socialists.
      The governments refused to give passports to Socialists who wanted to meet
      in some neutral country and work out the basis of a settlement upon which
      all the peoples of the world might get together; and Jimmie took the
      banning of this Socialist conference as the supreme crime of the
      world-capitalism, it was evidence that world-capitalism knew its true
      enemy, and meant to use the war as an excuse to hold that enemy down.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Day by day Jimmie was coming to place more of his hopes in Russia. His
      little friend Rabin, the tailor, took a Russian paper published in New
      York, the Novy Mir, and would translate its news and editorials. Local
      Hopeland, thus inspired, voted a message of fraternal sympathy to the
      Russian workers. In Petrograd and Moscow there was going on, it appeared,
      a struggle between the pro-ally Socialists and the Internationalists, the
      true, out-and-out, middle-of-the-road, thick-and-thin proletarians. The
      former were called Mensheviki, the latter were called Bolsheviki, and, of
      course, Jimmie was all for the latter. Did he not know the &ldquo;stool-pigeon
      Socialists&rdquo; at home, who were letting themselves be used by capitalism?
    </p>
    <p>
      The big issues were two&mdash;first, the land, which the peasants wanted
      to take from the landlords; and second, the foreign debt. The Russian Tsar
      had borrowed four billion dollars from France and a billion or two from
      England, to be used in enslaving the Russian workers and driving several
      millions of them to death on the battlefield. Now should the Russian
      workers consider themselves bound by this debt? When anybody asked Jimmie
      Higgins that question, he responded with a thunderous &ldquo;No&rdquo;, and he
      regarded as hirelings or dupes of Wall Street all those Socialists who
      supported Kerensky in Russia.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the American government, wishing to appeal to the Russian people for
      loyalty in the war, sent over a commission to them, and placed at its head
      one of the most notorious corporation lawyers in America, a man whose
      life, the Jimmies said, had been sold to service in the anti-liberal
      cause, Jimmie Higgins's shrill voice became a yell of ridicule and rage.
      Of course, Jimmie's organization saw to it that the Bolsheviki were
      informed in advance as to the character of this commission&mdash;something
      which was unnecessary, as it happened, because immediately after the
      overthrow of the Tsar there had begun a pilgrimage of Russian Socialists
      from New York and San Francisco, men who had seen the seamy side of
      American capitalism in the slums of the great cities, and who lost no time
      in providing the Russian radicals with full information concerning Wall
      Street!
    </p>
    <p>
      It chanced that in San Francisco a well-known labour leader had been
      charged with planting a bomb to break up a &ldquo;preparedness&rdquo; parade. He had
      been convicted upon that which was proven to be perjured testimony, and
      the labour unions of the country had been conducting a campaign to save
      his life&mdash;which campaign the capitalist newspapers had been carefully
      overlooking, according to their invariable custom. But now the returned
      exiles in Petrograd took up the matter, and organized a parade to the
      American embassy, with a demand for the freeing of this &ldquo;Muni&rdquo;. The
      report, of course, came back to America&mdash;to the immense bewilderment
      of the American people, who had never heard of this &ldquo;Muni&rdquo; before. To
      Jimmie Higgins it seemed just the funniest joke on earth that a big
      labour-struggle should be on in San Francisco, and Americans should get
      their first news about it from Petrograd! Look! he would cry&mdash;how
      much real democracy there is in America, how much care for the working
      classes!
    </p>
    <p>
      So all that summer and autumn, while Jimmie Higgins slaved in the fields,
      getting in his country's wheat-crop, and then his country's corn crop,
      there was a song of joy and awakening excitement in his soul. Far over the
      seas men of his own kind were getting the reins of power into their hands,
      for the first time in the history of the world. It could not be long
      before here in America the workers would learn this wonderful lesson,
      would thrill to the idea that freedom and plenty might really be their
      portion.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XV. JIMMIE HIGGINS TURNS BOLSHEVIK
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Winter was coming, and the farm-workers moved to the cities; but this year
      they did not go as down-and-out-o'-works&mdash;they went, each man a
      little kink. Jimmie wandered into the city of Ironton, and got himself a
      job in a big automobile shop at eight dollars a day, and set to work
      agitating for ten dollars. It was not that he had any need of the extra
      two dollars, of course, but merely because his first principle in life was
      to make trouble for the profit-system. The capitalist papers of this
      middle-Western metropolis were furiously denouncing working-men who struck
      &ldquo;against their country&rdquo; in war-time; Jimmie, on the other hand, denounced
      those who used &ldquo;country&rdquo; as camouflage for &ldquo;boss&rdquo; and made the war a
      pretext to deprive labour of its most precious right.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a Socialist local in Ironton, still active and determined in
      spite of the fact that its office had been raided by the police, and most
      of the party's papers and magazines barred from the mails. You could
      always get leaflets printed, however; and if you could no longer denounce
      the war directly, you could jeer at England's exhibition of &ldquo;democracy&rdquo; in
      Ireland, you could point to the profits of the profiteers, and demand
      conscription of wealth along with conscription of manhood. Some American
      Socialists became almost as subtle as that German rebel of pre-war days,
      who, desiring to lampoon the Kaiser, wrote an account of the life of the
      Roman Emperor Agricola, reciting his vanities and insane extravagances.
    </p>
    <p>
      Late in the autumn came an event which should have troubed Jimmie Higgins
      more deeply than it did. Along the Izonzo river the Italian armies were
      facing the Austrians, their hereditary enemies; they were at the end of a
      long, exhaustive, and for the most part unsuccessful campaign, and the
      Italian Socialists at home were carrying on precisely such a warfare
      against their own government as Jimmie Higgins was carrying on in America.
      They were helped by the Catholic intriguers, who hated the Italian
      government because it had destroyed the temporal power of the Pope; they
      were helped by the subtle and persistent efforts of Austrian agents in
      their country, who spread rumours among Italian troops of the friendly
      intentions of the Austrians, and of the imminence of a truce. These agents
      went so far as to fake copies of the leading Italian newspapers, with
      accounts of starvation and riots in the home cities, and the shooting down
      of women and children. These papers were given out in the Italian
      trenches, before a certain mountain-sector where the Austrian troops had
      been fraternizing with the Italians; and then, during the night, the
      Austrian troops were withdrawn, and picked German &ldquo;shock-troops&rdquo;
       substituted, which attacked at dawn and drove through the Italian lines,
      sweeping back the army along a hundred-mile front, capturing some quarter
      of a million prisoners and a couple of thousand cannon&mdash;practically
      all the Italians had.
    </p>
    <p>
      That Jimmie Higgins did not pay more attention to this terrifying incident
      was in part because he read it in the capitalist papers and did not
      believe it; but mainly because his whole attention just now was centred on
      Russia, where the proletariat was about to make its bid for power. Now you
      would see how wars were to be ended and peace restored to a distracted
      world!
    </p>
    <p>
      The moderate Socialist government of Kerensky was pleading with the
      capitalist masters of the Allied nations for a statement of their peace
      terms, so that the workers of Russia might know what they were fighting
      for. The Russian workers wanted a declaration in favour of no annexations,
      no indemnities, and disarmament; on such terms they would help fight the
      war, in spite of all the starvation and suffering in distracted Russia.
      But the Allied statesmen would not make any such declaration, and the
      Russian workers, backed by all the Socialists of the world, declared that
      the reason was that these Allied statesmen were waging an imperialist war&mdash;they
      did not intend to stop fighting until they had taken vast territories from
      the German powers, and exacted a ransom that would cripple Germany for a
      generation. The Russian workers refused point-blank to fight for such
      aims, and so in November came the second revolution, the uprising of the
      Bolsheviki.
    </p>
    <p>
      Almost their first action when they took possession of the palaces and
      government archives was to publish to the world the secret treaties which
      the rulers of England, France and Italy had made with Russia. These
      treaties formed a complete justification for the attitude of the Russian
      revolutionists&mdash;they showed that the Allied imperialists had planned
      most shameless plundering; England was to have the German colonies and
      Mesopotamia, France was to have German territory to the Rhine, and Italy
      was to have the Adriatic coast, and to divide Palestine and Syria with
      England and France.
    </p>
    <p>
      And here was the most significant fact to Jimmie Higgins&mdash;these
      enormously important revelations, the most important since the beginning
      of the war, were practically suppressed by the capitalist newspapers of
      America! First these papers printed a brief item&mdash;the Bolsheviki had
      given out what they claimed were secret treaties, but the genuineness of
      these documents was gravely doubted. Then they published evasive and lying
      denials from the British, French and Italian diplomats; and then they shut
      up! Not another word did you read about those secret treaties; except for
      one or two American newspapers with traditions of honour, the full text of
      those treaties was given in the Socialist press alone! &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; cried
      Jimmie Higgins to the working men in his shop, &ldquo;what do you think of those
      wonderful allies of ours? What do you think of those Wall Street
      newspapers of ours?&rdquo; Could any working-man who had such facts put before
      him fail to realize that Jimmie Higgins had a case, and a most important
      work in the world to do, in spite of all his unreason and his narrowness?
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie was now in the seventh heaven, walking as if on air. A proletarian
      government at last, the first in history! A government of working-men like
      himself, running their own affairs, without the help of politicians or
      bankers! Coming out before the world and telling the truth about matters
      of state, in language that common men could understand! Disbanding the
      armies, and sending the workers home! Turning the masters out of the
      factories, and putting shop-committees in control! Taking away the
      advertising from the crooked capitalist papers, and so putting them out of
      business! Our little friend would rush to the corner every morning to get
      the paper and see what had happened next; he would go down the street so
      excited that he forgot his breakfast.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had made a new acquaintance in Ironton; the little tailor, Rabin,
      whose name was Scholem, which means Peace, had given him a letter to his
      brother, whose name was Deror, which means Freedom. Each afternoon when
      the automobile factory let out, Jimmie would get an evening paper and take
      it to Deror's tailor-shop and the two would spell out the news. By God,
      look at this! Did you ever hear the like? The man in charge of the
      Bolshevik foreign office was a Marxian Jew who had helped edit the Novy
      Mir, the revolutionary paper which Scholem had read to Jimmie! He had been
      a waiter in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, and now he was giving out the
      secret treaties, and issuing propaganda manifestoes to the international
      proletariat.
    </p>
    <p>
      The American capitalist press was full of lies about the new revolution,
      of course; but Jimmie could read pretty well between the lines of the
      capitalist press, and the few Socialist papers that were still in
      business, and which he read at the headquarters of the local, gave him the
      rest of what he wanted. To Jimmie, of course, everything the Bolsheviki
      did was right; if it wasn't right it was a lie. The little machinist knew
      that the Bolsheviki had repudiated the four-billion-dollar debt which the
      government of the Tsar had contracted with the bankers of France, and
      Jimmie knew perfectly well what was the lying power of four billion
      dollars.
    </p>
    <p>
      The American papers were shocked because the Russian Socialists were
      deserting the cause of democracy, and giving Germany a chance to win the
      war. The American papers called them German agents, but Jimmie did not
      take any stock in such talk as this. Jimmie was familiar with the
      &ldquo;frame-up&rdquo; as it is operated against the workers in America. He saw that
      the first thing the Bolshevik leaders did was to make an appeal to the
      revolutionary workers of Germany. The Russian proletariat had shown the
      way&mdash;now let the German proletariat follow! Literature was printed
      and shipped wholesale into Germany, leaflets were dropped by aviators
      among the German troops; and when Jimmie and Deror read that the German
      generals had protested to the Russians against such practices, they
      laughed aloud with delight. Well might the war-lords squeal; they knew
      what was coming to them! And when in January Jimmie and Deror read of the
      revolting of a brigade of German troops, and a strike of several hundred
      thousand working men throughout Germany, they thought the end was at hand.
      The little tailor got up in local Ironton and made a motion that it take
      to itself the name &ldquo;Bolshevik&rdquo;&mdash;which motion was carried with a
      whoop. And these American Bolsheviki went on to consult with the
      labour-unions, suggesting that they should form &ldquo;shop-committees&rdquo;, and
      prepare for the taking over of industry a la Russe!
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      But something went suddenly wrong with the newly built revolutionary
      steam-roller. The German military chiefs seized their strike-leaders at
      home and threw them into jail, or shipped them off to the front trenches
      to be slaughtered. By terrorism, shrewdly mixed with cajolery, they broke
      the strike, and sent the grumbling slaves back to their treadmill. And
      then the German armies began to march into Russia!
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the crisis to which Jimmie Higgins had been looking forward ever
      since the war began. Tolstoi had taught that if one nation refused to
      fight, it would be impossible for another nation to invade it; and while
      Jimmie Higgins was no mystic or religious non-resistant, he agreed in this
      with the great Russian. No workers in an enemy army could possibly be
      brought to fire upon their peace-proclaiming brothers!
    </p>
    <p>
      And here at last was the test of the theory; here were German Socialists
      ordered to march against Russian Socialists&mdash;ordered to fire upon the
      red flag! Would they do what their masters, the war-lords, commanded? Or
      would they listen to the clamorous appeals of the international
      proletariat, and turn their guns against their own officers?
    </p>
    <p>
      All the world saw what happened; it saw the glorious revolutionary
      machine, in which Jimmie Higgins had put all his trust, run into a ditch
      and land its passengers in the mud. The German armies marched, and the
      Socialists in the German armies did exactly what the non-Socialists did&mdash;they
      fired upon the red flag, as they would have fired upon the flag of the
      Tsar. They obeyed the orders of their officers, like true and loyal
      Germans; they drove back the Bolsheviki in confusion, taking their guns
      and supplies, and destroying their cities; they led off the Russian women
      and children into slavery, precisely as if they were Belgian or French
      women and children, destined by the German Gott as the legitimate prey of
      Kultur. They sacked Riga and Reval, they overran all the Eastern portions
      of Russia&mdash;Courland, Livonia, Esthonia; they moved into the rich
      grain country of Southern Russia, the Ukraine; they landed from their
      ships and took Finland, wiping out the liberties of that splendid people.
      They were at the gates of Petrograd, and the Bolshevik government was
      forced to flee to Moscow. Of all which military feats the German Socialist
      papers spoke with stern pride!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Poor Jimmie Higgins! It was like the blow of a mighty fist in the face; he
      was literally stunned&mdash;it was weeks before he could grasp the full
      meaning of what was happening, the debacle of all his hopes. And it was
      the same with Ironton's Bolshevik local; all the &ldquo;pep&rdquo; was gone out of its
      proceedings. To be sure, some noisy ones went on shouting for revolution
      the very next day&mdash;men, who had been talking formulas for twenty or
      thirty years, and had no more notion of a fact than they had of a
      pseudopodium. But the sensible men of the group knew that their &ldquo;St. Louis
      resolution&rdquo; was being shot to death over there in the trenches before
      Petrograd.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was interesting especially to see Rabin. The common belief of Americans
      was that a Jew could not be induced to fight; they told a story about one
      who cried out to his son, asking why he was letting another boy pummel
      him, and the son whispered in reply, &ldquo;Keep still, I got a nickel under my
      foot!&rdquo; All through the war the Jewish Socialists in America had been, next
      to the Germans, the most ardent pacifists; but now here was a social
      revolution managed by Jews, here was a Russian government which gave the
      Jews their rights for the first time in history! So the little Jewish
      tailor stood up before these American Bolsheviki, and with tears running
      down his cheeks declared: &ldquo;Comrades, I am already tru vit speeches; I am
      going into dis var! I vill put myself vit de Polish Socialists, vit de
      Bohemian Socialists&mdash;I fight de Kaiser to de death! So vill fight
      every Jewish Socialist in de vorld!&rdquo; And this was no mere braggadocio&mdash;Comrade
      Rabin actually proceeded to shut up his tailor-shop, and went away to join
      the &ldquo;red brigade&rdquo;, which was being organized by the Jewish revolutionists
      of New York!
    </p>
    <p>
      If the German war-lords had set out deliberately to ham-string the
      American Socialists, to make it impossible for them to go on demanding
      peace, they could not have acted differently. They dragged the helpless
      Bolsheviki into a peace-conference at Brest-Litovsk, and forced them to
      cede away all the territories that Germany had taken, and on top of that
      to pay an enormous indemnity. They planned to compel the new Russian
      government to become a vassal to the Central Powers, working to help them
      enslave the rest of the world. The German armies went through the
      conquered territories, stripping them bare, robbing the peasants of every
      particle of food, beating them, shooting them, burning their homes if they
      resisted. They gave to the world such a demonstration of what a German
      peace would mean, that everywhere free men set their teeth and gripped
      their hands, and swore to root this infamous thing from out civilization.
      Even Jimmie Higgins!
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Yes, even Jimmie! He made up his mind that he would work as hard as ever
      he could, and produce as many automobile-trucks as he could. But alas, a
      man cannot be hounded and oppressed all his life, cannot have hatred and
      rebellion ground into the deeps of his soul, and then forget it over-night
      because of certain intellectual ideas, certain new items that he reads in
      his paper. What happened to Jimmie was that his mind was literally torn in
      half; he found himself, every twenty-four hours of his life, of two
      absolutely contradictory and diametrically opposite points of view. He
      would vow destruction to the hated German armies; and then he would turn
      about and vow destruction to the men at home who were managing the job of
      destroying the German armies!
    </p>
    <p>
      For these men were Jimmie's life-long enemies, and were no more able to
      forget their prejudices over-night than was Jimmie. For example, the lying
      capitalist paper which Jimmie had to read every morning! When Jimmie had
      read a patriotic editorial in the Ironton Daily Sun, it had become utterly
      impossible for him to help win the war that day! Or the politicians,
      seeking to use the war-cry of democracy abroad to crush all traces of
      democracy at home; to &ldquo;get&rdquo; the radicals whom they hated and feared, and
      by means of taxes on necessities and a bonded debt to put the costs of the
      war on to the poor! Or the capitalists, making fervid speeches about
      patriotism, but refusing to give up the whip-hand over their wage-slaves!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins was working in a factory, making automobile-trucks for the
      armies in France; and the owners of the factory would not let the men have
      a union, and so there was a strike. The bosses made an agreement to take
      everybody back and permit a union, and then proceeded treacherously to
      violate the agreement, getting rid of the most active organizers on this
      or that transparent pretext. Jimmie Higgins, trying to help with the skill
      of his hands to make the world safe for democracy, was turned out of his
      job and left to wander in the streets, because a big profit-seeking
      corporation did not believe in democracy, and refused to permit its
      workers any voice in determining the conditions of their labour! The
      Government was trying to deal with emergencies such as this, to put an end
      to the epidemic of strikes which was hindering the war-work everywhere;
      but the government had not yet got its machinery going, and meantime
      Jimmie's little feeble sprout of patriotism got a severe chill.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie got drunk and wasted a part of his money on a woman of the street.
      Then, being ashamed of himself, and still plagued by the memory of his
      dead wife and babies, he straightened up and resolved to start life anew.
      He found himself thinking about Leesville; it was the only place in the
      world where he had ever been really happy, and now since Deror Rabin had
      gone East, it was the only place where he had friends. How were the
      Meissners getting on? How was Comrade Mrs. Gerrity, nee Baskerville? What
      was Local Leesville thinking about Russia and about the war? Jimmie took a
      sudden resolve to go and find out. He priced a ticket, and found that he
      had enough money and to spare. He would take the journey&mdash;and take it
      in state, as a citizen and a war-worker, not as a tramp in a box-car!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVI. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE TEMPTER
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      When Jimmie Higgins stepped off the train at Leesville, it was a blustery
      morning in early March, with snow still on the ground and flurries of it
      in the air. In front of the station was a public square, with a number of
      people gathered, and Jimmie strolled over to see what was going on. What
      he saw was a score of young men, some in khaki uniforms, some in ordinary
      trousers and sweaters, being drilled. Jimmie, being in the mood of a
      gentleman of leisure, stopped to watch the show.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the thing he had been talking and thinking about for nearly three
      years: this monstrous perversion of the human soul called Militarism, this
      force which seized hold of men and made them into automatons, moving
      machines which obeyed orders in a mass, and went out and did deeds of
      which none of them taken separately would have been capable, even in their
      dreams. Here was a bunch of average nice Leesville boys, employees of the
      shops near-by, &ldquo;soda-jerkers&rdquo; and &ldquo;counter-jumpers&rdquo;, clerks who had deftly
      fitted shoes on to the feet of pretty ladies. Now they were submitting
      themselves to this deforming discipline, undergoing this devilish
      transmogrification.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie's eye ran down the line: there was a street-car conductor he knew,
      there was a machinist from the Empire, also there was a son of Ashton
      Chalmers, president of the First National Bank of Leesville. And suddenly
      Jimmie gave a start. Impossible! It could not be! But&mdash;it was! Young
      Emil Forster! Emil a Socialist, Emil a German, Emil a student and thinker,
      who had penetrated the hypocritical disguises of this capitalist war, and
      had fearlessly proclaimed the truth every Friday night at the local&mdash;here
      he was with a suit of khaki on his rather frail figure, a rifle in his
      hand and a look of grim resolve on his face, going through the evolutions
      of squad-drill: left, right, left, right, left, right&mdash;column left,
      march&mdash;one, two, three, four&mdash;left, right, left, right&mdash;squad
      right about, march&mdash;left, right, left, right&mdash;squad left oblique
      march&mdash;and so on. If you are to form any picture of the scene you
      must imagine the swift tramp of many feet in unison&mdash;thump, thump,
      thump, thump, thump, thump; you must imagine the marchers, with their
      solemnly set faces, and the orders thundered out by a red-faced young man
      of desperate aspect, the word MARCH coming each time with a punch that hit
      you over the heart. This red-faced young man was the very incarnation of
      the military despot as Jimmie had pictured him; watching with hawk-like
      eye, scolding, pounding, driving, with no slightest regard for the
      feelings of the slaves he commanded, or for any of the decencies of
      civilized intercourse.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hold those half-steps, Casey! Keep your eye on the end man&mdash;you'll
      have him splitting his legs if you don't wait for him. Column left, march&mdash;one,
      two, three, four&mdash;now you're all right&mdash;off with you&mdash;that's
      better! Put a little pep into your feet, Chalmers, for God's sake&mdash;if
      you go marching into Berlin like that they'll think it's the hospital
      squad! By the right flank, column fours, march&mdash;watch your distance
      there, end man! How many times do you want me to tell you that?&rdquo;&mdash;and
      so on and on&mdash;tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp&mdash;while a small boy
      standing beside Jimmie, evidently a truant from school, chanted over and
      over: &ldquo;Left&mdash;left&mdash;the soldier got drunk and he packed up his
      trunk and he left&mdash;left! And do you not think he was right&mdash;right?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Now if you have ever stood about and watched outdoor exercise or games, on
      a day in March with snow on the ground and a keen wind blowing, you know
      how it is&mdash;you have to stamp your feet to keep warm; and if in your
      neighbourhood there are twenty left feet smiting the ground in unison, and
      then twenty right feet smiting the ground in unison, it is absolutely
      inevitable that your stamping should keep time to the smiting; also the
      rhythm of your stamping will be communicated upwards into your body&mdash;your
      thoughts will keep time with the marching squad&mdash;tramp, tramp, tramp,
      tramp&mdash;left, right, left, right! The psychologists tell us that one
      who goes through the actions appropriate to an emotion will begin to feel
      that emotion; and so it was with Jimmie Higgins. By a process so subtle
      that he never suspected it Jimmie was being made into a militarist!
      Jimmie's hands were clenched, Jimmie's jaw was set, Jimmie's feet were
      tramping, tramping on the road to Berlin, to teach the Prussian war-lords
      what it meant to defy the free men of a great republic!
    </p>
    <p>
      But then something would happen to blast these budding excitements in
      Jimmie's soul. The red-faced fellow would break into the rhythm of the
      march. &ldquo;For the love of Mike, Pete Casey, can't you remember those
      half-steps? Squad, halt! Now look here, what's the matter with you? Step
      out and let me show you once more.&rdquo; And poor Casey, a meek-faced little
      man with sloping shoulders, who had been running the elevator in the
      Chalmers Building up to a week ago, would patiently practise marching
      without moving, so that the rest of the line could wheel round him as a
      pivot. The petty tyrant who scolded at him was determined to have his own
      way; and Jimmie, who had had to do with many such tyrants in his long
      years of industrial servitude, was glad when this particular one got mixed
      up in his orders, and ran his squad into the fountain in the middle of the
      drill-ground, and some of them marched over the parapet, sliding down into
      the ice-covered basin below. The spectators roared, and so did the
      marchers, and the red-faced man young had to join in, and to come down off
      his high horse.
    </p>
    <p>
      The conflict of impulses went on in Jimmie's soul. These marching men were
      the &ldquo;fools&rdquo; at whom he had been mocking for something over two years. They
      did not look like &ldquo;fools&rdquo; he had to admit; on the contrary, they looked,
      quite capable of deciding what they wanted to do. And they had decided;
      they had quit their jobs several weeks in advance of the time when they
      would be called for the draft, and had set to work to learn the rudiments
      of the military art, in the hope of thus getting more quickly to France.
      Among them were bankers and merchants and real estate dealers, side by
      side with soda-jerkers and counter-jumpers and elevator-men&mdash;and all
      taking their orders from an ex-blacksmith's helper, who had run away to
      fight in the Philippines.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie got this last bit of information from a fellow who stood watching;
      so he realized that here was the thing he had been reading about in the
      papers&mdash;the new army of the people, that was going forth to make the
      world safe for democracy! Jimmy had read such words, and thought them just
      camouflage, a trap for the &ldquo;fools&rdquo;. But here, a sight of wonder before his
      eyes, a son of Ashton Chalmers, president of the First National Bank of
      Leesville, being ordered about and hauled over the coals by an
      ex-blacksmith's helper, who happened to know how to shout with the accents
      of a pile-driver: &ldquo;Shoulder HUMPS! Order HUMPS! Present HUMPS!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The squad spread itself out for exercise&mdash;grasping their heavy rifles
      and swinging them this way and that with desperate violence. &ldquo;Swing over
      head and return, ready, exercise&mdash;one, two, three, four, five, six,
      seven, eight&mdash;eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.&rdquo; It was
      no joke making those swings in such quick time; the poor little
      elevator-man Casey was left hopelessly behind, he could only make half the
      swing, and then couldn't get back to place on the count; he would look
      about, grinning sheepishly, and then fall into time and try again.
      Everybody's face was set, everybody's breath was coming harder and harder,
      everybody's complexion was becoming apoplectic.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Swing to the right!&rdquo; shouted the blacksmith-tyrant. &ldquo;Ready, exercise&mdash;one,
      two&rdquo;&mdash;and so on. And then he would yell: &ldquo;No, Chalmers, don't punch
      out with your arms&mdash;swing up your gun! Swing it up from the bottom!
      That's the way! Poke 'em! Poke 'em! Put the punch into 'em!&rdquo; And over
      Jimmie stole a cold horror. There was nothing on the end of those guns but
      a little black hole, but Jimmie knew what was supposed to be there&mdash;what
      would some day be there; the exercise meant that these affable young
      Leesville store-clerks were getting ready to drive a sharp, gleaming blade
      into the bowels of human beings! &ldquo;Poke 'em! Poke 'em!&rdquo; shouted the
      ex-blacksmith, and with desperate force they swung the heavy rifles,
      throwing their bodies to one side and leaping out with one foot. Horrible!
      Horrible!
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Man is a gregarious animal, and it is a fundamental law of his being that
      when a group of his fellows are doing a certain thing, and doing it with
      energy and fervour, anyone who does not do it, who does not share the mood
      of energy and fervour shall be the object of ridicule and anger, shall
      feel within his own heart confusion and distress. This is true, even if
      the group is doing nothing more worthwhile than making itself drunk. How
      much more shall it be when it is engaged in making the world safe for
      democracy!
    </p>
    <p>
      The only way the man can save himself is by holding before his mind the
      belief that he is right, and that some day this will be recognized; in
      other words, by appealing to some other group of men, who in some future
      time will applaud him. If he is sure of this future applause, he can
      manage to stand the jeers for the moment. But how when he begins to doubt&mdash;when
      his mind is haunted by the possibility that the men of the future may
      agree with those of the present, who are learning to march in unison, and
      to poke bayonets into the bodies of Huns!
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the things which brought this destructive doubt to Jimmie's soul
      was the sight of Emil Forster, learning to march and to poke. Emil had
      been one of his heroes, Emil knew a hundred times as much as he&mdash;and
      Emil was going to the war! The squad marched away to the City hall across
      the square, and deposited its rifles in a room in the basement, and then
      Emil came out, and Jimmie went up to him. The young carpet-designer of
      course was delighted to meet his old friend, and asked him to go to lunch.
      As they walked along the street together Jimmie asked what it meant, and
      Emil answered: &ldquo;It means that I have made up my mind.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're going to fight the German people?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Strange as you'll think it, I'm going to fight them for their own good.
      Bebel wrote in his memoirs that the way to get democratic progress in
      autocratic countries is through military defeat; and it seems up to
      America to provide this defeat for Germany.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But&mdash;you were preaching just the opposite!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know; it makes me feel foolish sometimes. But things have changed, and
      there's no sense in shutting your eyes to facts.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie waited.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Russia, more especially,&rdquo; continued Emil, answering the unspoken
      question. &ldquo;What's the use of getting Socialism, if you're just throwing
      yourself down for a military machine to run over you? You're playing the
      fool, that's all&mdash;and you have to see it. What hope is there for
      Russia now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's the German Socialists.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, they just didn't have the power, that's all. What's more, we have
      to face the fact that a lot of them aren't really revolutionists&mdash;they're
      politicians, and haven't dared to stand out against the crowd. Anyhow,
      whatever the reason is, they didn't save their own country, and they
      didn't save Russia. They certainly can't expect us to give them a third
      chance&mdash;it costs too much.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But then,&rdquo; argued Jimmie, &ldquo;ain't we doin' just what we blame them for
      doin'&mdash;turnin' patriots, supportin' a capitalist government?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When you're supporting a government,&rdquo; replied Emil, &ldquo;it make's a lot of
      difference what use its making of your support. We all know the faults of
      our government, but we know too that the people can change it when enough
      of them get ready, and that makes a real difference. I've come to realize
      that if we give the Kaiser a beating, the German people will kick him out,
      and then we can talk sense to them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They walked along for a bit in silence, Jimmie trying to assimilate these
      ideas. They were new&mdash;not in the sense that he had not heard them
      before, but in the sense that he had not heard them from a German. &ldquo;How
      does your father feel?&rdquo; he asked at last.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He hasn't changed,&rdquo; replied the other. &ldquo;And that makes it pretty hard&mdash;it's
      all we can do to keep from quarrelling. He's old, and new ideas don't come
      to him easily. Yet you'd think he'd be the first to see it&mdash;his
      father was one of the old revolutionists, he was put in jail in Dresden. I
      don't suppose you know much about the history of Germany.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, in those days the German people tried to get free, and they were
      put down by the troops, and the real revolutionists were driven into
      exile. Some of them came over here&mdash;like my grandfather. But, you
      see, their children have forgotten about their wrongs&mdash;they look back
      on Germany now, and think of it sentimentally, as it's pictured in the
      stories and songs&mdash;a sort of Christmas-tree Germany. They don't know
      about the Germany that's grown up&mdash;the Germany of iron and coal
      kings, that combines all the cruelty of feudalism with modern efficiency
      and science&mdash;the Beast with the Brains of an Engineer!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They walked on, Emil lost in thought. &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; he broke out, suddenly,
      &ldquo;this war has been a revelation to me&mdash;the most horrible you could
      imagine. It's as if you loved a woman, and saw her go insane before your
      eyes, or turn into some sort of degenerate. For I believed in the
      Christmas-tree Germany; I loved it, and I argued for it, I just couldn't
      bring myself to believe what I read in the papers. Now I look back, and it
      seems like a trap that the German war-lords had set for my mind&mdash;reaching
      way over here into America, and making me think what they wanted me to!
      Perhaps I've gone to the other extreme&mdash;I find I distrust everything
      that's German. Father accused me of it last night; he was singing an old
      German song that says that when you hear men singing you may lie down in
      peace, for bad men have no songs. And I reminded him that the nation which
      taught that idea had marched into Belgium singing!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gee!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmie. He could imagine how old Hermann Forster had
      taken that remark!
    </p>
    <p>
      The young carpet-designer smiled, rather sadly. &ldquo;He says it's because I've
      put on khaki. But the truth is, I'd been full of these thoughts, and all
      at once they came to a head. I was drafted, and I had to make up my mind
      one way or the other. I decided I'd fight&mdash;and then, when I'd
      decided, I wanted to get into it right away.&rdquo; Emil paused, and looked at
      his friend and asked, &ldquo;What about you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie, of course, was a draft-evader, one of the hated &ldquo;slackers&rdquo;.
      Ordinarily, he would have told Emil, and the two of them would have
      grinned. But now Emil was in khaki, Emil was a patriot; perhaps it would
      not be wise to trust him entirely! &ldquo;They haven't got me yet,&rdquo; said Jimmie;
      and then, &ldquo;I ain't so sure as I used to be, but I ain't ready to be a
      soldier&mdash;I dunno's I could stand bein' bossed like that fellow does
      it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Emil laughed. &ldquo;Don't you suppose I want to learn?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But does he need to call you names?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's part of the game&mdash;nobody minds that. He's putting the pep
      into us&mdash;and we want it in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie found that such a new point of view that he didn't know what to
      reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; the other went on, &ldquo;if you really want to fight, you go in for
      it; it's quite remarkable how your feelings change. You imagine yourself
      in the presence of the enemy, and you know your success depends on
      discipline; if there's a leader, and especially if you feel that he knows
      his business, you're glad to have him to teach you, to make the whole
      machine do what you want it to. I know it sounds funny from me, but I've
      learnt to love discipline.&rdquo; And Emil laughed, a nervous laugh. &ldquo;This army
      means business, let me tell you; and it's got right down to it. They've
      been fighting three and a half years over in Europe, and they send their
      best men over to show us, and we dig in and learn&mdash;I tell you, we
      work as if the devil was after us!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It sounded so strange to hear things like this from the lips of Emil
      Forster! Jimmie could hardly make them real to himself&mdash;the world was
      slipping from under his feet. The Socialist movement was being seduced&mdash;won
      over by the militarists! He didn't quite dare to say this; but he hinted,
      cautiously, &ldquo;Ain't you afraid maybe we'll get used to fightin'&mdash;to
      discipline and all that? Maybe they'll trick us&mdash;the plutes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;I've thought of that, and I've no doubt they'll
      try it&mdash;they want universal training for that very purpose. We have
      to fight them, that's all; we have to fight right now&mdash;to make clear
      why we're going into this war. We have to hold it before the people&mdash;that
      this is a war to bring democracy to the whole world. If we can fix that in
      people's minds, the imperialists won't have a look in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you could do it, of course&mdash;&rdquo; began Jimmie, hesitatingly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But we ARE doing it!&rdquo; cried Emil. &ldquo;We're doing it day by day. Look at
      this strike here in Leesville.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What strike?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Didn't you know there'd been another walk-out in the Empire Shops?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, I didn't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The men went out, and the government sent an arbitration commission, and
      forced both sides to accept an award. They broke old Granitch down&mdash;made
      him recognize the union and grant the basic eight-hour day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmie. It was the thing for which he had stood up in
      the Empire yards and been cursed by young Lacey Granitch; it was the thing
      for which he had been sent to jail and devoured by lice! And now the
      government had helped the men to win their demand! It was the first time&mdash;literally
      the first in Jimmie's whole life&mdash;that he had been led to think of
      the government as something else than an enemy and a slave-driver.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How did Granitch take it?&rdquo; he asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, awful! He threatened to quit, and let the government run his plant;
      but when he found the government was perfectly willing, he dropped his
      bluff. And look here&mdash;here's something else.&rdquo; Emil reached into an
      inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a newspaper clipping. &ldquo;Ashton
      Chalmers went to a banquet at some bankers' convention the other day and
      made a speech to them. Read this.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie, walking along, read some words that Emil had underlined in pencil:
      &ldquo;Whether we will or no, we have to recognize that the old order is dead.
      We face a new era, when labour is coming into its own. If we do not want
      to be left behind as derelicts, we shall have to get busy and do our part
      to bring in this new era, which otherwise will come with bloodshed and
      destruction.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For the love of Mike!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's just about knocked Leesville out,&rdquo; said Emil. &ldquo;You ought to have
      seen the papers that reported the speech! It was as if God in his Heaven
      had gone crazy, and the clergymen in the churches had to tell the news!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      To the little machinist there flashed a sudden idea. He caught his friend
      by the arm. &ldquo;Emil!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Do you remember that time when Ashton
      Chalmers and old Granitch came to our meeting at the Opera-house?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure thing!&rdquo; said Emil.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Maybe that done it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing more likely.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And it was me that sold him the tickets!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was thrilled to the bottom of his shoes. Such is the reward that
      comes now and then to the soul of a propagandist; he struggles on amid
      ridicule and despair&mdash;and then suddenly, like a gleam of light, comes
      evidence that somewhere, somehow, he has reached another mind, he has made
      a real impression. Ashton Chalmers had listened to the Socialist orator,
      and he had gone away and read and investigated; he had realized the force
      of this great world movement for economic justice, he had broken the bonds
      and barriers of his class, and told the truth about what he saw coming.
      When Jimmie read the wonderful words which the bank president had spoken,
      he was nearer to an impulse to fight Germany than at any previous moment
      of his life!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVII. JIMMIE HIGGINS WRESTLES WITH THE TEMPTER
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Of course, not all the Socialists of Leesville had got the &ldquo;military bug&rdquo;
       like Emil Forster. Late in the afternoon, Jimmie ran into Comrade
      Schneider, on his way home from work at the brewery, and he was the same
      old Schneider&mdash;the same florid Teuton countenance, the same solid
      Teuton voice, the same indignant Teuton point of view. All Jimmie had to
      do was to mention the name of Emil, and Schneider was off. A hell of a
      Socialist he was! Couldn't even wait for the drill-sergeant to come after
      him, but had to run and hunt for him, had to go and put himself out in the
      public square, where the town-loafers could watch him playing the monkey!
    </p>
    <p>
      No, said Schneider, with abundant profanity, he had not moved one inch
      from his position; they could send him to jail any time they got ready,
      they could stand him up before a firing-squad, but they'd never get any
      militarism into him. Pressed for an answer, the big brewer admitted that
      he had registered; but he wasn't going to be drafted, not on his life!
      Jimmie suggested that this might be because he had a wife and six
      children; but the other was too much absorbed in his tirade to notice
      Jimmie's grin. He blustered on, in a tone so loud that several times
      people on the street overheard, and gave him a black look. Jimmie, being
      less in the mood of martyrdom, parted from him and went to see the
      Meissners.
    </p>
    <p>
      The little bottle-packer was living in the same place, having rented the
      upper part of his house to a Polish family to help meet his
      constantly-rising expenses. He welcomed Jimmie with open arms&mdash;patted
      him on the back with delight, and opened a bottle of beer to treat him. He
      asked a hundred questions about Jimmie's adventures, and told in turn
      about events in Leesville. The local as a whole had stood firm against the
      war, and was still carrying on propaganda, in the face of ferocious
      opposition. The working-classes were pumped so full of &ldquo;patriotic dope&rdquo;,
      you could hardly get them to listen; as for the radicals, they were marked
      men&mdash;their mail was intercepted, their meetings were attended by
      almost as many detectives as spectators. A number had been drafted&mdash;which
      Meissner considered deliberate conspiracy on the part of the draft-boards.
    </p>
    <p>
      Who had been taken? Jimmie asked. The other answered: Comrade Claudel, the
      jeweller&mdash;he wanted to go, of course; and Comrade Koeln, the
      glass-blower&mdash;he was a German, but had been naturalized, so they had
      taken him, in spite of his protests; and Comrade Stankewitz&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stankewitz!&rdquo; cried Jimmie, in dismay.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, he's gone.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Was he willing?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They didn't ask if he was willing. They just told him to report.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Somehow that seemed to bring the war nearer to Jimmie's consciousness than
      anything that had happened so far. The little Roumanian Jew had given him
      the greater part of his education on this world-conflict; it was over the
      counter of the cigar-store that Jimmie had got the first geography lessons
      of his life. He had learned that Russia was the yellow country, and
      Germany the green, and Belgium the pale blue, and France the light pink;
      he had seen how the railroads from the green to the pink ran through the
      pale blue, and how the big fortresses in the pale blue all faced towards
      the green&mdash;something which Meissner and Schneider and the rest of the
      green people considered a mortal affront, a confession of guilt on the
      part of the pale blue people. Comrade Stankewitz's wizened-up, eager
      little face rose before Jimmie; he heard the shrill voice, trying to
      compose the disputes in the local. &ldquo;Comrades, all this vill not get us
      anyvere! There is but vun question we have to answer, are we
      internationalists, or are we not?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; cried Jimmie. &ldquo;Ain't that awful?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He had got to the point where he was willing to admit that perhaps the
      Kaiser had got to be licked, and maybe it was all right for a fellow that
      felt like Emil Forster to go and lick him. But to lay hold of a man who
      hated war with all his heart and soul, to drag him away from the little
      business he had painfully built up, and compel him to put on a uniform and
      obey other men's orders&mdash;well, when you saw a thing like that, you
      knew about the atrocities of war!
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Comrade Meissner went on. Worse than that&mdash;-they had taken Comrade
      Gerrity. And Jimmie stared. &ldquo;But he's married!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; explained Meissner, &ldquo;but that ain't what counts. What you got to
      have is a dependent wife. An' the Gerritys didn't know that&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What did Gerrity do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;they keep him chained up by his wrists a part of the time&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! OH!&rdquo; cried Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Comrade Evelyn's most crazy about it. She broke down and cried in the
      local, and she went around to the churches&mdash;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&mdash;they didn't want
      it to get in the papers.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;Where is she?&rdquo; 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&mdash;who
      could say?&mdash;to put about her, gently and reverently, a pair of
      fraternal and comforting arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;then the
      sorrowing widow would be in need of someone to uphold her, to put
      fraternal and comforting arms about her&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where is she?&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;conscientious
      objectors&rdquo;. 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&mdash;with the
      result that once more the feeble sprout of patriotism was squashed flat in
      his soul!
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie went to the next meeting of the local. It was a slender affair now,
      for some of the members were in jail, and some in the training camps, and
      some afraid to come for fear of their jobs, and some discouraged by
      incessant persecution. But the old war-horses were there&mdash;Comrade
      Schneider, and gentle old Hermann Forster, and Comrade Mabel Smith, with
      an account of her brother's mistreatment in the county jail, and Comrade
      Mary Allen, the Quaker lady. This last was still taking it as a personal
      affront that America should be going into the bloody mess, in spite of all
      her denunciations and protests; she was even paler and thinner than when
      Jimmie had seen her last&mdash;her hands trembled and her thin lips
      quivered as she spoke, you could see that she was burning up with
      excitement over the monstrous wickedness of the world's events. She read
      to the local a harrowing story of a boy who had registered as a
      conscientious objector in New York, and had been taken out to a
      training-camp and subjected to such indignities that he had shot himself.
      Comrade Mary had no children of her own, so she had adopted these
      conscientious objectors, and as she read of their experiences, her soul
      was convulsed with a mingling of grief and rage.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie went back to the Empire Shops and applied for a job. They needed
      thousands of men, so the Herald declared&mdash;but they did not need a
      single one like Jimmie! The man to whom he applied recognized him at once,
      and said, &ldquo;Nothin' doin'.&rdquo; For the sake of being nasty, Jimmie went to the
      headquarters of the newly-formed union, and asked them to force old Abel
      Granitch to give him work, according to the terms of the agreement with
      the government. But the union secretary, after thinking the matter over,
      decided that the provision against black-listing applied only to men who
      had been out on the last strike, not to the strikers of a couple of years
      before. &ldquo;There was no use going out of one's way to look for trouble,&rdquo;
       said this secretary. Jimmie went away jeering at the union, and damning
      the war as heartily as ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was in no hurry to get work, having still some money in his pocket, and
      being able to live cheaply with the Meissners. He went again to watch
      young Forster drilling, and went home with him and heard an argument with
      old Hermann. You could see how this family had been split wide open; the
      old man ordered his traitorous son out several times, but the mother had
      flung herself into the breach, pleading that the boy was going away in a
      few days, and perhaps would never return. The evening that Jimmie was
      there, the paper printed a speech of the President, outlining his purposes
      in the war, the terms of justice for all peoples, a league of nations and
      universal disarmament. Emil read this triumphantly, finding in it a
      justification of his support of the war. Wasn't it a great part of what
      the Socialists wanted?
    </p>
    <p>
      Hermann answered grudgingly that the words were all right, but how about
      the deeds? Also, how about the other Allies&mdash;did the President
      imagime he could boss them? No&mdash;to the imperialists of England and
      France and Italy those fine words were just bait for gudgeons; they would
      serve to keep the workers quiet till the war was won, and then the
      militarists would kick out the American President and pick the bones of
      the carcass of Germany. If they really meant to abide by the President's
      terms, why didn't they come out squarely and say so? Why didn't they
      repudiate the secret treaties? Why didn't England begin her career in
      democracy by setting free Ireland and India?
    </p>
    <p>
      So it went; and Jimmie listened to both speakers, and agreed with both
      alternately, experiencing more and more that distressing condition of
      mental chaos, in which he found himself of two absolutely contradictory
      and diametrically opposite points of view.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      All winter long the papers had been full of talk about a mighty German
      offensive that was coming in the spring. The German people were being told
      all about it, and how it was to end the war with a glorious triumph. In
      America nobody was sure about the matter; the fact that the attack was
      boldly announced seemed good reason for looking elsewhere. Perhaps the
      enemy was preparing to overwhelm Italy, and wished to keep France and
      England from sending troops to the weakened Italian line!
    </p>
    <p>
      But now suddenly, in the third week of March, the Germans made a mighty
      rush at the British line in front of Cambrai; army upon army they came,
      and overwhelmed the defenders, and poured through the breach. The British
      forces fell back&mdash;every hour it seemed that their retreat must be
      turned into a rout. Day by day, as the dispatches came in, Jimmie watched
      the map in front of the Herald office, and saw a huge gap opening in the
      British line, a spear-head pointing straight into the heart of France.
      Three days, four days, five days, this ghastly splitting apart went on,
      and the whole world held its breath. Even Jimmie Higgins was shaken by the
      news&mdash;he had got enough into the war by this time to realize what a
      German triumph would mean. It took a strong pacifist stomach indeed to
      contemplate such an issue of events without flinching.
    </p>
    <p>
      Comrade Mary Allen had such a stomach; to her religious fervour it made no
      difference whatever which set of robbers ruled the world. Comrade
      Schneider had it also; he knew that Germany was the birth-place and cradle
      of Socialism, and believed that the best fate that could befall the world
      was for the Germans to conquer it, and let the German Socialists make it
      into a co-operative commonwealth by and by. Comrade Schneider was now
      openly gloating over this new proof of German supermanity, the
      invincibility of German discipline. But most of the other members of the
      local were awed&mdash;realizing in spite of themselves the seriousness of
      the plight which confronted civilization.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie would inspect the bulletin board, and go over to watch the
      drilling, and then to Tom's &ldquo;Buffeteria&rdquo; with Emil Forster. He had always
      had an intense admiration for Emil, and now the young designer, distressed
      by the strife at home, was glad of someone to pour out his soul to. He
      would help Jimmie to realize the meaning of the British defeat, the
      enormous losses of guns and supplies, the burden it would put upon
      America. For America would have to make up these losses, America would
      have to drive the Germans out of every foot of this newly-conquered
      territory.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie would listen and study the matter out on the map; and so gradually
      he learned to be interested in a new science, that of military strategy.
      When once you have fallen under the spell of that game, your soul is lost.
      You think of men, no longer as human creatures, suffering, starving,
      bleeding, dying in agony; you think of them as chess-pawns; you dispose of
      them as a gambler of his chips, a merchant of his wares; you classify them
      into brigades and divisions and corps, moving them here and there,
      counting off your losses against the losses of the enemy, putting in your
      reserves at critical moments, paying this price for that objective, wiping
      out thousands and tens of thousands of men with a sweep of your hand, a
      mark of your pencil, a pressure on an electric button! Once you have
      learnt to take that view of life, you are no longer a human heart, to be
      appealed to by pacifists and humanitarians; you are a machine, grinding
      out destruction, you are a ripe apple, ready to fall into the lap of the
      god of war, you are an autumn leaf, ready to be seized by the gales of
      patriotism and blown to destruction and death.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE PLUNGE
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie went home one evening to the Meissners, and there got a piece of
      news that delighted him. Comrade Stankewitz had come back from Camp
      Sheridan! The man to whom he had sold his tobacco-store having failed to
      pay up, Stankewitz had got a three days' furlough to settle his business
      affairs. &ldquo;Say, he looks fine!&rdquo; exclaimed Meissner; and so after supper
      Jimmie hurried off to the little store on the corner.
    </p>
    <p>
      Never had Jimmie been so startled by the change in a man; he would
      literally not have known his Roumanian Jewish friend. The wrinkles which
      had made him look old had filled out; his shoulders were straight&mdash;he
      seemed to have been lifted a couple of inches; he was brown, his cheeks
      full of colour&mdash;he was just a new man! Jimmie and he had been wont to
      skylark a bit in the old days, as young male creatures do, putting up
      their fists, giving one another a punch or two, making as if they were
      going to batter in one another's noses. They would grip hands and squeeze,
      to see which could hold out longest. But now, when they tried it, there
      was &ldquo;nothing to it&rdquo;&mdash;Jimmie got one squeeze and hollered quits.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vat you tink?&rdquo; cried Stankewitz. &ldquo;I veigh tventy pounds more already&mdash;tventy
      pounds! They vork you like hell in that army, but they treat you good. You
      don't never have such good grub before, not anyvere you vork.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You like it?&rdquo; demanded Jimmy, in amazement.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure I like it, you bet your money! I learn lots of things vat I didn't
      know before. I get myself straight on this var, don't you ferget it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You believe in the war?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure I believe in it, you bet your money!&rdquo; Comrade Stankewitz, as he
      spoke, pounded with an excited fist on the counter. &ldquo;Ve got to vin this
      var, see? Ve got to beat them Yunkers! I vould have made up my mind to
      that, even if I don't go in the army&mdash;I vould have make it up ven I
      see vat they do vit Russia.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But the revolution&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The revolution kin vait&mdash;maybe vun year, maybe two years already. It
      don't do us no good to have a revolution if the Yunkers walk over it! No,
      sir&mdash;I vant them Germans put out of Roumania und out of Russia und
      out of Poland&mdash;und, I tell you, in this American army you got plenty
      Roumanian Socialists, plenty Polish Socialists, und the Kaiser vill be
      sorry ven he meets them in France, you bet your money!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie got another dose of patriotism, a heavy dose this time; for
      Stankewitz was all on fire with his new conviction, as full of the
      propaganda impulse as he had been when he called himself an
      &ldquo;anti-nationalist&rdquo;. He could not permit you to differ with him&mdash;became
      irritated at the bare mention of those formula-ridden members of the local
      who were still against the war. They were fools&mdash;or else they were
      Germans; and Comrade Stankewitz was as ready to right the Germans in
      Leesville as in France. He got so excited arguing that he almost forgot
      the cigars and the show-cases which he had to get rid of in two days. To
      Jimmie it was an amazing thing to see this transformation&mdash;not merely
      the new uniform and the new muscles of his Roumanian Jewish friend, but
      his sense of certainty about the war, his loyalty to the President for the
      bold deed he had done in pledging the good faith of America to securing
      the freedom and the peaceful future of the harrassed and tormented
      subject-races of Eastern Europe.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie got a sheet of letter paper, and borrowed a scratchy pen and a
      little bottle of ink from Mrs. Meissner, and wrote a painfully mis-spelled
      letter to Comrade Evelyn Gerrity, nee Baskerville, to assure her of his
      sympathy and undying friendship. He did not tell her that he was beginning
      to wobble on the war; in fact, when he thought of Jack Gerrity, chained up
      to the bars of a cell window, he unwobbled&mdash;he wanted the social
      revolution right away. But then as he went to drop the letter into the
      post office, so that it might go more quickly, he bought a paper and read
      the story of what was happening in France. And again the war-fervour
      tempted him.
    </p>
    <p>
      By desperate, frenzied fighting the British had succeeded in holding up
      for a few days the colossal German drive. But help was needed&mdash;instant
      help, if civilization was to be saved. The cry came across the seas&mdash;America
      must send assistance&mdash;guns, shells, food, and above all else men.
      Jimmie's blood was stirred; he had an impulse to answer the call, to rush
      to the rescue of those desperate men, crouching in shell-holes and
      fighting day and night for a week without rest. If only Jimmie could have
      gone right to them! If only it had not been necessary for him to go to a
      training-camp and submit himself to a military martinet! If only it had
      not been for war-profiteers, and crooked politicians, and lying, predatory
      newspapers, and all the other enemies of democracy at home!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie dropped his letter in the slot, and turned to leave the post
      office, when his eye was caught by a sign on the wall-a large sign, in
      bold, black letters: &ldquo;YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!&rdquo; Jimmie thought it was more
      &ldquo;Liberty Bond&rdquo; business; they had been after him several times, trying to
      separate him from his earnings, but needless to say they hadn't succeeded.
      However, he stopped out of curiosity, and read that men were needed to go
      to France&mdash;skilled men of all sorts. There was a long list of the
      trades, everything you could think of&mdash;carpenters, plumbers,
      electricians, lumbermen, stevedores, railwaymen, laundrymen, cooks,
      warehousemen&mdash;so on for several columns. Jimmie came to &ldquo;machinists&rdquo;,
      and gave a guilty start; then he came to &ldquo;motor-cycle drivers&rdquo; and
      &ldquo;motor-cycle repairers&rdquo;&mdash;and suddenly he clenched his hands. A wild
      idea flashed over him, causing such excitement that he could hardly read
      on. Why should he not go to France&mdash;he, Jimmy Higgins! He was a man
      without a tie in the world&mdash;as free as the winds that blow across the
      ocean! And he was looking for a job&mdash;why not take one of these?
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a way he might share all the adventures, see the marvellous sights
      of which he had been reading and hearing and without the long delay in a
      training-camp, without waiting to be bossed about by a military martinet!
      Jimmie looked to see what pay was offered; fifty-one dollars a month and
      an &ldquo;allowance&rdquo; for board and expenses. At the bottom of the sign he read
      the words: &ldquo;Why not work for your Uncle Sam?&rdquo; Jimmie as it happened was in
      a fairly friendly mood towards his Uncle Sam at that moment; so he
      thought, why not give him a chance as a boss? After all, wasn't that what
      every Socialist was aiming at&mdash;to be an employe of the community, a
      servant of the public, rather than of some private profiteer?
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie went to the window to inquire, and the clerk told him that the
      &ldquo;war-labour recruiting office&rdquo; was at the corner of Main and Jefferson. He
      came to the corner designated, and there in a vacant store was a big
      recruiting sign, &ldquo;War Labour Wanted&rdquo;, and a soldier in khaki walking up
      and down. A week ago Jimmie could not have been bribed to enter a place
      presided over by a soldier; but he had learned from Emil and Stankewitz
      that a soldier might be a human being, so he went up and said, &ldquo;Hello.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello, yourself,&rdquo; said the soldier, looking him over with an appraising
      eye.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I was to hire here, when would I start for France?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To-night,&rdquo; said the soldier.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You kiddin' me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They ain't payin' me to kid people,&rdquo; said the other; and then, &ldquo;What's
      your hurry?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I don't want to be stalled in a trainin'-camp.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You won't be stalled if you know your business. What are you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm a machinist; I've repaired bicycles, an' I know a bit about
      motor-cycles.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Walk in,&rdquo; said the soldier, and led the way, and presented Jimmie to a
      sergeant at the desk. &ldquo;Here's a machinist,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and he's in a hurry
      to get to work. Runnin' away from his wife, maybe.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's a bunch of men starting for the training-camp to-night,&rdquo; said the
      sergeant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Trainin'-camp?&rdquo; echoed Jimmie. &ldquo;I want to go to France.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other smiled. &ldquo;You wouldn't expect us to send you till we'd tried you
      out, would you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, I suppose not,&rdquo; replied Jimmie, dubiously. He was on his guard
      against tricks. Suppose they were to enlist him as a worker, and then make
      him fight!
    </p>
    <p>
      The other went on. &ldquo;If you're competent, you'll get to France all right.
      We need men over there in a hurry, and we won't waste your time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, now,&rdquo; said Jimmie, &ldquo;I dunno's you'll want me at all when you hear
      about me. I'm a Socialist.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thought you were a machinist,&rdquo; countered the sergeant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm a Socialist, too. I was in the strike at the Empire a couple of years
      ago, and they blacklisted me. I can't get no work in the big places here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the sergeant, &ldquo;it's a good town for you to quit, I should
      say.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You want a man like that?&rdquo; persisted Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What we want is men that know machinery, and'll dig in and work like hell
      to beat the Kaiser. If you're that sort we don't ask your religion. We've
      got a bunch that start to-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Holy smoke!&rdquo; said Jimmie. He had thought he would have time to ask
      questions and to think matters over, time to see his friends and say
      good-bye. But the sergeant was so efficient and business-like; he took it
      so completely for granted that any man who was worth his salt must be
      anxious to help wallop the Hun! Jimmie, who had come in full of hurry, was
      now ashamed to back water, to hem and haw, to say, &ldquo;I dunno; I ain't so
      sure.&rdquo; And so the trap snapped on him&mdash;the monster of Militarism
      grabbed him!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sit down,&rdquo; said the sergeant, and the anxious little Socialist took the
      chair beside the desk,
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's your name?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;James Higgins.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your address?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm just stayin' with a friend.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The friend's address?&rdquo; and so on: where had Jimmie worked last, what work
      had he done, what references had he to offer. Jimmie could not help
      grinning as he realized how his record must sound to a military martinet.
      He had been discharged and blacklisted at the motor-truck factory in
      Ironton, his last job; he had been discharged and black-listed at the
      Empire Shops; he had been arrested and sent to jail for &ldquo;soap-boxing&rdquo; on
      the streets of Leesville; he had been arrested in the bomb-conspiracy of
      Kumme and Heinrich von Holst. The sergeant entered each of these items
      without comment, but when he come to the last, he stared up at the
      applicant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I didn't have nothin' to do with it,&rdquo; declared Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You got to prove that to me,&rdquo; said the sergeant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I proved it once,&rdquo; replied Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who to?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Harrod, the agent of the Department of Justice here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other took up the telephone and called the post office building.
      Jimmie listened to one-half of the conversation&mdash;would Mr. Harrod
      look up the record of James Higgins, who was applying for enlistment in
      the Mechanical Department of the Motor Corps? There was some delay&mdash;Mr.
      Harrod was talking&mdash;while Jimmie sat, decidedly nervous; but it was
      all right apparently&mdash;the sergeant hung up the receiver, and remarked
      reassuringly, &ldquo;He says you're just a dub. He told me to congratulate you
      on having got some sense.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie made the most of this more than dubious statement, and proceeded to
      answer questions as to his competence. Was there anybody at the Empire who
      could certify as to this? The sergeant was about to call up the Empire
      Shops, but reconsidered; if Jimmie had actually worked in a machine-shop
      and in a bicycle-shop, they would surely be able to find something for him
      in the army. In an hour of such desperate need they took most everyone.
      &ldquo;How tall are you?&rdquo; demanded the sergeant, and added, &ldquo;Weight don't matter
      so much, because we'll feed you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The office of the medical examiner was upstairs in the same building, and
      Jimmie was escorted upstairs, and invited to remove his coat and shirt,
      and have his chest measured, and his heart and lungs listened to, and his
      teeth counted, and his nose peered into, and a score of such-like stunts.
      He had things wrong with him, of course, but not too many for army
      purposes, it appeared. The doctor jotted down the figures on a sheet and
      signed it, after which Jimmie and the soldier went back to the
      recruiting-office.
    </p>
    <p>
      And now suddenly the little Socialist found himself with an enlistment
      paper before him, and a wet pen in his hand. He had never once been asked:
      &ldquo;Is your mind made up? Do you really mean to take this irrevocable step?&rdquo;
       No, the sergeant had taken it for granted that Jimmie meant business. He
      had done all this inquiring and writing down of information, this weighing
      and measuring and what not, and now he sat with a stern, compelling eye
      fixed on his victim, as much as to say: &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me that I've
      done all that for nothing?&rdquo; If Jimmie had actually refused to sign his
      name, what a blast of scorn would have withered him!
    </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie did not even stop to read all the paper; he signed. &ldquo;And now,&rdquo;
       said the sergeant, &ldquo;the train leaves at nine-seventeen this evening. I'll
      be there to give you your ticket. Don't fail to be on hand. You
      understand, you're under military discipline now.&rdquo; There was a new tone in
      these last words, and Jimmie quaked inwardly, and went out with a sort of
      hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      He rushed away to tell Comrade Stankewitz, who hugged him with delight and
      shouted that they would meet in France! Then he went to tell Emil Forster,
      who was equally glad. He found himself with an impulse to hunt up Comrade
      Schneider and tell him. Jimmie discovered in himself a sudden and curious
      antagonism to Schneider; he wanted to have matters out with him, to say to
      him: &ldquo;Wake up, you mutt&mdash;forget that fool dream of yours that the
      Kaiser's goin' to win the war!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There were others Jimmie thought of, upon whom he would not call. Comrade
      Mary Allen, for example&mdash;he would let her get the news after he was
      out of the reach of her sharp tongue! Also he thought of Comrade Evelyn;
      he might never see her again; if he did see her, she might refuse to speak
      to him! But Jimmie repressed the pang of dismay which this realization
      brought him. He was going to war, and the longings and delights of love
      must be put to one side!
    </p>
    <p>
      He went to the Meissners for supper, and broke the news to them. He had
      expected protests and arguments, and was surprised by the lack of them.
      Had the little bottle-packer been impressed by the experiences of Comrade
      Stankewitz? Or could it be that he was afraid to voice his full mind to
      Jimmie&mdash;just as Jimmie had been afraid in the case of Emil Forster?
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had some commissions to entrust to the Meissners; he would leave
      with them the diary of &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;, which he had hung on to, but which
      seemed hardly the sort of literature to take on a transport.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; assented Meissner. &ldquo;Besides, the subs might get it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And Jimmie gave a sudden start. By heck! It was the first time the idea
      had occurred to him. He would have to pass through the barred zone! He
      might be in some fighting after all! He might never get to France! &ldquo;Say!&rdquo;
       he exclaimed. &ldquo;That ocean must be cold this time of year!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For a moment he wavered. Surely it would have been more sensible to wait
      till later in the season, when the consequences of a plunge overboard
      would be less distressing! But Jimmie remembered the armies, locked in
      their grip of death; never would despatch-riders need their motor-cycles
      more urgently than now! Also Jimmie remembered the sergeant at the
      recruiting-office. &ldquo;You understand, you're under military discipline now!&rdquo;
       He set his jaw in a grim resolve. The &ldquo;subs&rdquo; be damned, he would go and do
      his part! Already he felt the thrill of his responsibility in this mighty
      hour of history; he was a military man, with a stern duty to do, with the
      destinies of nations depending upon his behaviour!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIX. JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS ON KHAKI. I.
    </h2>
    <p>
      There were seven fellows who boarded the train that evening, under the
      temporary charge of a blacksmith from the near by country. At seven
      o'clock next morning they presented their papers at the entrance-gate of
      the training-camp, and under the escort of a soldier were marched down the
      main street, hanging on to their bundles and suit-cases, and staring about
      them at the sights.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a city inhabited by some forty thousand men, on a site which a year
      ago had been waste scrub-land. Long rows of wooden buildings stretched in
      every direction&mdash;barracks, dining-rooms, study-rooms, offices,
      store-houses&mdash;with great stretches of exercise and training-grounds
      between. Just to see this city, with its swarming population of young men,
      all in uniform, erect, eager, well-set-up and vivid with health, every man
      of them busy, and every man seemingly absorbed in his job&mdash;that alone
      was a worth-while experience. It was a new kind of city&mdash;a city
      without a loafer, without a drunkard, without a parasite. The seven
      working-men from Leesville felt suddenly slouchy and disgraced, with their
      ill-fitting civilian clothes and their miscellaneous bundles and
      suitcases.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first thing they did with the new arrivals was to make them clean, to
      fumigate and vaccinate them. In a Socialist local one meets all sorts of
      eccentrics, the lunatic-fringe of the movement, and so it happened that
      Jimmie had listened to a tirade against the diabolical practice of
      inoculation, which caused more deadly diseases than it was supposed to
      prevent. But the medical officers of this camp did not stop to ask
      Jimmie's conclusions on that vital subject; they just told him to roll up
      the sleeve of his left arm, and proceeded to wipe his skin clean and
      scratch it with a needle.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then came the tailor, to do him up in khaki. This also was something
      the little machinist had not bargained for; he had taken it as a matter of
      course that he would be allowed to work for Uncle Sam in any old clothes,
      just as he had done for Abel Granitch. But no&mdash;he must have an
      outfit, complete even to a tooth-brush, which they would show him how to
      use. Having been done up neat and tight in khaki, with a motor-wheel on
      his sleeve to show his branch of the service, he stood and looked at
      himself in the glass, experiencing a demoralizing and unworthy excitement.
      He was every bit as handsome as Comrade Stankewitz! When he walked down
      the street would the girls giggle, and turn to look at him, as they did at
      the sedate and proper Comrade Emil? So the meshes of Militarism were being
      woven about the soul of Jimmie Higgins.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie was in quarantine, not allowed to go out of camp on account of his
      typhoid and other vaccinations, There was enough about the place to have
      interested him; but, alas, he became suddenly very sick, and was terrified
      to realize that the opponent of inoculation must have been right. His
      health had been undermined for ever, he would suffer from a dozen obscure
      diseases! He went to the hospital, miserable in body and still more
      miserable in mind; but in a couple of days he began to feel better, and
      listened to the nurses, who told him cheerfully that everybody felt that
      way for a bit. Then he got up, and had several free days in which to
      complete his recovery&mdash;days which he spent in wandering about the
      camp, watching the fascinating sights.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was like a circus with hundreds of rings. The drilling and marching he
      had seen in the Leesville square were here going on wholesale. Hundreds of
      groups were being put through squad-drill and the manual, while other
      groups were having special kinds of exercises&mdash;climbing up walls,
      digging trenches, making roads, shooting at targets. It rained every other
      day, and the ground was a morass, but no one paid the least attention to
      that; the men came in plastered with mud, and steaming like lard-vats.
      They seemed to enjoy it; nothing ever interfered with their bantering and
      jokes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie watched them with alternating moods of curiosity and horror; for
      the things that were done here brought the war, with its infinite and
      multiform wickedness, before his very eyes. Here was a group of men being
      taught to advance under fire; crawling on their bellies on the ground,
      jumping from one hummock to another, flinging themselves down and
      pretending to fire. A man in front, supposed to have a machine-gun, was
      shouting when he had &ldquo;got&rdquo; them. Now they unslung their little
      trenching-tools, and began to burrow themselves like wood-chucks into the
      ground. &ldquo;Dig, you sons o' guns, dig!&rdquo; the officer would shout. &ldquo;Keep your
      head down, Smith! Make the dirt fly! Put the jazz into it! That's the
      stuff!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had never watched football practice, so he had no conception of the
      efforts to which men could be goaded by &ldquo;coaching&rdquo;. It was abhorrent&mdash;yet
      also it was fascinating, the spell of it got hold of him. He saw what
      these men were doing; they were learning to act in masses, to act with
      paralyzing and terrific force. Whatever it was they did, they did with the
      smash of a battering-ram. You saw the fire in their eyes, the grim, set
      look on their faces; you knew that they were not going to war with any
      hesitations or divided minds.
    </p>
    <p>
      You would move over a rise in the ground, and come upon a bunch of them at
      bayonet-practice. You didn't require imagination to get the hang of this;
      they had dummies made of leather, and they rushed at these figures,
      hacking, stabbing&mdash;and here was the most amazing part of it, shouting
      with rage. Actually the officers taught them to yell, to snarl, to work up
      their feelings to a fury! It was blood-curdling&mdash;Jimmie turned away
      from it sick. It was just what he had been arguing for three years and a
      half&mdash;you had to make yourself into a wild beast in order to go to
      war!
    </p>
    <p>
      Also Jimmie watched the target-ranges, from which came all day a rattle of
      shots, like the whirr of many typewriters. Companies of men came marching,
      and spread themselves out along the firing-steps, and under the direction
      of instructors proceeded to contribute their quota to the noise. Over by
      the targets were others who kept score and telephoned the results; so all
      day long, winter or summer, rain or shine, men were learning to kill their
      fellows, mechanically, as if it were a matter of factory routine. At other
      ranges were moving targets, where sharp-shooters were acquiring skill; you
      noticed that their targets were never birds and deer, as at the
      shooting-galleries which Jimmie had seen at the beaches and at Socialist
      picnics. No, they were the heads or bodies of men, and each body painted a
      greenish grey, matching the uniforms of the enemy.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      So day by day Jimmie lived with the idea of killing, confronting the grim
      and ferocious face of war. He had thought that repairing motor-cycles
      would be pretty much the same anywhere you did it; but he found that it
      was one thing to repair motor-cycles to be ridden by errand-boys and
      working-men out for a holiday with their sweethearts, and another and
      entirely different thing to repair them for fighting-men and
      dispatch-couriers. Jimmie was driven more insistently than ever to make up
      his mind about this war. It was every day less easy for him to hold two
      contradictory sets of opinions.
    </p>
    <p>
      All the men he now met were of one opinion, and by no possibility to be
      persuaded to consider any other. Jimmie found that he could get them to
      agree that after this war for democracy there would be vast changes in
      this world, the people would never more let themselves be hoodwinked and
      exploited as they had; he found that he could interest them in the idea of
      having the government run the great industries, producing food and
      clothing for the people as it was now producing them for the troops. But
      when he tried to give this programme the name of Socialism, then the
      trouble began. Weren't Socialists the lunatics who wanted to have America
      &ldquo;lay down&rdquo; like Russia? The premise from which all discussion started with
      these men was that America was going to win the war; if you tried to hint
      that this matter could so much as be hesitated over, you met, first sharp
      mockery, and then angry looks, and advice to go and take a pill and get
      the Hun poison out of your system.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor was there any use trying to talk about the dangers of militarism.
      These men knew all about the dangers of militarism&mdash;for the Kaiser.
      The man who is at the buttend of a gun, and knows how to aim it so as to
      pick off a cat at six hundred yards&mdash;that man will let the cat do the
      worrying. So, at any rate, the matter seemed to these husky young
      recruits, who were learning to march in the mud and sleep in the rain and
      chew up carpet-tacks and grind Huns into leber-wurst. They were putting
      through the job&mdash;with a fierce and terrifying gaiety; they exulted in
      their toughness, they called themselves &ldquo;grizzlies&rdquo; and &ldquo;mountain cats&rdquo;
       and what not; they sang wild songs about their irritability, their motto
      was &ldquo;Treat 'em rough!&rdquo; It was a scary atmosphere for a dreamer and
      utopian; Jimmie Higgins shrank into himself, afraid even to reach about
      for some fellow-Socialist with whom he might exchange opinions about the
      events of the outside world.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      In the evening there were picture-shows, concerts, lectures-nearly all
      dealing with the war, of course. They were held in big halls built by the
      Y.M.C.A., an organization for which Jimmie had a hearty contempt. He
      regarded it as a device of the exploiting classes to teach submission to
      their white-collar slaves. But nobody could live in a training-camp
      without being aware of the &ldquo;Y&rdquo;. Jimmie was invited to a lecture, and out
      of boredom he went.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was Sergeant Ebenezer Collins, imported from Flanders to tell the
      &ldquo;doughboys&rdquo; about the wiles of the Hun. Sergeant Collins spoke a weird
      language which Jimmie had never heard before, and not all of which he
      could understand; it served, however, to convince him that the sergeant
      was genuine&mdash;for nobody could possibly have faked such a form of
      utterance! &ldquo;When yer gow inter Wipers naow,&rdquo; said the orator, &ldquo;yer see
      owld, grye-headed lydies an' bybies like little wite gowsts, an' yer sye
      ter them, 'Gow-a-wye, the 'Un may be 'ere ter-dye,' but they wown't gow,
      they got now 'omes ter gow ter!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But in spite of the difficulties of a foreign language, you realized that
      this Cockney sergeant was a man. For one thing he had a sense of humour;
      he had kept it in the midst of terror and death&mdash;kept it standing all
      night in trenches full of icy-cold water, with icy-cold water pouring down
      his collar. Also the sergeant had a sense of honour&mdash;there were
      things he could not do to a 'Un, even though the 'Un might do them to him.
      Jimmie had listened to excited debates in Local Leesville, as to whether
      the Allies were really any better than the Germans; whether, for example,
      the Allies would have sunk passenger-liners with women and babies on
      board, if it had been necessary in order to win the war. Sergeant Collins
      did not debate this question, he just revealed himself as a fighting man.
      &ldquo;It's because we plye gymes, an' they down't,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;If yer plye
      gymes, yer now 'ow to plye fair.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For three years and eight months Jimmie had been hearing stories about
      atrocities, and for three years and eight months he had been refusing to
      believe them. But now the Cockney sergeant told about a pal who had been
      wounded in a night attack by the 'Uns, and the sergeant had tried to carry
      him back and had had to leave him; towards dawn they made a
      counter-attack, and retook the village, and there they found the
      sergeant's pal, still alive, in spite of the fact that he was spiked to a
      barn-door with bayonets through his hands and feet. When that story was
      told, you heard a low murmur run through the room and saw a couple of
      thousand young men clenching their hands and setting their jaws, getting
      ready for their big job in France.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Just now,&rdquo; said the sergeant, &ldquo;the Germans were making the most desperate
      attack of the war. The British were at bay, with their backs against the
      wall. It was upon the men in the training-camps of America that the
      decision rested; there was no one but them to save the day, to save the
      rest of the world from falling under the hoofs of the Hun monster. Would
      they do their part?&rdquo; Jimmie Higgins heard the answer from those two
      thousand young throats, and the pacifist in him shrunk deeper out of
      sight.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the pacifist was never entirely silent. War was wrong! War was wrong!
      It was a wicked and brutal way for human beings to settle their
      disagreements. If human beings were not yet intelligent enough to listen
      to reason&mdash;well, even so, that didn't make war right! A man had to
      have principles, and to stand by them&mdash;how else could he make the
      world come his way? Yes, war was wrong! But, meantime, war was here; and
      calling it wrong did not put a stop to it! What the devil was a fellow to
      do?
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      As soon as Jimmie was able to work, they took him to the part of the camp
      where a motor-cycle division was training. Here was a big repair-shop,
      with plenty of damaged machines upon which he might display his skill. He
      did not know the particular engine they used here, but he soon learned the
      secrets of it, and satisfied the officers in charge that he knew how to
      take one apart and put it together again, to replace and mend tyres, to
      clean ball-bearings and true crooked rims. &ldquo;You're all right,&rdquo; they said.
      &ldquo;And you're needed like the devil over there. You won't have to wait
      long.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a platform where the trains came into the camp, and every few
      hours now there came a long train to be loaded with men. Jimmie got his
      notice, and packed his kit and answered roll call and took his place; at
      sundown of the next day he was detrained at a &ldquo;mobilization-camp&rdquo;&mdash;another
      huge city, described in the cautious military fashion as &ldquo;Somewhere in New
      Jersey&rdquo;, though everybody within a hundred miles knew its exact location.
      Here was a port, created for the purposes of war, with docks and wharves
      where the fleets of transports were loaded with supplies and troops. The
      vessels sailed in fleets, carrying thirty or forty thousand men at once.
      From the port of New York alone there was going out a fleet like this
      every week&mdash;the answer of America to the new drive of the Hun.
    </p>
    <p>
      One met here, not merely the fighting-men, but the forces of all the
      complicated service behind the lines: gangs of lumbermen from the far
      North-west, who were to fell the forests of France and make them into
      railroad-ties and timber for trenches; railway-men, miners, and
      construction-gangs, engineers and signalmen, bridge-builders and
      road-makers, telephone-linemen and operators, the drivers of forty
      thousand motor-cars and of five thousand locomotives; bakers and cooks,
      menders of shoes and of clothing, farmers to till the soil of France, and
      doctors and nurses to tend its sick and wounded. There was nothing which
      the skill and knowledge of a nation of a hundred million people had to
      offer that was not gathered into this vast encampment. All the youngest
      and keenest were here, eager to do their part, laughing at danger,
      tingling with excitement, on tip-toe with curiosity and delight. Jimmie
      Higgins, watching them, found his doubts melting like an April snow-storm.
      How could any man see this activity and not be caught up in it? How could
      he be with these laughing boys and not share their mood?
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie himself had not had a merry childhood, he did not know the youth of
      his own country&mdash;the breezy, slangy, rather shocking, utterly
      irrepressible youth of this democratic world. If there was anything they
      did not know&mdash;well, they did not know it; if there was anything they
      could not do&mdash;their motto was: &ldquo;Show me!&rdquo; Jimmie, not having been to
      school, found himself having a hard time with their weird slang. When one
      of these fellows hailed you, &ldquo;Hey, pimp!&rdquo; it did not necessarily mean that
      he did not like you: when he greeted you, &ldquo;Hey, sweetness!&rdquo; it did not
      mean that he felt for you any over-powering affection. If he referred to
      his officer as &ldquo;hard-boiled&rdquo;, he did not have in mind that this officer
      had been exposed to the action of water at 212 degrees Fahrenheit; he
      merely meant that the officer was a snob. When he remarked, &ldquo;Good night!&rdquo;
       in broad daylight, he meant you to understand that he disagreed with you.
    </p>
    <p>
      He disagreed frequently and explosively with Jimmie Higgins, trying to
      point out a difference between the German rulers and the German people!
      Such subtleties had no interest for these all-knowing boys. When Jimmie
      persisted, they called him a &ldquo;nut&rdquo;, a &ldquo;poor cheese&rdquo;; they told him that he
      was &ldquo;cuckoo&rdquo;, that his &ldquo;trolley was twisted&rdquo;; they made whirling motions
      with their hands to indicate that he had &ldquo;wheels in his head&rdquo;, they made
      flapping motions over him to signify that there were &ldquo;bats in his belfry&rdquo;.
      So Jimmie subsided, and let them talk their own talk&mdash;imploring one
      another to &ldquo;have a heart&rdquo;, or to &ldquo;get wise&rdquo;, or to &ldquo;make it snappy&rdquo;, or to
      &ldquo;cut out the rough stuff&rdquo;. And he would sit and listen while they sang
      with zest a song telling about what they were going to do when they got to
      France:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
    Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song,
    Sing it with a spirit that will move the world along,
    Sing it as we love to sing it, just two million strong&mdash;
           While we are canning the Kaiser.

        CHORUS:

    Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We're on the job to-day!
    Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We'll seal you so you'll stay!
    We'll put you up in ginger in the good old Yankee way&mdash;
           While we are canning the Kaiser.

    Hear the song we're singing on the shining roads of France;
    Hear the Tommies cheering, and see the Poilus prance;
    Africanders and Kanucks and Scots without their pants&mdash;
           While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus)

    Bring the guns from Bethlehem, by way of old New York;
    Bring the beans from Boston, and don't leave out the pork;
    Bring a load of soda-pop and pull the grape-juice cork&mdash;
           While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus)

    Come you men from Dixieland, you lumberjacks of Maine;
    Come you Texas cowboys, and you farmers of the plain;
    Florida to Oregon, we boast the Yankee strain&mdash;
           While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus)

    Now we've started on the job we mean to put it through;
    Ship the kings and kaisers all, and make the world anew;
    Clear the way for common folk, for men like me and you&mdash;
           While we are canning the Kaiser.

            CHORUS:

    Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We're on the job to-day!
    Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We'll seal you so you'll stay!
    We'll put you up in ginger in the good old Yankee way&mdash;
    While we are canning the Kaiser.
</pre>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XX. JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES A SWIM
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      You did not stop very long in the mobilization-camp, for the arrival of
      your train was timed with the arrival of the ship on which you were to
      sail. You had a meal, sometimes you slept a night, then you marched to the
      docks. Nor was there much of the traditional &ldquo;sweet sorrow&rdquo; about the
      departure of these great fleets; the weeping mothers and sisters had not
      been notified to be present, and the ladies of the canteen-service had
      given coffee and sandwiches, cigarettes and chocolate, to so many tens of
      thousands that they had forgotten about tears. It was like the emigration
      of a nation; the part of America that was now on the other side was so
      large that nobody would need to feel homesick.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie's embarking was done at night; on the long, covered piers, lighted
      by arc-lights, the soldiers set down their kits and stood about, munching
      food, singing songs, and keeping one another's wits sharpened for battle.
      They filtered on board, and then without a light or a sound the vessel
      stole down the long stretches of the harbour, and out to sea. One never
      knew at what hour the enemy submarines might attempt a raid on the
      American side, so the entrance to the harbour was mined and blockaded, a
      narrow passage being opened when the ships passed through.
    </p>
    <p>
      When morning came the convoy was out at sea, amid glorious green rollers,
      and Jimmie Higgins was lying in his narrow berth, cursing the fates that
      had lured him, the monster of Militarism into whose clutches he had been
      snared. The army medical service had a serum to prevent small-pox and
      another to prevent typhoid, but they had nothing for sea-sickness as yet;
      so for the first four days of the trip Jimmie wished that a submarine
      would come and end his misery once for all.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last, however, he came on deck, an utterly humbled Socialist agitator,
      asking only a corner to lie in the sunshine&mdash;preferably where he
      could not see the Atlantic surges, the very thought of which turned him
      inside out. But gradually he found his feet again, and ate with
      permanence, and looked out over the water and saw the other vessels of the
      convoy, weirdly painted with many-coloured splotches, steaming in the
      shape of a gigantic V, with two cruisers in front, and another on each
      side, and another bringing up the rear. Day and night the look-outs kept
      watch, and the wigwag men and the heliograph men were busy, and the
      wireless buzzed its warnings of the movements of the underwater foe. The
      U-boats had not yet got a transport, but they had made several tries, and
      everyone knew that they would continue trying. Twice a day the clanging of
      bells sounded from one end of the vessel to the other, and the crews
      rushed to the boat-drill; each passenger had his number, and unless he was
      ill in his berth he had to take his specified place, with his
      life-preserver strapped about his waist.
    </p>
    <p>
      The passengers played cards, and read and sang and skylarked about the
      decks. Up on the top deck, to which Jimmie was not invited, were officers,
      also a number of women and girls belonging to the hospital and ambulance
      units. &ldquo;Janes&rdquo; was the term by which the soldier-boys described these
      latter; you could see they were a good sort of &ldquo;Janes&rdquo;, serious and keen
      for their job, looking business-like and impressive in their uniforms with
      many pockets. Among them were suffragists, answering the taunt of the
      other sex, showing that in war as well as in peace the world needed them;
      it had to find a place for them on board the most badly crowded transport.
    </p>
    <p>
      Never having been on an ocean-liner before, Jimmie did not know that it
      was crowded; it did not trouble him that there was hardly room for a walk
      on the decks. He watched the sea and the great white gulls and the piebald
      ships; he watched the crew at work, and got acquainted with his
      fellow-passengers. Before long he found a driver of an ambulance who was a
      Socialist; also an I.W.W. from the Oregon lumber-camps. Even the
      &ldquo;wobblies&rdquo;, it appeared, had come to hate the Kaiser; a bunch of them were
      in France, and more would have come, if the government had not kept them
      cross by putting their leaders into jail. An army officer with some sense
      had gone into the spruce-country of the far North-west, and had appealed
      to the patriotism of the men, giving them decent hours and wages, and
      recognizing their unions; as a result, even the dreaded I.W.W.
      organization had turned tame, and all the lumberjacks had pitched in to
      help in &ldquo;canning the Kaiser!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The fleet was nearing the submarine-zone and it was time for the convoying
      destroyers to arrive. Everybody was peering out ahead, and at last a cry
      ran along the decks: &ldquo;There they are!&rdquo; Jimmie made out a speck of smoke
      upon the horizon, and saw it turn into a group of swiftly-flying vessels.
      He marvelled at the skill whereby they had been able to find the
      transports on this vast and trackless sea; he marvelled at the slender
      vessels with their four low, rakish stacks. These sea-terriers were thin
      skins of steel, covering engines of enormous power; they tore through the
      water, literally with the speed of an express train, leaving a boiling
      white wake behind. Seeing them rock and swing from side to side in the
      waves, hurled this way and that, you marvelled that human beings could
      live in them and not be jerked to pieces. Jimmie never tired of observing
      them, nor did they tire of racing in and out between the vessels of the
      convoy, weaving patterns of foam, the men on their decks watching,
      watching for the secret foe.
    </p>
    <p>
      Everyone on board the transports, of course, was on the alert. Jimmie in
      his secret heart was scared stiff, but he did not reveal it to these
      mocking soldier-boys, who made merry over German U-boats as they did over
      sauerkraut and pretzels and Limburger and &ldquo;wienies&rdquo;, otherwise known as
      &ldquo;hot dogs&rdquo;. Actually, Jimmie found, they were hoping to encounter a
      submarine; not to be hit, of course, but to have the torpedo pass within a
      foot or two, so that they might have something thrilling to write to the
      folks at home.
    </p>
    <p>
      There came storms, and blinding sheets of rain across the water, and mists
      that hid everything from view; but still the little sea-terriers dashed
      here and there, winding their foam wakes about the fleet, by night as well
      as by day. How they managed to avoid collisions in the dark was a mystery
      beyond imagining; Jimmie lay awake, picturing one of them plunging like a
      sharp spear into the rows of bunks in the steerage where he had been
      stowed. But when morning dawned, his berth was unspeared, and the
      watch-dogs of the sea were still weaving their patterns.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a day of high wind, with clouds and fitful bursts of sunshine in
      which the waves shone white and sparkling. Jimmie was standing by the fail
      with his &ldquo;wobbly&rdquo; friend, watching the white-caps, when his companion
      called his attention to a sparkle that seemed to persist, hitting one in
      the eye. They pointed it out to others, and as the orders were strict to
      report anything out of the way, someone shouted to the nearest look-out. A
      cry went over the ship, and there was hasty wigwagging of the signalman,
      and three of the destroyers leaped away like hounds on the chase.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were some on board who had glasses, and they cried out that it was a
      black object, and finally reported it a raft with people on it. Later,
      when Jimmie reached port, he heard an explanation of the sparkle which had
      caught his eye&mdash;a woman on the raft had a little pocket-mirror, and
      had used this to flash the sun's rays upon the vessel, until at last she
      had attracted attention.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those who had glasses were mostly on the upper deck, so Jimmie did not see
      anything of the rescue; the transports, of course, did not swerve or
      delay, for their orders forbade all altruisms. Even the little destroyers
      would not approach the raft until they had scoured the sea for miles
      about, and then they did not stop entirely, but slid by and tossed ropes
      to the people on the raft, dragging them aboard one by one. A seaman
      standing near Jimmie explained this procedure; it appeared that the
      submarines were accustomed to lurk near rafts and life-boats, preying upon
      those vessels which came to their rescue. Distressed castaways were bait&mdash;&ldquo;live
      bait&rdquo;, explained the seaman; the U-boats would lurk about for days,
      sometimes for a week, watching the people in the life-boats struggle
      against the waves, watching them die of exposure, and starvation and
      thirst, watching them signal frantically, waving rags tied on to oars,
      shouting and praying for help. One by one the castaways would perish, and
      when the last of them was gone, the U-boat would steal away. &ldquo;Dead bait's
      no good,&rdquo; explained the seaman.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      This mariner, Toms by name, came from Cornwall; for the transport was
      British, and so also the convoying warships&mdash;Jimmie's fate had been
      entrusted to &ldquo;perfidious Albion&rdquo;! Seven times this Toms had been torpedoed
      and seven times rescued, and he had most amazing tales to tell to
      landlubbers, and a new light to throw on a subject which our Socialist
      landlubber had been debating for several years&mdash;the torpedoing of
      passenger-vessels with women and children on board. Somehow Jimmie found
      it a different proposition when he heard of particular women and children,
      how they looked and what they said, and what happened when they took to
      open boats in midwinter, and the boats filled up with water, and the
      children turned blue and then white, and were rescued with noses and ears
      and hands and feet frozen off.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was a working-man, and understood the language of working-men,
      their standards and ways of looking at life. And here was a working-man;
      not a conscious Socialist, to be sure, but a union man, sharing the
      Socialist distrust of capitalists and rulers. What this weather-bitten
      toiler of the sea told to Jimmie, Jimmie was prepared to understand and
      believe; so he learned, what he had refused to learn from prostitute
      newspapers, that there was a code of sea-manners and sea-morals, a law of
      marine decency, which for centuries had been unbroken save by pirates and
      savages. The men who went down to the sea in ships were a class of their
      own, with instincts born of the peculiar cruelties of the element they
      defied&mdash;instincts which broke across all barriers of nations and
      races, and even across the hatreds of war.
    </p>
    <p>
      But now these sea-laws had been defied, and the Hun who had defied them
      had placed himself outside the pale of the human race. In the souls of
      seamen there had been generated against him a hatred of peculiar and
      unique ferocity; they hunted him as men hunt vipers and rattlesnakes. The
      union to which this Toms belonged had pledged itself, not merely for the
      war, but for years afterwards, that its members would not sail in German
      ships, nor in any ship in which a German sailed, nor in any ship which
      sailed to a German port, nor which carried German goods. It had refused to
      carry Socialist delegates desiring to attend international conferences
      with German Socialists; it had refused to carry for any purpose labour
      leaders whom it considered too mercifully disposed towards Germany.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Jimmie learned this, you can imagine the arguments, continuing far
      into the night! Quite a crowd gathered about, and they gave it to the
      little Socialist hot and heavy. The upshot of it was that somebody
      reported him, and the officer in command of his &ldquo;motor-unit&rdquo; read him a
      stern lecture. He was not here to settle peace-terms, but to do his work
      and hold his tongue. Jimmie, awed by the fangs and claws of the monster of
      Militarism, answered, &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; and went away and sulked by himself the
      whole day, wishing that the submarines might get this transport, with
      everybody on board except two Socialists and one &ldquo;wobbly&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It was the morning of the day they were due in port. Everybody wore
      life-preservers, and stood at his station; when suddenly came a yell, and
      a chorus of shouts from the side of the ship, and Jimmie rushed to the
      rail, and saw a white wake coming like a swift fish directly at the
      vessel. &ldquo;Torpedo!&rdquo; was the cry, and men stood rooted to the spot. Far
      back, where the white streak started, you could see a periscope, moving
      slowly; there was a volley of cracking sounds, and the water all about it
      leaped high, and the little sea-terriers rushed towards it, firing, and
      getting ready their deadly depth-bombs. But of all that Jimmie got only a
      glimpse; there came a roar like the opening of hell in front of him; he
      was thrown to the deck, half-stunned, and a huge fragment of the rail of
      the vessel whirled past his head, smashing into a stateroom behind him.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ship was in an uproar; people rushing here and there, the members of
      the crew leaping to get away the boats. Jimmie sat up and stared about
      him, and the first thing he saw was his friend the &ldquo;wobbly&rdquo;, lying in a
      pool of blood, with a great gash in his head.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly somebody began to sing: &ldquo;Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early
      light&mdash;&rdquo; Jimmie had always hated that song, because jingoes and
      patrioteers used it as an excuse to bully and humiliate radicals who did
      not jump to their feet with sufficient alacrity. But now it was wonderful
      to see the effect of the song; everybody joined and the soldier-boys and
      working-men and nurses and lady ambulance-drivers, no matter how badly
      scared, recalled that they were part of an army on the way to war. Some
      helped the crews to get the boats into the water; others bound up the
      wounds of the injured, and carried them across the rapidly-slanting decks.
    </p>
    <p>
      The great ship was going down. It was horrible to realize&mdash;this
      mighty structure, this home for two weeks of several thousand people, this
      moving hotel with its sleeping-berths, its dining-saloons, its kitchens
      with lunch ready to be eaten, its mighty engines and its cargo of every
      kind of necessity and comfort for an army&mdash;all was about to plunge to
      the bottom of the sea! Jimmie Higgins had read about the torpedoing of
      scores of ocean-liners, but in all that reading he had learned less about
      the matter than he learned in a few minutes while he clung half-dazed to a
      stay rope, and watched the life-boats swing out over the sides and
      disappear.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Women first!&rdquo; was the cry; but the women would not go until the wounded
      had been taken, and this occasioned delay. Jimmie helped to get his friend
      the &ldquo;wobbly&rdquo;, and passed him on to be lowered with a rope. By that time
      the deck had got such a slant that it was hard to walk on it; the bow was
      settling, and the stern rearing up in the air. Never could you have
      realized the size of an ocean-liner, until you saw it rear itself up like
      a monstrous mountain, preparatory to plunging beneath the waves! &ldquo;Jump for
      it!&rdquo; shouted voices. &ldquo;They'll pick you up from the other vessels. Jump and
      swim.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie rushed to the rail. He saw a life-boat below, trying to push
      away, and being beaten against the vessel by the heavy waves. He heard a
      horrible scream, and saw a man slip between the boat and the side of the
      liner. People on every side of him were jumping&mdash;so many that he
      could not find a clear spot in the water. But at last he saw one, and
      climbed upon the rail and took the plunge.
    </p>
    <p>
      He struck the icy water and sank, and a wave rolled over him. He came up
      quickly, owing to his life-preserver, and gasped for breath, and was
      choked by another rushing wave and then pounded on the head by an oar in
      the hands of a struggling sailor. He managed to get out of the way, and
      struck out to get clear of the vessel. He knew how to do this, thanks to
      many &ldquo;swimmin'-holes&rdquo;&mdash;including the one he had visited with the
      Candidate. But he had never before swam in such deadly cold as this; it
      was colder than he had dreamed when he had talked about it with Comrade
      Meissner! Its icy hand seemed to smite him, to smite the life out of him;
      he struggled desperately, as one struggles against suffocation.
    </p>
    <p>
      The waves beat him here and there; and then suddenly he was seized as if
      by the falls of Niagara, drawn along and drawn under&mdash;down, down. He
      thought it was the end, and when again he bobbed up to the surface, his
      breath was all but gone. The great bulk of the vessel was no longer in
      sight, and Jimmie was struggling in a whirlpool, along with upset boats
      and oars and deck-chairs and miscellaneous wreckage, and scores of people
      clinging to such objects, or swimming frantically to reach them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was just about ready to roll over and let his face go under, when
      suddenly there loomed above him on the top of a wave a boat rowed swiftly
      by sailors. One in the boat flung a rope to him, and he tried to catch it,
      but missed; the boat plunged towards him, and an arm reached out, and
      caught him by the collar. It was a strong and comforting arm, and Jimmie
      abandoned himself to it, and remembered nothing more for a long time.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      When Jimmie opened his eyes again he was in a most extraordinary position.
      At first he could not make it out, he was only aware of endless bruises
      and blows, as if someone were shaking him about in a gigantic
      pepper-cruet. As Nature protested desperately against such treatment,
      Jimmie fought his way back to consciousness, and caught hold of something,
      in his neighbourhood, which presently turned out to be a brass railing; he
      struggled to ward off the blows of his tormentors, which turned out to be
      the aforesaid railing, plus a wall, plus two other men, one on each side
      of him, the three of them being lashed to the brass railing with ropes.
      The wall and railing and Jimmie and the other men were behaving in an
      incredible fashion&mdash;swinging down, as if they were plunging into a
      bottomless abyss, then swinging up, as if they were going to part
      altogether from this mundane sphere; the total enormous swing, from bottom
      to top, being mathematically calculated to occupy a period of five and
      one-half seconds of time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie discovered before long that there were a whole row of men, lashed
      fast and subjected to this perplexing form of torture. They made you think
      of a row of carcasses in a butcher-shop&mdash;only, who could picture a
      butcher-shop whose floor careened to an angle of forty-five degrees in one
      direction, and then, in a space of precisely five and a half seconds,
      careened to an angle of forty-five degrees in the opposite direction?
    </p>
    <p>
      And they kept bringing more carcasses and hanging them in this insane
      butcher-shop! Two sailors in uniforms would come staggering, carrying a
      man between them, clinging to the railing, to Jimmie, to the other men, to
      anything else they could grab. They would make a desperate rush while the
      swing was right, and get to a new place on the railing, where they would
      tie the new man with a bit of rope about his waist, and leave him there to
      be mauled and pounded. One side of the room was lined solid with
      carcasses, and then the other side, and still they came. This was
      apparently a dining-saloon, there being a table down the middle, and two
      rows of chairs; they lashed people into these chairs, they brought others
      and lashed them to the bottom of the chairs&mdash;any old place at all!
      There were some who thought they could hold on for themselves; but after
      the sailors were gone they discovered that it took more skill to hold on
      than they realized, and they would come hurtling across the floor, winding
      up with a crash on top of someone else.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was not the first time in Jimmie's life that he had had to scramble for
      himself in some uncomfortable situation; he got his wits together quickly.
      He was shivering as if with ague, and he managed to get out of his wet
      coat. There being a couple of ladies strapped into chairs in front of him,
      he did not like to go further; but presently came sailors with armfuls of
      blankets, and made him perform the complicated feat of getting out of his
      dripping icy uniform and getting the blanket wrapped around his middle, so
      that the rope would not saw him into halves. Then came a steward with a
      pot of hot coffee; being marvellously expert at holding this at all angles
      of the ship, he poured it into cups with little funnels for drinking, and
      thus got some down Jimmie's throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      The little machinist felt better after that, and was able to devote
      attention to the man on his right, who had hit his nose so many times that
      it was bleeding in a stream, and had been tilted at so many angles that
      the blood had run into his eyes and made him blind. The man on the other
      side of him apparently could make no effort at all to keep his face from
      being pounded, or his feet from being thrown into the pit of Jimmie's
      stomach; after Jimmie made a number of protests, an officer came along,
      and put his ear to the man's chest and pronounced him dead. They brought
      another rope, and lashed him tighter, so that he would behave himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      For several hours Jimmie clung to that railing. The destroyer would soon
      be in port, they kept telling him; meantime they brought him hot soup to
      keep up his strength. Some people fainted, but there was nothing that
      could be done for them. The first boat-loads of the rescued had filled up
      the berths of both officers and crew; the rest must hang on to the
      railings as best they could. They should be thankful it was decent
      weather, said one of the sailors; the vessel didn't roll any faster in bad
      weather, but it rolled much farther in the same time&mdash;a distinction
      which struck Jimmie as over-subtle.
    </p>
    <p>
      The poor fellow's arms were numb with exhaustion, he had lost hope that
      anything in the world ever could be still, when the announcement was made
      that the harbour was in sight, and everybody's troubles would soon be
      over. And sure enough, the rolling gradually became less. The little
      vessel still quivered from stem to stern with the movement of her enormous
      engines, but Jimmie didn't mind that&mdash;he was used to machinery; he
      got himself untied from the railing, and lay down on the floor, right
      there where he was, and fell asleep. Nor did he open his eyes when they
      came with a stretcher, and carried him on to a pier and slid him into a
      motor-truck and whisked him off to a hospital.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXI. JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS SOCIETY
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      When Jimmie took an interest in life again he was lying in a bed: a bed
      that actually was still, that did not rise with a leaping motion to the
      ceiling, and then sink like a swift elevator into the basement. Better yet
      was the fact that this bed had clean sheets, and a lovely angel in
      spotless white hovering about it. You who read of Jimmie Higgins's
      adventures have perhaps been blessed with some of the good things of life,
      and may need to have it explained to you that never before had Jimmie
      known what it was to sleep between sheets&mdash;to say nothing of clean
      sheets; never had he known what it was to sleep in a night-gown; never had
      he had hot broth fetched to him by a snow-white angel with a bright smile
      and an aureole of golden-brown hair. This marvellous creature waited on
      his slightest nod, and when she was not busy running errands for him, she
      sat by his bedside and chatted, asking him all sorts of questions about
      himself and his life. She thought he was a soldier, and he, shameless
      wretch, discovered what she thought, and delayed to tell her that he was a
      common repairer of motor-cycles!
    </p>
    <p>
      This was a war-hospital, and there were terrible sights to be seen here,
      terrible sounds to be heard; but Jimmie for a long time missed them almost
      entirely&mdash;he was so comfortable! He lay like a nice dozy cat; he ate
      good things and drank good things, and then he fell asleep, and then he
      opened his eyes in the sunshine of a golden brown aureole. It was only
      gradually that he realized that somewhere in the ward a man was choking
      and gasping all night, because the inside of his lungs had been partly
      eaten out with poisonous acids.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie inquired and was told that more than a hundred people on the
      transport had lost their lives, including several women; the nurse brought
      a paper with a list of the casualties, among which he read the name of
      Mike Angoni&mdash;his friend the &ldquo;wobbly&rdquo; from the far West! Also the name
      of Peter Toms&mdash;the seaman from Cornwall, caught at the eighth
      attempt! Jimmie read that the submarine which had sunk the transport had
      been shattered by a depth-charge, and the sea all strewn with the wreckage
      of it; and strange and terrible as it might seem, Jimmie, the pacifist,
      the Socialist, experienced a thrill of satisfaction! Not once did he stop
      to reflect that on board this under-water craft might have been some
      German comrade, some poor, enslaved, unhappy internationalist like
      himself! Jimmie wanted the sneaking, treacherous terrors of the sea
      exterminated, regardless of everything!
    </p>
    <p>
      The nurse with the halo of golden-brown hair got interested in her
      American patient, and would sit and talk with him every chance she got.
      She learned about Eleeza Betooser and the babies who had been blown to
      pieces in the explosion. Also she learned about Jimmie's being a
      Socialist, and asked him questions about it. Wasn't he just a little hard
      on the leisure classes? Might it not be that some of the capitalists would
      be as glad as he to know about a better social system? The young lady
      pronounced the word &ldquo;capitalists&rdquo; with the accent on the &ldquo;it&rdquo;, which
      puzzled Jimmie for a time; also she assured him that &ldquo;wage schedules&rdquo;
       would never go back to what they were before the war, and Jimmie had to
      ask what a &ldquo;schedule&rdquo; might be. He did not have to ask what she meant by a
      &ldquo;tart&rdquo;, because there it was on his tray&mdash;a delicious little
      strawberry pie.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      This meant that the destroyer had come to an English port; the nurse was a
      Britisher. If Jimmie had had tact, he would have remembered that
      Britishers have an outfit of earls and dukes and lords and things, to
      which they are sentimentally attached. But tact is not the leading virtue
      of Socialists; in fact, Jimmie made a boast of scorning it&mdash;if people
      asked his opinion, he &ldquo;gave it to 'em straight&rdquo;. So now he caused this
      white angel to understand that he regarded the effete aristocracies of the
      old world with abysmal contempt; he meant to put them out of business
      right off the bat. In vain the white angel pleaded that some of them might
      be useful people, or at any rate well-meaning: Jimmie pronounced them a
      bunch of parasites and grafters; the thing to do was to make a clean sweep
      of them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You won't cut off their heads?&rdquo; pleaded the nurse. &ldquo;Surely they ought to
      have a chance to reform!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, sure!&rdquo; answered Jimmie. &ldquo;All I mean is, everybody's got to go to work&mdash;the
      dooks an' aristercrats like the rest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The nurse went off, carrying Jimmie's chamber to be emptied; and while she
      was gone, the man in the next bed, a gun-pointer from an American
      destroyer with his head bandaged up so that he looked like a Hindu swami,
      turned his tired eyes upon Jimmie and drawled: &ldquo;Say, you guy, you better
      can that line o' talk!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Whaddyer mean?&rdquo; demanded Jimmie, scenting controversy with some
      militarist.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I mean that there young lady belongs to the nobility herself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Go on!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Straight!&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;Her father's the earl of Skye-terrier, or
      some such damn place.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aw, cut it out!&rdquo; growled the little machinist&mdash;for you never knew in
      dealing with these soldier-boys whether you were being &ldquo;kidded&rdquo; or not.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Did you ask her name?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She told me it was Miss Clendenning.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you ask her if she ain't the Honourable Beatrice Clendenning, and
      see what she says.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Jimmie could not get up the nerve to ask. When the young lady came
      back, carrying his chamber washed clean, her pet patient was lying still,
      but so red in the face that she suspected that he had been trying to get
      out of bed without permission.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Nor was that the end of wonders. Next day there ran a murmur of excitement
      through the ward, and everything was cleaned up fresh, though there was
      really nothing that needed cleaning. Flowers were brought in, and each
      nurse had a flower pinned on her waist. When Jimmie asked what was &ldquo;up&rdquo;,
      the Honourable Beatrice looked at him with a quizzical smile. &ldquo;We're going
      to have some distinguished visitors,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But you won't be
      interested&mdash;a class-conscious proletarian like you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And she would not tell him; but when she went out, the fellow in the next
      bed told. &ldquo;It's the king and queen that's comin',&rdquo; said the gun-pointer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aw, ferget it!&rdquo; said Jimmie&mdash;quite sure he was being &ldquo;kidded&rdquo; this
      time.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Comin' to see the submarine victims,&rdquo; said the gun-pointer. &ldquo;You cut out
      your Socialist rough stuff for to-day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie asked the nurse when she came back; and sure enough it was true&mdash;the
      king and queen were to visit the hospital, and pay their respects to the
      victims of the U-boat. But that wouldn't interest Jimmie Higgins. Would he
      not rather be carried away and put in a private room somewhere, so that
      his revolutionary eyes would not be offended? Or would he stay, and make a
      soap-boxer of His Majesty?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, he won't have no time to talk to a feller like me!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't you be too sure,&rdquo; replied the other. &ldquo;He's got nothing to do but
      talk, you know!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie didn't venture any farther, because he knew that the Honourable
      Beatrice was laughing at him, and he had never been laughed at by a woman
      before, and didn't know quite how to take it. He could not have been
      expected to understand that the Honourable Beatrice was a suffragette, and
      laughed at all men on general principles. Jimmie lay quietly in his bed
      and concealed the unworthy excitement in his soul. Wasn't that the devil
      now? Him, a little runt of a working man from nowhere in particular, that
      had been brought up on a charity-farm, and spent a good part of his life
      as a tramp&mdash;him to be meeting the king of England! Jimmie had a way
      of disposing of kings that was complete and final; he called them &ldquo;kinks&rdquo;
       and when he had called them that he had settled them, wiped them clean
      out. &ldquo;None o' them kinks for me!&rdquo; he had said to the Honourable Beatrice.
    </p>
    <p>
      But now a &ldquo;kink&rdquo; was coming to the hospital! And what was Jimmie going to
      do? How the devil did you talk to 'em? Did you have to say, &ldquo;Your
      Majesty&rdquo;? Jimmie gripped his hands under the bed-covers. &ldquo;I'll be damned
      if I do!&rdquo; He summoned his revolutionary fervour, he called up the spirits
      of his &ldquo;wobbly&rdquo; friends, &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; and &ldquo;Strawberry&rdquo; Curran and &ldquo;Flathead
      Joe&rdquo; and &ldquo;Chuck&rdquo; Peterson. What would they do under these circumstances?
      What would the Candidate do? Somehow, Jimmie's revolutionary education had
      been neglected&mdash;nothing had ever been said in any Socialist local as
      to how a comrade should behave when a &ldquo;kink&rdquo; came to visit him!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmy was naturally a kindly human being; he was ready to respond to the
      kindness of other human beings. But was it in accord with revolutionary
      ethics to be polite to a &ldquo;kink&rdquo;? Was it not his duty to do something to
      show his contempt for &ldquo;kinks&rdquo;? Maybe his Royal Nibs never had anybody to
      &ldquo;stand up to him&rdquo; in all his life before. Well, let him have it to-day!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      A nurse rushed into the ward in great excitement, and whispered, &ldquo;They're
      coming!&rdquo; And after that the nurses all stood round, twisting their hands
      together nervously, and the patients lay with their eyes glued on the door
      where the apparition was to appear.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last there came in sight a man dressed in uniform, who Jimmie would
      never have dreamed could be a king&mdash;except that he had seen his
      picture in the illustrated papers. He was a medium-sized, rather
      stoop-shouldered little gentleman, decidedly commonplace-looking, with a
      closely-trimmed brown beard turning grey, and rosy cheeks such as all
      Englishmen have. He was escorted by the head of the hospital staff; and
      behind him came a lady, a severe-looking lady dressed in black, with a
      couple more doctors escorting her, and behind them several officers in
      uniform.
    </p>
    <p>
      The king and queen stopped at the head of the room, and looked down the
      rows of beds. Each of them wore a friendly smile, and nodded, and said:
      &ldquo;How do you do?&rdquo; And, of course, everybody smiled back, and the nurses
      curtsied and said, &ldquo;How do you do, Your Majesties?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And then His Majesty said: &ldquo;I hope everybody is doing well?&rdquo; And the
      doctor called the head nurse in charge of the ward, who came up smiling
      and bowing and answered that everybody was doing beautifully, thank you;
      at which both His Majesty and Her Majesty declared that they were so
      pleased. The queen looked about, and seeing a man with many bandages, went
      to him and sat by his bedside and began to ask him questions; the king
      moved down the centre of the room, until suddenly his eye happened on the
      Honourable Beatrice.
    </p>
    <p>
      She had not moved; she stood at her place like the other nurses. But
      Jimmie, watching, saw a smile come upon the king's face, and he moved
      towards her saying: &ldquo;Oh! how do you do?&rdquo; The young lady went to meet him,
      quite as if she were used to meeting kings every day.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How are your patients doing?&rdquo; inquired His Majesty.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Beautifully,&rdquo; said she; and His Majesty said that he was pleased&mdash;just
      as if he had not said the same words only a minute before. He looked at
      the patients with benevolent but tired-looking eyes; and the Honourable
      Beatrice, by those subtle methods known to women, brought it about that he
      looked especially at her favourite. She knew that he would wish to talk to
      some of the patients, and by ever so slight a movement she brought it
      about that it was towards Jimmie Higgins he advanced.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is your name?&rdquo; he asked, and then, &ldquo;Well, Higgins, how are you
      feeling?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, I'm all right,&rdquo; said Jimmie sturdily; &ldquo;I wanner get up, only she
      won't let me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said His Majesty, &ldquo;the time was when the king was the tyrant, but
      now it's the nurse.&rdquo; He smiled at the Honourable lady. &ldquo;Are you an
      American soldier?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Naw,&rdquo; replied Jimmie, &ldquo;I'm only a machinist.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is a war of machines,&rdquo; replied His Majesty, graciously.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm a Socialist!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmie, right off the bat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said His Majesty.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You bet!&rdquo; was the reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you're not one of those Socialists who oppose their country, I see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I done it for a long time,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;I didn't see we had no business
      in this here war. But I been changin'&mdash;a bit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm glad to hear that,&rdquo; remarked His Majesty. &ldquo;Doubtless your recent
      experience has helped you to change.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; replied Jimmie. &ldquo;But I'm still a Socialist, don't you make no
      mistake about that, Mr. King.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I won't,&rdquo; said His Majesty; and he looked at the Honourable Beatrice, and
      between them there flashed one of those subtle messages which highly
      sophisticated people know how to give and to catch&mdash;entirely over the
      heads of Socialist machinists from Leesville, U.S.A. To the Honourable
      Beatrice the message conveyed. &ldquo;How perfectly delicious!&rdquo; To His Majesty
      it conveyed, &ldquo;I knew you'd enjoy it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie's mind was, of course, occupied entirely with the idea of
      propaganda. He must make the most of this strange opportunity! &ldquo;Things is
      goin' to be changed after this here war!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Fer the workin'
      people, I mean.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They'll be changed for all of us,&rdquo; said His Majesty. &ldquo;The dullest of us
      know that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The workin' people got to get what they earn!&rdquo; persisted Jimmie. &ldquo;Why,
      Mr. King&mdash;back home where I come from a feller could work twelve
      hours a day all his life, an' not have enough saved up to bury himself
      with. An' they say it was worse here in England.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have had terrible poverty,&rdquo; admitted His Majesty. &ldquo;We shall have to
      find some way of getting rid of it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There ain't no way but Socialism,&rdquo; cried Jimmie. &ldquo;Look into it, an'
      you'll see! We gotter get rid o' the profit-system. The feller that does
      the work has gotter get what he produces.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said His Majesty, &ldquo;you'll agree with me this far at least&mdash;we
      must beat the Germans first.&rdquo; And then he turned to the Honourable
      Beatrice. &ldquo;We shall learn much from our American visitors,&rdquo; he said, and
      flashed her another of those subtle messages, which indicated that perhaps
      it was not a good thing for patients in hospitals to become excited over
      Socialist propaganda! So the Honourable Beatrice turned to the man in the
      other bed, and His Majesty turned also; he ascertained that the man's name
      was Deakin, and that he came from Cape Cod. His Majesty remarked how badly
      England needed good Yankee gun-pointers, and how grateful he was to those
      who came to help the British Navy. Jimmie listened, just a tiny bit
      jealous&mdash;not for himself, of course, but because he knew that
      Socialism was so much more important than gun-pointing!
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      At the foot of the bed there stood a military officer. He had been there
      for some time, but Jimmie did not notice him till the king rose and moved
      away. The officer was just the sort of hand-made aristocrat that Jimmie
      imagined all officers to be; smooth-shaven, except for a little toy
      moustache, with serene, impassive features, a dapper and immaculate
      uniform, and a queer little fancy stick in his hand, to show that he never
      did anything resembling work. He was eyeing the machinist with what the
      machinist suspected to be a superior air. &ldquo;Well, my good man,&rdquo; said he,
      &ldquo;you had a talk with the king!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That seemed obvious enough. &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Generally,&rdquo; continued the officer, &ldquo;when one talks with the king, one
      addresses him as 'Your Majesty'&mdash;not as 'Mr. King'.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was tired now, and not looking for controversy; so he did not
      bridle as he might otherwise have done. &ldquo;Nobody told me,&rdquo; said he.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Also,&rdquo; continued the other, &ldquo;one is not supposed to volunteer opinions.
      One waits for the king to ask a question, and then one answers.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie's eyes were closed, and he only half-opened them as he answered.
      &ldquo;They been tellin' me this here is a war for Democracy!&rdquo; said he.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXII. JIMMIE HIGGINS WORKS FOR HIS UNCLE
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They gave Jimmie Higgins a couple of days to lie about in the grounds of
      the hospital, and make the acquaintance and hear the experiences of men
      who had lost arms and legs in battle, or had been burned by
      flame-throwers, or ruined for life by poison-gases. Strange as it might
      seem, Jimmie found among these men not a few with whom he could talk,
      whose point of view was close to his own. These Britishers had been
      through the mill; they knew. None of the glory stuff for them! Leave that
      for the newspaper scribblers, the bloody rascals who stayed at home and
      beat on tomtoms, driving other men to march in and die. You went and got
      yourself battered up, ruined for life&mdash;and then what would they do
      for you? It was a hard world to a man who was crippled and helpless. Yes,
      said Jimmie; the same hard world that it was to a Socialist, a dreamer of
      justice.
    </p>
    <p>
      But there was the old dilemma, from which he had never been able to find
      escape, whether in Leesville, U.S.A., or on the high seas, or here in old
      England. What were you going to do about the Huns? To hold out your hand
      to them was like putting it into a tiger's cage. No, by God, you had to
      fight them, you had to lick them, cost what it might! And the speaker
      would go on and tell of things he had seen: a Prussian officer who had
      shot a British surgeon in the back, after this surgeon had bound up his
      wounds; a commandant of a prison-camp who had withdrawn all medical aid in
      a typhus epidemic, and allowed his charges to perish like rats.
    </p>
    <p>
      So, hell though it was, you had to go through with it; if you were a man,
      you had to set your teeth and grip your hands and take your share of the
      horror, whatever it might be. And Jimmie, being something of a little man
      in his way, would set his teeth and grip his hands and take in
      imagination, the share of the particular human wreck who happened to be
      talking to him. So Jimmie Higgins was battered back and forth, like a
      tennis-ball, between the two forces of Militarism and Revolution.
    </p>
    <p>
      Just now was another crisis&mdash;the Huns had begun a furious drive in
      Flanders, the third battle of Ypres, and the British were falling back,
      not in rout, but in retreat which might become rout at any hour. The
      bulletins came in several times a day, and people in the streets would
      stop and read them, their faces full of fear. When the wind was right you
      could hear the guns across the Channel; Jimmie would lie at night and
      listen to the dull, incessant thunder&mdash;a terrific, man-made storm, in
      which showers of steel were raining down upon the heads of soldiers hiding
      in shell-holes and hastily-dug trenches. The war seemed very near indeed
      when the wind was right!
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Still, a fellow has to live. Jimmie was in a foreign land for the first
      time in his life, and when they turned him loose, he and a couple of other
      American chaps went wandering about the streets, staring at the sights of
      this town, which had been a small harbour before the war, but now was a
      vast centre of the world's commerce, one of the routes by which large
      sections of Britain were moved across the Channel every day.
    </p>
    <p>
      You saw in the streets no men out of uniform, except a few old ones; you
      saw nobody at all idle, except the young children. The women were driving
      the trucks, and operating the street-cars, which were called &ldquo;trams&rdquo;, and
      the elevators, which were called &ldquo;lifts&rdquo;. Everybody's face was sober and
      drawn, but they lightened up when they saw the Americans, who had come so
      far to help them in their trouble. In the cake-shops, and the queer little
      &ldquo;pubs&rdquo; where rosy-cheeked girls sold very thin beer, they could not be
      polite enough to the visitors from overseas; even the haughtiest-looking
      &ldquo;bobby&rdquo; would stop to tell you the way about the streets. &ldquo;First to the
      roight, third to the left,&rdquo; he would say, very fast; and when you looked
      bewildered, he would say it again, as fast as ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      But they needed motor-cycles so badly in the new American armies that they
      didn't give Jimmie much time to be a hero; he got his orders and a new
      outfit, and bade farewell to the Honourable Beatrice, promising to write
      to her now and then, and not to be too hard on the aristocracy. He crossed
      the Channel, alive with boats like the Hudson River with its ferries, and
      came to another and still bigger port, which the Americans had taken and
      made over new for the war. Long vistas of docks had been built since the
      fighting began; Jimmie saw huge cranes that dipped down into the hold of a
      ship, and pulled out whole locomotives, or maybe half a dozen automobile
      trucks in one swoop.
    </p>
    <p>
      Behind these docks was a tangle of railroad yards and tracks, and miles
      upon miles of sheds, piled to the top with stores of every sort you could
      imagine. A whole encampment-city covered the surrounding hills, crowned by
      an old, creaking, moss-grown windmill&mdash;the Middle Ages looking in
      dismay upon these modern times.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nobody took the trouble to invite Jimmie to inspect these marvels, but he
      got glimpses here and there, and men with whom he chatted told him more.
      One man had been directing the unloading of canned tomatoes; for six
      months he had seen nothing but crates upon crates and car-loads upon
      car-loads of canned tomatoes, coming into one end of a shed and going out
      at the other. Somewhere in the higher regions dwelt a marvellous
      tomato-brain, which knew exactly how many cans a division of dough-boys in
      a training-camp would consume each day, how many would be needed by
      patients in hospitals, by lumbermen in French forests, by revellers in
      Y.M.C.A. huts. Every now and then a ship brought another supply, and the
      man who told Jimmie about it bossed a gang of negroes who piled the crates
      on trucks.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then Jimmie met a Frenchman, who had been a waiter in a Chicago hotel,
      and now was bossing a gang of wire-haired Korean labourers. Jimmie had
      thought he knew all the races of the earth in the shops and mills and
      mines of America; but here he heard of new kinds of men&mdash;Annamese and
      Siamese, Pathans and Sikhs, Madagascans and Abyssinians and Algerians. All
      the British empire was here, and all the French colonies. There were
      Portuguese and Brazilians and West Indians, bushmen from Australia and
      Zulus from South Africa; and these not having proven enough, America was
      now pouring out the partly melted contents of her pot&mdash;Hawaiians and
      Porto Ricans, Filipinos and &ldquo;spiggoties&rdquo;, Eskimos from Alaska, Chinamen
      from San Francisco, Sioux from Dakota, and plain black plantation niggers
      from Louisiana and Alabama! Jimmie saw a gang of these latter mending a
      track which had been blown out of place by a bomb from an aeroplane; their
      black skins shining with sweat, their white teeth shining with good-nature
      as they swung their heavy crow-bars, a long row of them moving like a
      machine chanting to keep in unison, &ldquo;Altogether&mdash;heave!&rdquo; the officer
      would call, and the line would swing into motion&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
    &ldquo;Get a MULE!
     An' a JACK!
     No SLOW!
     No SLACK!
     Put the HUMP!
     In yo' BACK&mdash;&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      For nearly four years Jimmie had been reading about France, and now he was
      here, and could see the sights with his own eyes. People with wooden
      shoes, for example! It was worth coming across the seas to see women and
      kids going clatter, clatter along the cobbled streets. And the funny
      little railroad-coaches, with rows of doors like rabbit-pens. It was a
      satisfaction to notice that the train had a real man-sized engine, with
      U.S.A. painted thereon. Jimmie owned a share in that engine, and
      experienced Socialistic thrills as he rode behind it.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had got separated from his &ldquo;unit&rdquo;, thanks to the submarine and the
      sojourn in the hospital. They had given him a pass, with orders to proceed
      to a certain town, travelling on a certain train. Now Jimmie sat looking
      out of the window, as happy as a boy out of school. A beautiful country,
      the fresh green glory of spring everywhereupon it; broad, straight
      military highways lined with poplars, and stone houses with queer steep
      roofs, and old men and women and children toiling in the fields.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie chattered with the men in the compartment, soldiers and workers,
      each a cog in the big machine, each bound upon some important errand. Each
      had news to tell&mdash;tales of the fighting, or of the progress of
      preparation. For more than a year now America had been getting ready, and
      here, in the most desperate crisis of the war, what was she going to do?
      Everybody was on tip-toe with excitement, with impatience to get into the
      scrap, to make good in the work upon which his soul was set. Every man
      knew that the &ldquo;dough-boys&rdquo; would show themselves the masters of &ldquo;Fritz&rdquo;;
      they knew it as religious people know there is a God in Heaven&mdash;only,
      unlike most religious people, they were anxious to get to this heaven and
      meet this God at the earliest possible moment. Next to Jimmie sat a
      Wisconsin farmer-boy, German in features, in name, even in accent; yet he
      was ready to fight the soldiers of the Kaiser&mdash;and quite sure he
      could lick them! Had he not lived since childhood in a free country, and
      been to an American public-school?
    </p>
    <p>
      Everybody had funny stories to tell about the adventures of soldiers in a
      foreign land. The French were all right, of course, especially the girls;
      but the shop-keepers were frugal, and you had better count your change,
      and bite the coins they offered you. As for the language&mdash;holy smoke!
      Why did civilized people want to talk a lingo that made you grunt like a
      pig&mdash;or like a penful of pigs of all sizes? Across the way sat a
      Chicago street-car conductor with a little lesson book, and now and then
      he would read something out loud. AN, IN, ON, UN, and many different sizes
      of pigs! When you wanted bread, you asked for a pain, and when you wanted
      a dish of eggs, you asked for a cat-roof omelette. How was this for a
      tongue-twister&mdash;say five hundred and fifty-five francs in French!
    </p>
    <p>
      Fortunately you didn't have to say that many&mdash;not on the pay of a
      dough-boy, put in a plumber from up-state in New York. For his part, he
      did not bother to grunt&mdash;he would make drinking motions or eating
      motions, and they would bring him things till they found what he wanted.
      One time he had met a girl that he thought was all right, and he wanted to
      treat her to a feed, so he drew a picture of a chicken, thinking he would
      get it roasted. She had chattered away to the waiter, and he had come back
      with two soft-boiled eggs. That was the French notion of taking a girl out
      to dinner!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They loaded Jimmie into a motor-lorry and whirled him away. You knew you
      were going to the war then, by heck; there were two almost solid
      processions of wagons and trucks, loaded with French soldiers and
      materials going, and damaged French soldiers returning. It was like
      Broadway at the most crowded hour; only here everything went by in a whirl
      of dust&mdash;you got quick glimpses of drivers with tense faces and
      blood-shot eyes. Now and then there would be a blockade, and men would
      swear and fume in mixed languages; staff-cars in an extra hurry would go
      off the road and bump along across country, while gangs of negro
      labourers, French colonials, seized the opportunity to fill up the ruts
      worn in the highway.
    </p>
    <p>
      They put Jimmie off at a village where his motor-unit was located, in a
      long shed made of corrugated iron, the sort of shed which the army threw
      up overnight. Here were a score of men working at repairs, and Jimmie
      stopped for no formalities, but took off his coat and pitched in. There
      was plenty of work he could see; the machines came, sometimes whole
      truck-loads of them, damaged in every way he had ever seen before, and in
      new ways not dreamed of in Kumme's bicycle-shop&mdash;tyres torn to shreds
      by fragments of shrapnel, frames twisted out of shape by explosions, and
      nasty splotches of blood completing the story.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was one of the many places where American units had been taken to plug
      the damaged French lines. There was a reserve battalion near by, and
      outside this village a group of men were at work, putting up tents for a
      hospital. Some thirty miles ahead was the front, and you heard the guns
      off and on, a low sullen roar, punctuated with hammer-strokes f big
      fellows. Millions of dollars every hour were being blown to nothingness in
      that fearful inferno; a gigantic meat-mill that was grinding up the bodies
      of men and had never ceased day or night for nearly four years. You could
      be a violent pacifist in sound of those guns, or you could be a violent
      militarist, but you could not be indifferent to the war, you could not be
      of two minds about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      And yet&mdash;Jimmie Higgins was of two minds! He wanted to beat back the
      Huns, who had made all this fearful mess; but also he wanted to beat the
      profiteers who were making messes at home. It happened that Jimmie had
      reached the army at a trying moment, when there were no American big guns,
      and when promises of machine-guns and aeroplanes had failed. There was
      wild excitement in the home papers, and not a little grumbling in the
      army. It was graft and politics, men said; and Jimmie caught eagerly at
      this idea. He pointed out how the profiteers at home were entrenching
      themselves, making ready to exploit the soldiers returning without jobs.
      That was a line of talk the men were ready for, and the little machinist
      rejoiced to see the grim look that came upon their faces. They would
      attend to it, never fear; and Jimmie would go on to tell them exactly how
      to attend to it!
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      But that was only now and then, when the wind was the other way, and you
      did not hear the guns. For the most part Jimmie's thoughts were drawn
      irresistibly to the front; about him were thousands of other men, all
      their thoughts at the front, their hands clenched, their teeth set, their
      beings centred upon the job of holding the Beast at bay. Jimmie saw the
      grey ambulances come in, and the wounded lifted out on stretchers, their
      heads bandaged, their bodies covered with sheets, their faces a ghastly
      waxen colour. He saw the poilus, fresh from the trenches, after God alone
      knew what siege of terror. They came staggering, bent double under a
      burden of equipment. The first time Jimmie saw them was a day of ceaseless
      rain, when the dust ground up by the big lorries was turned into
      ankle-deep mud; the Frenchmen were plastered with it from head to foot;
      you saw under their steel helmets only a mud-spattered beard, and the end
      of a nose, and a pair of deep-sunken eyes. They stopped to rest not far
      from the place where Jimmie worked; they sank down in the wet, they fell
      asleep in pools of water, where not even beasts could have slept. You did
      not have to know any French to understand what these men had been through.
      Good God! Was that what was going on up there?
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie thanked his stars he was no nearer. But that coward's comfort did
      not last him long, for Jimmie was not a coward, he was not used to letting
      other men struggle and suffer for him. His conscience began to gnaw at
      him. If that was what it cost to beat down the Beast, to make the world
      safe for democracy, why should he be escaping? Why should he be warm and
      dry and well-fed, while working-men of France lay out in the trenches in
      the rain?
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie went back and worked overtime without extra pay&mdash;something
      that old man Granitch had never got out of him, you bet, nor old man Kumme
      either. For three whole days he stayed a militarist, forgetting his
      life-long training in rebellion. But then he got into an argument with a
      red-headed Orangeman in his unit, who expressed the opinion that every
      Socialist was a traitor at heart, and that after the war the army should
      be used to make an end of them all. Jimmie in his rage went farther than
      he really meant, and again got a &ldquo;calling down&rdquo; from his superior officer;
      so for several days his proletarian feelings blazed, he wanted the
      revolution right away, Huns or no Huns.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      But most of the time now the spirit of the herd mastered Jimmie; he wanted
      what all the men about him wanted&mdash;to hold back the Beast from these
      fair French fields and quaint old villages, and these American hospitals
      and rest-camps and Y.M.C.A. huts&mdash;to say nothing of motor-cycle
      repair-sheds with Jimmie Higgins in them! And the trouble was that the
      Beast was not being held back; he was coming nearer and nearer&mdash;one
      bull rush after another! Jimmie's village was near the valley of the
      Marne, and that was the road to Paris; the Beast wanted to get to Paris,
      he really expected to get to Paris!
    </p>
    <p>
      The sound of guns grew louder and louder, and rumour flew wild-eyed and
      wild-tongued about the country. The traffic in the roads grew denser, but
      moving more slowly now, for the Germans were shelling the road ahead, and
      blockades were frequent; one huge missile had fallen into a French
      artillery-train only a couple of miles away. &ldquo;They'll be moving us back,
      if this keeps up,&rdquo; said Jimmie's sergeant; and Jimmie wondered: suppose
      they didn't move them! Suppose they forgot all about it? Was there any
      person whose particular duty it was to remember to see that motor-cycle
      units got moved in the precise nick of time? And what if the Germans were
      to break through and sweep over all calculations? This was a little more
      than Jimmie Higgins had bargained for when he entered the
      recruiting-office in Leesville, U.S.A.!
    </p>
    <p>
      They gave out gas-masks to everyone in Jimmie's unit, and put an alarm
      bell in the shed, and made everybody practise putting on the masks in a
      hurry. Jimmie was so scared that he thought seriously of running away; but&mdash;such
      is the perversity of human nature&mdash;what he did was to run in the
      opposite direction! His officer in command came into the shed and
      demanded, &ldquo;Can any of you men ride?&rdquo; And imagine any fellow who worked at
      repairing motor-cycles admitting that he couldn't ride! &ldquo;I can!&rdquo; said
      Jimmie. &ldquo;I can!&rdquo; said every other workman in the place.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it!&rdquo; asked Jimmie&mdash;always of the forward and pushing sort.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The French ask for half a dozen men in a rush. They've had several
      motor-cycle units wiped out or captured.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gee!&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;I'll go!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And me!&rdquo; said another. &ldquo;And me!&rdquo; &ldquo;And me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said the officer, and told them off: &ldquo;You and you and you.
      And you, Cullen, take command. Report to French headquarters at Chatty
      Terry. You know where it is!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, Mike!&rdquo; said Cullen. &ldquo;I been there.&rdquo; Jimmie hadn't been to &ldquo;Chatty
      Terry&rdquo;, but he knew it was somewhere across the Marne. The officer gave
      him a map, showing the villages through which he would go. Jimmie and his
      companions named these villages, using sensible language, without
      concession to the fool notions of the natives. Wipers, Reems, Verdoon,
      Devil Wood, Arm-in-tears, Saint Meal&mdash;all these Jimmie had heard
      about; also a place where the Americans had won their first glorious
      victory a week ago, and which they called, sometimes Cantinny, sometimes
      Tincanny. And now Jimmie was going to &ldquo;Chatty Terry&rdquo;, in charge of a
      red-headed Orangeman who a few days ago had expressed the opinion that all
      Socialists were traitors and should be shot!
    </p>
    <p>
      The officer gave them passes, one for each man, in case they got
      separated, and they started towards the place where the new machines were
      lined up. On the way Jimmie had a moment of utter panic. What was this he
      was getting himself in for, idiot that he was? Going up there where the
      shells were falling, wiping out motor-cycle units! And shells that were
      full of poison gases, most of them! Of all the fool things he had done in
      his life this was the crown and climax! His knees began to shake, he
      turned sick inside. But then he glanced about, and caught Pat Cullen's
      menacing blue eye; Jimmie returned the glare, and the spirit of battle
      flamed up in him, he laid hold of the handles of a motor-cycle and strode
      towards the door. Was any Irish mick going to catch him in a funk, and
      &ldquo;bawl him out&rdquo; before this crowd, and put the Socialist movement to shame?
      Not much!
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The six motor-cyclists leaped on to their machines and went chugging down
      the road. Of course they raced one another; all motor-cyclists always race&mdash;and
      here was the best of all possible excuses, the French army in dire need of
      them, several of its precious cycle-units wiped out or captured! They tore
      along, dodging in and out between trucks and automobiles, ambulances and
      artillery caissons, horse-wagons and mule-wagons, achieving again and
      again those hair's-breadth escapes which are the joy in life of every
      normal motor-cyclist. Now and then, when things were too slow, they would
      try a crawl in the ditches, or push their machines over the ploughed
      fields. So it happened that Jimmie found himself competing with his
      red-headed Irish enemy; there was a narrow opening between two stalled
      vehicles, and Jimmie made it by the width of his hand, and vaulted on to
      his machine and darted away, free and exulting&mdash;his own boss! He
      shoved in the juice and made time, you bet; no &ldquo;mick&rdquo; was going to catch
      up and shout orders at him!
    </p>
    <p>
      There were long trains of refugees streaming back from the battle-fields;
      pitiful peasant-people with horse-carts and dog-carts and even
      wheelbarrows, toothless old men and women trudging alongside, children and
      babies stuck in amidst bedding and furniture and saucepans and bird-cages.
      This was war, as the common people saw it; but Jimmie could not stop now
      to think about it&mdash;Jimmie was on his way to the front! There were big
      observation balloons up over his head, looking like huge grey elephants
      with broad ears; there were aeroplanes whirring about, performing
      incredible acrobatic feats, and spraying each other with showers of steel;
      but Jimmie had no time for a single glance at these marvels&mdash;Jimmie
      was on his way to the front!
    </p>
    <p>
      He swept around a curve, and there directly in front of him was a hole in
      the middle of the road, as big as if a steam-shovel had been working for a
      week. Jimmie clapped on the brakes, and swerved sideways, missing a tree
      and plunging into a cabbage patch. He got off and said, &ldquo;Gee!&rdquo; once or
      twice; and suddenly it was as if he were whacked on the side of the ear
      with a twelve-inch board&mdash;the whole world about him turned into a
      vast roar of sound, and a mountain of grey smoke leaped into being in
      front of him. Jimmie stared, and saw out of a little clump of bushes a
      long black object thrust itself out, like the snout of a gigantic tapir
      from some prehistoric age. It was a ten-inch gun, coming back from its
      recoil; and Jimmie, smelling its fumes, struggled back to the road with
      his machine, before the monster should speak again and stifle him
      entirely.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a frame-house in the distance, and in front of it a barnyard,
      and sheds with thatched roofs. There came a scream, exactly like the siren
      of Hook and Ladder Company Number One that used to go tearing about the
      streets in Leesville, U.S.A; a light flashed in one of the sheds, and
      everything disappeared in a burst of smoke, which spread itself in the air
      like a huge duster made from turkey feathers. There came another shriek, a
      little nearer, and the ground rose in a huge black mushroom, which boiled
      and writhed like the clouds of an advancing thunderstorm. Boom! Boom! Two
      vast, all-pervading roars came to Jimmie's ears; and his knees began to
      quake. By heck! He was under fire! He looked ahead; there must be Germans
      just up there! Was a fellow supposed to ride on without knowing?
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a big battle on, that much was certain; but the uproar was so
      distributed that one could hardly tell whether it was in front or behind.
      However, the transport was steadily advancing&mdash;horse-wagons,
      mule-wagons, motor-wagons, all plodding patiently, paying no heed to the
      shell-bursts. And then Jimmie took a look behind, and saw that infernal
      red-headed Orangeman! He imagined a raucous voice, shouting: &ldquo;C'mon here!
      Whatcher waitin' fer?&rdquo; Jimmie bounced on to his machine and turned her
      loose!
    </p>
    <p>
      He came to a place where something had hit a load of ammunition, and there
      were pieces of a wagon and a driver scattered about; it was a horrible
      mess, but Jimmie passed it without much emotion&mdash;his whole soul was
      centred on beating Pat Cullen into &ldquo;Chatty Terry&rdquo;! He came to the
      outskirts of a village, and there was a peasant's cottage with the roof
      blown off, and a smell fresh out of the infernal regions, and a terrified
      old woman standing by the road side with two terrified children clinging
      to her skirts. Jimmy stopped his machine and shouted: &ldquo;Chatty Terry?&rdquo; When
      the old woman did not answer quickly, he shouted again: &ldquo;Chatty Terry?
      Chatty Terry? Don't you understand French? Chatty Terry?&rdquo; The old woman
      apparently did not understand French.
    </p>
    <p>
      He rode up the street of the village, and came to a military policeman
      directing traffic at a crossing. This fellow understood English, and said:
      &ldquo;Chatty Terry? Eet ees taken!&rdquo; And when Jimmie stood dismayed, wondering
      what he was to do now, the policeman told him that headquarters had been
      shifted to this village&mdash;it was in the chateau; he did not say
      &ldquo;chatty&rdquo;, so Jimmie did not understand his kind of English. But Jimmie
      rode as directed, and came to a place with iron gates in front, and a big
      garden, and a sentry in front, and a bustle of coming and going, so he
      knew that he had reached his destination, and had beaten his Irish enemy!
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie's pass was in duplicate French and English, so the sentry could
      read it, and signed him to pass in. At the door of the chateau he showed
      the paper again, and a French officer in the hall-way espied him, and
      exclaimed, &ldquo;A cyclist? Mon Dieu!&rdquo; He half-ran Jimmie into another room,
      where another officer sat at a big table with a chart spread out on it,
      and innumerable filing cabinets on the walls. &ldquo;Un courier Americain!&rdquo; he
      exclaimed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Only one?&rdquo; asked the officer, in English.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Five more's comin',&rdquo; said Jimmie quickly. He hated Pat Cullen like the
      devil, but he wouldn't have any French officer think that Pat would lie
      down on his job. &ldquo;The road's cut up, an' there's lots o' traffic. I come
      as fast&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;See!&rdquo; interrupted the officer&mdash;not quite as polite as Frenchmen are
      supposed to be. &ldquo;This packet contains maps, which we make from
      aeroplane-photographs&mdash;you comprehend? It is for the artillerist&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The officer paused for a moment; there came a deafening crash outside, and
      the window of the room collapsed and something grazed Jimmie's face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Voila!&rdquo; remarked the officer. &ldquo;The enemy draws nearer. Our wires are cut;
      we send couriers, but they perhaps do not arrive; it needs that we send
      many&mdash;what you say?&mdash;duplicates. You comprehend?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is most urgent; the battle depends upon it&mdash;the war, it may be.
      You comprehend?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; said Jimmie again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are brave, mon garcon?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie did not reply so promptly to that; but the officer was too tactful
      to wait. Instead, he asked, &ldquo;You know French?&rdquo; And when Jimmie shook his
      head: &ldquo;It needs that you learn. Say this: Botteree Normb Cott. Try it, if
      it pleases you: Botteree Normb Cott.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie, stammering like a schoolboy, tried; the officer made him repeat
      the sounds, assuring him gravely that he need have no doubts whatever; if
      he would make those precise sounds, any Frenchman would know what he was
      looking for. He was to take the main road east from the village and ride
      till he came to a fork; then he was to bear to the right, and when he came
      to the edge of a dense wood, he was to take the path to the left, and then
      say to everybody he met: &ldquo;Botteree Normb Cott!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is it that you have a weapon?&rdquo; inquired the officer; and when Jimmie
      answered no, he pressed a button, and spoke quick words to an orderly, who
      came running with an automatic revolver and a belt, which Jimmie proceeded
      to strap upon him with thrills, half of delighted pride and half of
      anguished terror. &ldquo;You will say to the men of the botteree that the
      Americans come soon to the rescue. You will find them, my brave American?&rdquo;
       The officer spoke as if to a son whom he dearly loved; and Jimmie, who had
      never received an order in that tone of voice, reciprocated the affection,
      and clenched his hands suddenly and answered, &ldquo;I'll do my best, sir.&rdquo; He
      turned to leave the room, when whom should he see coming in&mdash;Mike
      Cullen! Jimmie gave him a wink and a grin, and hustled outside and leaped
      upon his machine.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      And now here was the little machinist from Leesville, U.S.A., flying down
      the battered street of this French village with something like a
      mid-western cyclone going on in his head. They say that a drowning man
      remembers everything that ever happened in his life; perhaps that was not
      true of Jimmie, but certainly he remembered every pacifist argument he had
      ever heard in his life. For the love of Mike, what was this he had let
      himself in for? Bound for the spot where the whole German army was trying
      to break through&mdash;upon an errand the most dangerous of any in the
      war! How in the name of Karl Marx and the whole revolutionary hierarchy
      had he managed to get himself into such a pickle? He, Jimmie Higgins,
      Bolshevik and wobbly!
    </p>
    <p>
      And he was going through with it! He was going to throw his life away&mdash;just
      because he had started&mdash;because he had pledged himself&mdash;because
      he was carrying maps which might enable a &ldquo;botteree&rdquo; to win the war! Did
      he really care that much about this infernal capitalist war? So cried out
      the proletarian demons in the soul of Jimmie Higgins; and meantime the
      engine hammered and chugged, and a miraculous power in the depths of his
      subconsciousness moved the handle-bars so that he dodged shell-holes and
      grazed automobiles.
    </p>
    <p>
      The air was full of the scream of shells and the clatter of their
      bursting, an infernal din out of which he could hardly pick individual
      sounds. The road ahead was less crowded; the vehicles had left it,
      spreading out to one side or the other. How much farther ahead was that
      fork? And suppose the Germans had got there, and had captured &ldquo;Botteree
      Normb Cott&rdquo;&mdash;was he going to present them with a brand new
      motor-cycle in addition? There were other &ldquo;botterees&rdquo; which he passed; why
      couldn't he give them the maps? Jimmie rode on, raging inwardly. If he had
      been a dispatch rider he would have known all about this, but he was only
      a repair man, and they had had no business to put such a job off on him!
    </p>
    <p>
      There were woods about him now, the trees smashed up by shells, and Jimmie
      considered it the part of prudence to get off his machine and steal
      forward and peer out to see if there were Germans in the opening beyond.
      And suddenly his knees gave way, because of the fright he was in, with all
      this deadly racket. He became violently sick at his stomach, and began to
      act as he had acted on the first three days of his ocean passage from New
      York. At the same time all the other functions of his body began to
      operate. A group of Frenchmen passing by burst into hilarious laughter; it
      was ridiculous and humiliating, but Jimmie was powerless to help it&mdash;he
      wasn't cut out for a soldier, he hadn't agreed to be a soldier, they had
      had no business sending him up here where vast craters of shell-holes were
      opening in the ground, and whole trees were being lifted out of the earth,
      and the air was full of a stink which might require a gas-mask or might
      not&mdash;how was poor Jimmie to tell?
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      He mastered the awful trembling of his knees and the grotesque efforts of
      his body to get rid of everything inside him, and got on his machine again
      and stole ahead. He could only go a few rods at a time, because the road
      was so cut up. Should he leave the machine and run for it? Or should he go
      back and tell them their infernal maps were all wrong, there was no fork
      in the road? No&mdash;for there at last was the fork, and after Jimmie had
      ridden and run a hundred yards farther, there was a wheat-field, and a
      line of woods, and at the edge of it four guns belching flame and smoke
      and racket. Jimmie stood his machine in a ditch and went tearing across
      the fields, wild with relief, because he had found his &ldquo;Botteree Normb
      Cott&rdquo;, and could hand over his precious packet and get out of this mess as
      fast as two wheels would take him.
    </p>
    <p>
      But to his dismay he found that it wasn't the French battery, it was an
      American battery; the French battery was farther ahead, and a little to
      the right; the officer gave directions, taking it entirely for granted
      that Jimmie would go on to his goal.
    </p>
    <p>
      But then came another officer. &ldquo;What have you got there?&rdquo; And when Jimmie
      answered maps, he demanded them; he seemed as greedy for maps as a child
      for his gifts on Christmas morning. He ripped open the packet&mdash;what
      is called &ldquo;cutting red tape&rdquo; in the army&mdash;and spread out the papers
      and began to call out figures to another officer who sat on a camp stool
      at a little folding table, with many sheets of figures in front of him.
      This officer went on noting down the information&mdash;and the men at the
      guns went on shoving in shells and stepping back while the screaming
      messengers were hurled upon their way. In the rear were other men,
      wheeling up ammunition, unloading one of the big camions which Jimmie had
      been dodging on the roads. It was a regular factory, set up there in the
      middle of the fields, dispatching destruction to the unseen foe.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We're having the hell of a time,&rdquo; remarked the officer, as he folded up
      the maps again and handed them to Jimmie. &ldquo;Our wires have been cut three
      times in the last half-hour, and we have to shoot blind.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where are the Germans?&rdquo; asked Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Somewhere up ahead there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have you seen them?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good Lord, no! We hope to move before they're that near!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie felt a bit reassured by the quiet, business-like demeanour of all
      the men in this death-factory. If they could stand the racket, no doubt he
      could; only, they were all together, while he had to go off by himself.
      Jimmie wished he had enlisted in the artillery!
    </p>
    <p>
      He shoved the maps into the inside pocket of his jacket, and chased back
      to his machine and set out. He took a side-path as directed, and then a
      wood-road&mdash;and then he got lost. That was all there was to it&mdash;he
      was hopelessly lost! The path didn't behave at all as the one he was
      looking for. It went through a long stretch of woods with shattered trees
      lying this way and that; then it crossed a field of grain, and then it
      plunged down into a ravine, and climbed to the other side, and up a ridge
      and down again. &ldquo;Hell!&rdquo; said Jimmie to himself. And if you could imagine
      all the noises in all the boiler-factories in America, you would have
      something less than the racket in that wood through which Jimmie was
      wandering, saying &ldquo;Hell!&rdquo; to himself.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      He got to the top of the ridge, puffing and panting and dripping
      perspiration; and there suddenly he jumped from his machine and ran with
      it behind a tree-trunk and stood anxiously peering out. There were men
      ahead; and what sort of men? Jimmie tried to remember the pictures of
      Germans he had seen, and did they look like this? The air was full of
      smoke, which made it hard to decide; but gradually Jimmie made out one
      group, dragging a machine-gun on wheels; they placed it behind a ridge of
      ground, and began to shoot in the direction of Germany. So Jimmie
      advanced, but with hesitation, not wanting to interfere with the aiming of
      the gun, which was making a noise like a riveting machine, only faster and
      louder. It had a big round cylinder for a barrel, and the men were feeding
      it with long strips of cartridges out of a box, and were so intent on the
      process that they paid no attention whatever to Jimmie. He stood and
      stared, spellbound. For these creatures seemed not men, but hairy monsters
      out of caves-ragged, plastered with mud, grimed and smoke-blackened, with
      their faces drawn, their teeth shining like the teeth of angry dogs.
      Jimmie forgot all about the enemy, he saw only this roaring,
      flame-vomiting machine and the men who were a part of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly one of the men leaped up, a little hairier and a little blacker
      than the rest, and shouted, &ldquo;Ah derry-air! Ah derry-air!&rdquo; And the gun
      stopped roaring and vomiting flame, and the men laid hold and began to tug
      and strain to draw it back. The leader continued exhorting them; until
      suddenly an amazing thing happened&mdash;right in the midst of his
      shouting, the whole of his mouth and lower jaw disappeared. You did not
      see what became of it&mdash;it just vanished into nothingness, and there
      in the place of it was a red cavern, running blood. The man stood with his
      startled eyes shining white in his black and hairy face, and gurgling
      noises coming out&mdash;as if he thought he was still shouting, or could
      if he tried harder.
    </p>
    <p>
      The others paid not the least attention to this episode; they continued
      tugging at the gun. And would you believe it, the man with no mouth and
      jaw fell to helping again! The wheels struck a rise in the ground, and he
      waved his hands in impotent excitement, and then rushed at Jimmie,
      exposing to the horrified little machinist the full ghastliness of that
      red cavern running blood.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie tried his magic formula: &ldquo;Botteree Normb Cott.&rdquo; But the man waved
      his hands frantically and grabbed Jimmie by the arm&mdash;the very
      incarnation of that Monster of Militarism which the little machinist had
      been dodging for four years! He pushed Jimmie towards the gun, and the
      other men shouted: &ldquo;Asseestay!&rdquo; So of course there was nothing for Jimmie
      to do but lay hold and tug with the rest.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presently they got the wheels to moving, and rolled the thing up the
      ridge. A wagon came bumping through the woods, and the men at the gun gave
      a gasp which was meant to be a cheer, and one of them laid hold of Jimmie
      again, crying: &ldquo;Portay! Portay!&rdquo; He dragged out a heavy box and loaded it
      into Jimmie's arms and carried another himself, and so in a few moments
      the machine-gun was drumming, and Jimmie went on carrying boxes. The men
      who were driving the wagon leaped upon the horses and drove away; and
      still Jimmie carried boxes, blindly, desperately. Was it because he was
      afraid of the little French demon who was shouting at him? No, not
      exactly, because when he went back with a box he saw the little demon
      suddenly double up like a jack-knife and fall forward. He did not make a
      sound, he did not even kick; he lay with his face in the dirt and leaves&mdash;and
      Jimmie ran back for another box.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      He did it because he understood that the Germans were coming. He had not
      seen them; but when the gun fell silent he heard whining sounds in the
      air, as if from a litter of elephantine puppies. Sometimes the twigs of
      trees fell on him, the dirt in front of him flew up into his face; and
      always, of course, everywhere about him was that roar of bursting shells
      which he had come to accept as a natural part of life. And suddenly
      another man went down, and another&mdash;there were only two left, and one
      of them signalled to Jimmie what to do, and Jimmie did not say a word, he
      just went to work and learned to run a machine-gun by the method favoured
      by modern educators&mdash;by doing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presently the man who was aiming the gun clapped his hand to his forehead
      and fell backwards. Jimmie was at his side, and the gun was shooting&mdash;so
      what more natural than for Jimmie to move into position and look along the
      sights? It was a fact that he had never aimed any sort of gun in his life
      before; but he was apt with machinery&mdash;and disposed to meddle into
      things, as we know.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie looked along the sights; and suddenly it seemed as if the line of
      distant woods leaped into life, the bushes vomiting grey figures which ran
      forward, and fell down, and then leaped up and ran and fell down again.
      &ldquo;Eel vienn!&rdquo; hissed the man at Jimmie's side. So Jimmie moved the gun here
      and there, pointing it wherever he saw the grey figures.
    </p>
    <p>
      Did he kill any Germans? He was never entirely sure in his own mind;
      always the idea pursued him that may be he had been making a fool of
      himself, shooting bullets into the ground or up into the air&mdash;and the
      poilus at his side thinking he must know all about it, because he was one
      of those wonderful Americans who had come across the seas to save la belle
      France! The Germans kept falling, but that proved nothing, for that was
      the method of their advance, anyway, and Jimmie had no time to count and
      see how many fell and how many got up again. All he knew was that they
      kept coming&mdash;more and more of them, and nearer and nearer, and the
      Frenchmen muttered curses, and the gun hammered and roared, until the
      barrel grew so hot that it burned. And then suddenly it stopped dead!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sockray!&rdquo; cried the two Frenchmen, and began frantically working to take
      the gun to pieces; but before they had worked a minute one of them clapped
      his hand to his side and fell back with a cry, and a second later Jimmie
      felt a frightful blow on his left arm, and when he tried to lift it and
      see what was wrong, half of it hung loose, and blood ran out of his
      sleeve!
    </p>
    <h3>
      VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      That was too much for the remaining Frenchman. He caught Jimmie by the
      other arm, exclaiming &ldquo;Vennay! Vennay!&rdquo; Apparently that meant to run away;
      Jimmie didn't want to run away, but the Frenchman chattered so fast, and
      tugged so hard, and Jimmie was half-dazed anyhow with pain, so he let
      himself be dragged back. And presently they came to a dead soldier lying
      with a gun by his side, and the Frenchman grabbed the gun and unstrapped
      the cartridge belt, and then threw himself down behind a big rock. Jimmie
      remembered the automatic which he had strapped at his waist; he held it
      out to the Frenchman, shaking his head and saying, &ldquo;No savvy! No work!&rdquo;&mdash;as
      if he thought the Frenchman would understand bad English better than good
      English! But the Frenchman understood the head-shaking, and showed Jimmie
      how to move the little catch which released the trigger for firing. With
      hasty fingers he tore off the sleeve of Jimmie's shirt, and bound up his
      arm tightly with a bandage from his kit; then he raised up over the rock
      and cursed the sockray Bosh and began to fire. Jimmie got up the nerve to
      peer out, and there were the grey figures, much nearer now, and he knew
      they were Germans because they were like the pictures he had seen. They
      were running at him, firing as they came, and Jimmie fired his revolver,
      shutting his eyes because he was scared of it. But then, finding that it
      behaved all right, he fired again, and this time he did not close his
      eyes, because he saw a big German running straight towards him, the fury
      of battle in his face. It was plain what this German meant to do&mdash;to
      leap on Jimmie with his sharp bayonet; and somehow Jimmie never once
      thought of his pacifist arguments&mdash;he fired, and saw the German fall,
      and was murderously glad at the sight.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were shots from behind him; apparently there had been a lot of
      Frenchmen hidden in these woods, and the enemy was not finding it easy to
      advance. Jimmie's companion jumped up and ran again, and Jimmie followed,
      and a hundred yards or so back they came to a shell-hole with half a dozen
      poilus in it. Jimmy tumbled in, and the men chattered at him, and gave him
      more cartridges, so that when the Germans appeared again he did his part.
      A bullet took a lump of hair off his temple, and shrapnel exploding near
      by almost split his ear-drums; but still he went on shooting. His heart
      was really in the job now, he was going to stop these Bosh or bust. With
      five Frenchmen, two of them wounded, he held the shell-hole for an hour;
      one of them ran back and staggered up with a supply of ammunition, and
      loaded up a rifle for Jimmie, and laid it so that he could manage it with
      one hand. So Jimmie went on shooting, half-dead, half-blind, half-choked
      with powder smoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sockray Bosh made another charge, and this was the end, every man in
      the shell-hole knew. There were literally swarms of the grey figures,
      their bullets came like a shower of hail. Jimmie decided to wait till the
      enemy was near enough for him to aim the revolver with effect. He
      crouched, watching a Frenchman with the life-blood oozing out of a hole in
      his chest; then he raised up and emptied his automatic, and still there
      were Germans rushing on.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was so very tired now, he really did not care very much what
      happened; he knelt in the hole, looking up, and suddenly he saw the huge
      figure of a German looming above him, his rifle poised. Jimmie closed his
      eyes and waited for the blow, and suddenly the German came down with a
      crash on top of him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie thought for sure he must be dead; he lay wondering, was this
      immortality? But it did not seem like either heaven or hell as he had
      imagined them, and gradually he realized that the German was writhing and
      moaning. Jimmie wriggled from under, and looked up, just in time to see
      another German loom over the shell-hole and pitch forward and hit on his
      face.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was evident that somebody farther back was attending to these Germans;
      so Jimmie lay still, with a feeble flicker of hope in his heart. The
      rattle of shots went on, a battle that lasted ten or fifteen minutes, but
      Jimmie was too tired to peer out and see how matters were going. Presently
      he heard someone running up behind him, and he looked around and up, and
      saw two men jump into the shell-hole. He took one glance, and his heart
      leaped. The doughboys!
    </p>
    <h3>
      VIII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Yes, sir, there were two doughboys in the shell-hole! Jimmie had seen so
      many tens of thousands of them that he had no doubt. Compared with the
      war-battered poilus, they were like soldiers out of a fashion-plate:
      smooth-shaven, with long chins and thin lips, and a thousand other details
      which made you realize that home was home, and better than any other place
      in the world. And oh, the beautiful business-like precision of these
      fashion-plate soldiers! They never said a word, they never even glanced
      about; they just threw themselves down at the edge of the shell-hole, and
      leaned their rifles over and set to work. You didn't need to see&mdash;you
      could tell from the look on these men's faces that they were hitting
      something!
    </p>
    <p>
      Presently came two more, leaping in. Without so much as as a nod of
      greeting, they settled down and went to shooting; and when they had used
      up most of their cartridges, one of them got up and shouted to the rear,
      and there came a man running with a fresh supply in a big pouch.
    </p>
    <p>
      Later on came three more with rifles. Apparently there were not so many
      Germans now, for these new-comers found time for words. &ldquo;They told us to
      hold a line back there,&rdquo; said one. &ldquo;But hell!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's more Huns up ahead,&rdquo; said another. &ldquo;Let's get 'em.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Just as well now as later,&rdquo; said a third.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You stay behind and get that finger tied up,&rdquo; said the first speaker; but
      the other told him to go and get his own fingers tied up.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then one of them looked about and spied Jimmie. &ldquo;Why, here's a Yank!&rdquo; he
      cried. &ldquo;What you doin' here?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie answered: &ldquo;I'm a motor-cycle man, and they sent me with maps for a
      battery, but I think it's been captured long ago.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You're wounded,&rdquo; said the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It ain't much,&rdquo; said Jimmie, apologetically. &ldquo;It was a long time ago,
      anyhow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you go back,&rdquo; said the doughboy. &ldquo;We're here now&mdash;it'll be all
      right.&rdquo; He said it, not boastingly, but as a simple matter of fact. He was
      a mere boy, a rosy-cheeked kid with a little ugly pug-nose covered with
      freckles, and a wide, grinning mouth. But to Jimmie he seemed just the
      loveliest boy that had ever come out of the U.S.A. &ldquo;Can you walk?&rdquo; he
      asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And these Frenchies?&rdquo; The doughboy looked at the others. &ldquo;You savvy their
      lingo?&rdquo; When Jimmie shook his head, he turned to the battle-worn hairy
      ones. &ldquo;You fellows go back,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We don't need you now.&rdquo; When they
      stared uncomprehending, he asked: &ldquo;Polly voo Francy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We, we!&rdquo; cried they in one voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; said the doughboy, &ldquo;go back! Go home! Toot sweet! Have
      sleep! Rest! We lick 'em Heinies!&rdquo; As the poilus did not show much grasp
      of this kind of &ldquo;Francy&rdquo;, the doughboy boosted them to their feet, pointed
      to the rear, patted them on the back, and grinned with his wide mouth.
      &ldquo;Good boy! Go home! American! American!&rdquo;&mdash;as if that was enough to
      make clear that the work of France in this war was done! The poilus looked
      over the top of the shell-hole, and saw a swarm of those new fashion-plate
      soldiers, darting forward through the woods, throwing themselves down and
      shooting at the sockray Bosh. They looked at the rosy-cheeked boy with the
      grateful faces of dogs, and shouldered their packs and rifles and set out
      for the rear, helping Jimmie, who suddenly found himself very weak, and
      with a splitting headache.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IX.
    </h3>
    <p>
      These doughboys had a song that Jimmie had heard all the time: &ldquo;The Yanks
      are coming!&rdquo; And now the song needed to be rewritten: &ldquo;The Yanks are
      here!&rdquo; All these woods through which Jimmie had blundered with his
      motor-cycle were now swarming with nice, new, clean-shaven,
      freshly-tailored soldier-boys, turned loose to get their first chance at
      the Hun. Four years they had been reading about him and hating him, a year
      and a half they had been getting ready to hit him&mdash;and now at last
      they were turned loose and told to go to it! Back on the roads was an
      endless procession of motor-trucks, with doughboys, and also marines, or
      &ldquo;leather-necks&rdquo;, as they were called. They had started at four o'clock
      that morning, and ridden all day packed in like sardines; and here, a mile
      or two back in the woods, the trucks had come to a halt, and the sardines
      had jumped out and gone into this war!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie did not realize till long afterwards what a world-drama he had been
      witnessing. For four months the Beast had been driving at Paris;
      irresistibly, incessantly, eating his way like a forest fire, spreading
      ever wider and more fearful desolation&mdash;this Beast with the Brains of
      an Engineer! The world had shuddered and held its breath, knowing that if
      he got to Paris it would mean the end of the war, and of all things that
      free men value. And now here he made his last supreme rush, and the French
      lines wavered and cracked and gave way; and so in this desperate crisis
      they had brought up the truck-loads of doughboys for their first real test
      against the Beast.
    </p>
    <p>
      The orders had been to hold at all hazards; but that had not been enough
      for the doughboys, they and the leather-necks had seized the offensive and
      sent the Germans reeling back. The very pride of the Prussian army had
      been worsted by these new troops from overseas, at whom they had mocked,
      whose very existence they had scouted.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a blow from which &ldquo;Fritz&rdquo; never recovered; he never gained another
      foot, and it was the beginning of a retreat that did not stop until it
      reached the Rhine. And the Yanks had done it&mdash;the Yanks, with the
      help of Jimmie Higgins! For Jimmie had got there first; Jimmie had held
      the fort while the Yanks were coming! Yes, truly; if he hadn't stuck by
      that machine-gun and helped to work it, if he hadn't hid in that
      shell-hole, emptying the contents of a rifle and an automatic pistol into
      the charging Huns, if he hadn't held them up that precious hour&mdash;why,
      they might have swept over this position, and the Yanks might not have had
      a chance to deploy, and the victory of &ldquo;Chatty Terry&rdquo; might not have gone
      resounding down the ages! The whole course of the world's history might
      have been different, if one little Socialist machinist from Leesville,
      U.S.A., had not chanced to be wandering through &ldquo;Bellow Wood&rdquo; in search of
      a fabulous and never-discovered &ldquo;Botteree Normb Cott!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIV. JIMMIE HIGGINS SEES THE OTHER SIDE
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      But these exultations and glory-thoughts were reserved for a later stage
      of Jimmie Higgins's life. At present he was weak, and his head was
      splitting, and his left arm burning like fire. And on top of this came a
      happening so strange that it drove the whole battle from his thoughts. He
      was walking on a path with his French companions, when one of them noticed
      a man in a French uniform lying on the ground a little way to one side. He
      was not a soldier, but a hospital-orderly or stretcher-bearer, as you
      could tell by the white bandage with a red cross on his arm. He had been
      shot through the shoulder, and someone had plugged up the wound and left
      him; so now the French soldiers helped him to his feet and started to lead
      him back. Jimmie watched them, and when he saw the man's face, the
      conviction stole over him that he had seen that face before. He had seen
      it, or one incredibly like it&mdash;and under circumstances of intense
      emotion. The old emotion stirred in the depths of his subconsciousness,
      and suddenly it burst to the surface, an explosion of excitement. It could
      not be! The idea was absurd! But&mdash;it must be! It was! The wounded
      French stretcher-bearer was Lacey Granitch!
    </p>
    <p>
      The young heir of the Empire Machine Shops might never have known the
      little Socialist machinist; but recognition was so evident on Jimmie's
      face, that Lacey was set groping in his own mind. Now and then as the
      party walked along he stole an uneasy glance at his fellow-countryman; and
      presently when they struck a road, and sat down to rest and wait for a
      vehicle of some sort, Lacey put himself beside Jimmie and began: &ldquo;You're
      the fellow that was in the house that night, aren't you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie nodded; and the young lord of Leesville looked at him uneasily,
      looked away, and then looked back. &ldquo;I've got something I want to ask you,&rdquo;
       he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't give me away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't tell who I am: There's no reason why anybody should know. I'm
      trying to get away from it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;I won't tell.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You promise?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then was a silence. Then suddenly, with no reason that Jimmie could see,
      the other exclaimed: &ldquo;You'll tell!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I won't!&rdquo; protested Jimmie. &ldquo;What makes you say so?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You hate me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie hesitated, as if investigating his own mind. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I
      don't hate you&mdash;not any more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God!&rdquo; exclaimed the other. &ldquo;You don't need to&mdash;I've paid all I owe!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie studied his face. Yes, you could see that was true. Not merely was
      Lacey haggard, his features drawn with the pain he was enduring; there
      were lines in his face that had not been put there by a few days of
      battle, nor even by a couple of years of war. He looked twenty years older
      than the insolent young aristocrat whom Jimmie had seen hurling defiance
      at the Empire strikers.
    </p>
    <p>
      His eyes were searching Jimmie's anxiously, pleadingly. &ldquo;I had to get
      away,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I couldn't face it&mdash;everybody staring at me,
      grinning at me behind my back! I tried to enlist in the American army, but
      they wouldn't have me&mdash;not to do any sort of work. So I came to
      France, where they need men badly&mdash;they let me carry a stretcher.
      I've been through it all now&mdash;more than a year. I've been wounded
      twice before, but I can't seem to get killed, no matter where I go. It's
      the fellows that want to live that get killed&mdash;damn it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The speaker paused, as if seeing visions of the men whom he had seen die
      when they wanted to live. When he went on, it was in a voice of humble
      entreaty. &ldquo;I've tried to pay for my blunders. All I ask now is to be let
      alone, and not have everybody gossiping about me. That's fair, isn't it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie answered: &ldquo;I give you my word&mdash;I won't tell a soul about it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said Lacey; and then, after a moment's pause, &ldquo;My name is
      Peterson. Herbert Peterson.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      A truck came along and gave them a lift to the nearest dressing-station: a
      couple of tents with big red crosses on them, and a couple more being put
      up, and motor-cars bringing nurses and supplies, and others with loads of
      wounded, French and American. Jimmie was so weak now that he hardly cared
      about anything; he took his place in a row of wounded men, waiting
      patiently, trying not to make a fuss, because this was war, and the Hun
      had to be licked, and everybody was doing his best. He lay down on the
      ground, and shut his eyes; and gradually there came to him a familiar
      odour. At first he thought it was the product of his imagination&mdash;because
      he had just met Lacey Granitch, and had been reminded of the night when he
      and Lizzie had crouched in the room of the lonely farm-house and listened
      to the sounds and smelled the odour through the door. And presently Jimmie
      heard the very same sounds from the tent&mdash;moans and shrieks, babbling
      as of insane men. How strange that both times when he smelt this odour and
      heard these cries he should be with the young master of the Empire Shops!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie's turn came, and they led him into the tent, making short work of
      him&mdash;merely ascertaining that no artery was cut and that he would not
      bleed to death, and then tagging him for the brigade hospital. They loaded
      him into a truck with a score of other &ldquo;sitting cases&rdquo;, including Lacey
      Granitch, and treated him to a long ride which he did not at all enjoy. At
      the hospital, which was a big group of tents, now swarming with activity,
      Jimmie waited his turn again&mdash;so many wounds all at once, and so few
      to tend them!
    </p>
    <p>
      At last he was led into the operating-place; the first sight that greeted
      his eyes being a couple of orderlies carrying out a tub filled with
      sawed-off arms and legs and miscellaneous fragments of men. There was a
      surgeon with a white costume smeared with blood, and a white mask over his
      face, and several nurses with white masks also. Nobody greeted him, or
      stopped for preliminaries&mdash;they laid him on the operating-table, and
      covered all but his shattered arm with a rubber sheet, and slit off his
      bandages, and then a nurse put someting over his face and said, &ldquo;Breathe
      deeply, please.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was that ghastly odour again, but overpowering now. Jimmie breathed,
      and everything began to rock and swim, his head began to roar, worse than
      when he had fought the machine-gun. He could not stand any more of it; he
      cried and struggled to get loose, but they had strapped his feet, and
      someone held his other arm, so his frantic efforts were of no avail.
    </p>
    <p>
      He began to fall; head over heels he went tumbling, into vast bottomless
      abysses-down, down, down. He heard a strange voice saying: &ldquo;Their collars
      are too tight.&rdquo; The words rang in his ears, they assumed monstrous and
      overwhelming significance, they became a whole universe by themselves&mdash;&ldquo;Their
      collars are too tight!&rdquo; All the rest of creation ceased, the lamp of being
      went out; there remained only a voice, pronouncing amid whirling
      infinities: &ldquo;Their collars are too tight!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Somewhere in the vast spaces of chaos was a snore. Then ages afterwards,
      out of the void there arose a mysterious forgotten effort to get something
      out of a choking throat. After several such unaccountable manifestations,
      the feeble flame of consciousness that called itself Jimmie Higgins
      flickered up, and he realized that it was he who was trying desperately
      not to be choked. Also he realized that he was become one horrible pain;
      somebody had driven a nail through his arm, and fastened him tight to the
      ground by it; also they had blown up his stomach, so that it was
      threatening to burst, and when he choked, it was an agony. He gasped for
      help, but no one paid any attention to him; he was all alone in the
      dungeon-house of pain, buried and forgotten for ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      Gradually he emerged from the misty regions of anaesthesia, and realized
      that he was on a stretcher, and being carried. He moaned for water, but no
      one would give it to him. He pleaded that there was something dreadful
      wrong with him, he was going to burst inside; but they told him that was
      only ether gas, and not to worry, he would soon be all right. They laid
      him on a cot in a room, one of a long row, and left him to wrestle with
      demons all alone. This was war, and a man who had only a shattered arm
      might count himself among the lucky.
    </p>
    <p>
      So through a night and a day Jimmie lay and made the best of a bad
      situation. There were two nurses in this tent, and Jimmie, having nothing
      to do but watch them, conceived a bitter rage at them both. One was lean
      and angular and sallow; she went about her duties grimly, with no
      nonsense, and Jimmie did not realize that she was ready to drop with
      exhaustion. The other was pretty, with fluffy yellow hair, and was
      flirting shamelessly with a young doctor. Perhaps Jimmy should have
      reflected that men were being killed rapidly these days, and it was
      necessary that some should concern themselves with supplying the future
      generations; but Jimmie was in no mood to probe the philosophy of
      flirtation&mdash;he remembered the Honourable Beatrice Clendenning, and
      wished he was back in Merrie England. Also he remembered his pacifist
      principles, and wished he had kept out of this hellish war!
    </p>
    <p>
      But his pain became somewhat less, and they loaded him into an ambulance
      and took him farther back, to a big base hospital. Here, before long, he
      was able to sit up, and to be wheeled out into the sunshine, and to
      discover the unguessed raptures of convalescence&mdash;the amazing
      continuous appetite, the amazing continuous supply of good things to eat
      and drink; the bliss of looking at trees and flowers, and listening to the
      singing of birds, and telling other people how you rode out on a
      motor-cycle to look for &ldquo;Botteree Normb Cott&rdquo;&mdash;what the hell was
      that, anyhow?&mdash;and ran into the whole Hun army, and held it up for a
      couple of hours, and won the battle of Chatty Terry all alone!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      One of the first persons Jimmie saw was Lacey Granitch, and Lacey took him
      off to a corner of the park and said, &ldquo;You haven't told anyone?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, Mr. Granitch,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My name is Peterson,&rdquo; said Lacey.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, Mr. Peterson,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a strange acquaintance between these two, chosen from the opposite
      poles of social life, and brought together in the democracy of pain.
      Jimmie had the young lord of Leesville down, and might have walked on his
      face; but strange as it might seem, Jimmie took towards him an attitude of
      timid humility. Jimmie felt that he had betrayed him to a cruel and
      hideous vengeance; moreover, in spite of all his revolutionary fervours,
      Jimmie could not forget that he was talking to one of the masters of the
      world. You might hate with all your soul the prestige and power that went
      with the Granitch millions, but you couldn't be indifferent to it, you
      could never feel natural in the presence of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      As for Lacey, he was no longer the proud, free, rich young aristocrat; he
      had suffered, and learned respect for his fellowmen, regardless of money.
      He heard how this little Socialist machinist, whom once he had cursed in a
      herd of strikers, had ridden into the jaws of death and helped to nail the
      Beast through the snout. So he wanted to know about him, and these two sat
      conversing for hours, each of them discovering a new world.
    </p>
    <p>
      Just now all Europe and America were engaged in furious argument on the
      subject of the Bolsheviki. Had they betrayed democracy to the Hun, or were
      they, as they claimed, leading the way for mankind to a newer and broader
      kind of democracy? Lacey, of course, believed the former&mdash;everyone in
      the American army believed it, and in fact everybody in France, except a
      few dyed-in-the-wool reds. When Lacey found that Jimmie was one of these
      reds, he questioned him, and they had it hot and heavy for days. How could
      men have done what Lenin and Trotzky had done, unless they were paid
      German agents? So Jimmie had to set forth the theory of internationalism;
      the Bolsheviki were making propaganda in Germany, they were doing more to
      break the power of the Kaiser than even the Allied armies. How did Jimmie
      know that? He didn't know the details, of course, but he knew the soul of
      internationalism; he could tell what Lenin and Trotzky were doing, because
      he knew what he would be doing, were he in their place!
    </p>
    <p>
      They talked on and on, and the young lord of Leesville, who would some day
      fall heir to an enormous fortune, and had been trained to think of it as
      his by every right, human and divine, heard a little runt of a machinist
      from the shops explain how he was going to seize that mass of property&mdash;he
      and the rest of his fellows combined into one big union&mdash;and how they
      were going to run it, not for Lacey's benefit, but for the benefit of all
      society. Jimmie forgot all respect for persons when he got on this theme;
      this was his dream, this was the proletariat expropriating the
      expropriators, and he told about it with shining eyes. In time past the
      young lord of Leesville would have answered him with insolent serenity,
      perhaps with a threat of machine-guns; but now he said hesitatingly that
      it was a large programme, and he feared it couldn't be made to work.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      He was moved to question Jimmie about his past life, so as to understand
      how such fanaticism had come to be. So Jimmie told about starvation and
      neglect, about overwork and unemployment, about strikes and jails and
      manifold oppressions. The other listened, nodding his head. &ldquo;Yes, of
      course, that was enough to drive any man to extremes.&rdquo; And then, thinking
      further, &ldquo;I wonder&rdquo;, said he, &ldquo;which of us two got the worse deal from
      life.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was without means of understanding that remark, Lacey had had
      everything, hadn't he? To which Lacey answered, &ldquo;I had too much, and you
      had too little; and which is worse for a man?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      By way of making clear what was in his mind, he told Jimmie a little about
      his own life. He pictured a big household, with a father beset by business
      cares, and turning over the managing of his home to employees. &ldquo;My mother
      was a fool,&rdquo; said Lacey. &ldquo;I suppose it sounds bad for a man to say that,
      but I've known it all my life. Maybe the old man was too busy to look up a
      woman with sense&mdash;or maybe he didn't believe there were any. Anyhow,
      my mother's idea was to be seen spending more money than any other woman
      in town; that was her 'position', and her children were part of the show&mdash;we
      must wear more clothes and bully more servants than anybody else's
      children. I've thought it all out&mdash;I've had lots of opportunity for
      thinking of late. I can't remember when I didn't hit my nurse in the face
      if she tried to take away a toy from me. I never had to ask for anything
      twice&mdash;if I did, I went into a tantrum and got it. I learned to smoke
      and to drink wine, and then came the women&mdash;the women finished me, as
      you know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He paused; and Jimmie nodded sympathetically, remembering the story of the
      eight chorus-girls about whom &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; had read out in the local.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's hell for a boy to have a lot of money,&rdquo; said Lacey, &ldquo;and to be
      preyed on by women. You have your human emotions, of course&mdash;you're
      absolutely compelled to believe in some women; and they're all perfectly
      cold-blooded&mdash;at least the kinds that a rich boy meets. I don't mean
      only adventuresses&mdash;I mean the society-girls, the ones you're
      supposed to marry. Their damned old harpies of mothers are pushing behind
      them, of course&mdash;laying out everything they own for clothes, and not
      knowing how they can pay the bills for last season. They set out to catch
      you, they're mad with the determination, they don't care about reputation,
      they'll do any damned thing. You take them out in your car, and then they
      want to get out and pick flowers, and they draw you into the woods, and
      presently you've got hold of their hands, and then you're hugging and
      kissing them, and then you go the limit. But then you've got to marry
      them; and when they find you won't, they have hysterics, and say they're
      going to shoot their heads off; only they don't shoot their heads off,
      they kiss you some more, and borrow your diamond scarf-pin and forget to
      return it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The young lord of Leesville fell silent. Sombre memories possessed him,
      and Jimmie, darting a swift glance at him, saw the look of weary age on
      his face. &ldquo;I've never talked with anybody about what happened at the end,&rdquo;
       said he, &ldquo;and I never mean to; but I'll say this much&mdash;the time I
      loved a married woman was the only honest love I ever had, because she was
      the only woman who wasn't looking to marry me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That was, of course, too subtle for a man like Jimmie Higgins. But this
      much the little Socialist got&mdash;that the heir of the Granitch fortune
      had been in truth a miserably unhappy mortal. And this was an
      extraordinary revelation to Jimmie, who had taken it for granted that the
      rich were the lucky ones of earth. He had hated them on the supposition
      that they were without care; they were the Lotus-eaters, of whom the poet
      wrote that they
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
                                              &ldquo;live and lie reclined
    On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind,
    For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
    Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
    Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:

    Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
    Blight of famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery
           sands,
    Clanging fights and flaming towns, and sinking ships and pray-
           ing hands.
    But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
    Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong.
    Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
    Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
    Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
    Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil.
</pre>
    <p>
      But now Jimmie had crossed the social chasm, he had seen the other side of
      the problem of riches and poverty. After that revelation, he would be more
      merciful in his judgements of his fellow-mortals; he would understand that
      the system in which we are trapped makes true happiness impossible&mdash;for
      those who have too much as well as for those who have too little.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXV. JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS INTO DANGER
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      While Jimmie wandered through the streets of this French town, letting his
      broken arm get strong again, the death-grapple of the war continued. In
      mid-July the Germans made a last desperate lunge at the Marne; they were
      stopped dead in a couple of days by the French and Americans combined; and
      then the Allied commander-in-chief struck back, smashing in the side of
      the German salient, and driving the enemy, still fighting furiously, but
      moving back from the soil of France. All France caught its breath with
      excitement, with relief mingled with dread. So many times they had hoped,
      through these four weary, hideous years, and so many times their hopes had
      been dashed! But this time there was no mistake&mdash;it was really the
      turning of the tide. The enemy resisted at every step, but he went on
      moving out of the salient, and the Allies went on lunging&mdash;now here,
      now there, see&mdash;sawing back and forth, and keeping their opponents
      bewildered.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie read about it in the army paper, the Stars and Stripes; and now,
      for the first time in four years, Jimmie's mind was one mind on the war.
      Jimmie was on the field of every battle, his teeth set, his hands
      clenched, his whole soul helping at the job. He had got over the disorders
      of anaesthesia, and was forgetting the shock of his wound; he had realized
      that wounds, and even death, were something a man could bear&mdash;not
      cheerfully, of course, not lightly, but you could bear them, if only you
      knew that the Beast was being put out of business.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the old days the word German had meant to Jimmie fellows like Meissner
      and Forster and Schneider; but now it meant a huge grey form looming over
      the edge of a shell-hole, its face distorted with hate, its bayonet poised
      to plunge. Perhaps the most vivid impression of Jimmie's whole life was
      the relief he had felt when he realized that some doughboy had shot a
      bullet into that looming figure. Let there be more doughboys, more and
      more, until the last figure had been shot! Jimmie knew, of course, that
      the policy he had been advocating in America had not tended to that end;
      if Jimmie in Leesville had had his way, there would have been no doughboys
      to rescue Jimmy at Chatty Terry! Jimmie was quite clear on that point now,
      and for the time being the pacifist was dead in him.
    </p>
    <p>
      He listened to the talk of the men in this hospital. They had all been
      through the mill, they had got their wounds, light or severe, but it had
      not broken their spirit&mdash;not a bit of it; there was hardly one among
      them who was not hoping to get cured and to get back into the game before
      it was over. That was how they took it&mdash;a game, the most sensational,
      the most thrilling that a man would ever play. These boys had been brought
      up on football, the principal training and only real interest in life of
      some hundreds of thousands of young Americans every year. They had brought
      the spirit and the method of football with them into the army, and
      communicated it to those less fortunate millions who had been neither to
      college nor to high school: the team-work, the speed, the incessant,
      gruelling drill, the utter, unquestioning loyalty, the persistent
      searching of eager young minds for new combinations, new tricks; and above
      all the complete indifference to the possibility of a broken collar-bone
      or a damaged heart-valve, provided only that the game should be won!
    </p>
    <p>
      This army was attacking a foe who relied on machine-guns to break
      formations and give time to withdraw stores and big guns to safety; so the
      life of young America for the moment had become a study of the arts of
      rushing machine-guns. Jimmie listened to the conversation of the new men,
      and saw the technique being worked out before his eyes. Tanks were all
      right, aeroplanes were all right, when you had them; but mostly you did
      not have them, in time, so the doughboy was learning to take machine-guns
      with the bayonet. You had a little squad, trained like a football team,
      with its own system of signals, its formations worked out by young heads
      put together at night. It was a costly game&mdash;you would be lucky if a
      third of the players came out alive; but if you could get one man to the
      machine-gun with a bayonet, you had won the game&mdash;because he would
      take the gun and turn it about on the retreating Germans, and could kill
      enough of them in a minute to make up for the losses of his squad.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Lacey Granitch's shoulder healed, and he went back to his job. He told
      Jimmie what it had meant to him to meet a Socialist; if he could believe
      what Jimmie believed, he wouldn't mind living, even with his shame. Jimmie
      gave him the names of books to read, and Lacey promised to read them; of
      course, Jimmie was proud and happy&mdash;seeing a vision of the Empire
      Machine Shops turned over to the control of the workers, the capitalist
      system committing hari-kari in one American industry.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie got a letter from one of the working-men in the repair station
      where he had last worked, telling him that the Americans had taken over
      this sector, and now there was a big shop established, and when was he
      coming back? But Jimmie was not so eager to come back; working on
      motor-cycles did not seem a thrilling prospect to one who had held up the
      whole Hun army and won the battle of Chatty Terry. Having proven his
      mettle as a fighting man, Jimmie wondered if there mightn't be some way
      for him to get into the real army, and do a real man's work.
    </p>
    <p>
      He wrote a letter to the officer in command of his motor-unit, telling
      what had happened to him, and couldn't it be arranged? In reply the
      officer said that he would have an investigation made, and if Jimmie's
      story could be verified, he would have honourable mention, and promotion
      of some sort. And sure enough, a month later, when Jimmie was ready to
      leave the hospital, came official notice that he was promoted to be a
      sergeant of motor-transport, and ordered to report to headquarters in a
      certain harbour on the English Channel for assignment. Sergeant Jimmie
      Higgins!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie reported, of course, and was put in charge of a dozen cyclists and
      repair men, newly arrived on a transport. These men looked up to Jimmie as
      a veteran and hero, and Jimmie, who had never enjoyed authority in his
      life before&mdash;except you count Jimmie Junior and the two kids&mdash;may
      have had his head turned just a little bit. But there was real work to be
      done, and no time for strutting. There was excitement in the air, wild
      rumour and speculation; this little unit of Jimmie's, composed of
      specially fit men, was going somewhere on a special errand&mdash;an
      expedition, evidently by sea. Nobody was told where&mdash;that wasn't the
      way in the army; but presently there were issued sheepskin-lined coats and
      heavy wool-lined boots&mdash;in the middle of August! So they knew that
      they were bound for the Far North, and for some time. Could it be a
      surprise attack in the Baltic? Either that, said the wiseheads, or else
      Archangel. Jimmie had never heard of this latter place, and had to ask
      about it. It appeared that the Allies had landed enormous masses of stores
      at this port in far Northern Russia; and now that the Russians had dropped
      out of the war, the Germans were threatening to take possession.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was thrilled to the soles of his new wool-lined boots. He was going
      to Russia, going to see the revolution! Jimmie had but a vague idea of
      world-conditions now, for during the past three or four months he had been
      reading only official papers, which confined their attention to the job,
      and carefully omitted mention of difficulties and complications. The
      people with whom he talked insisted that it was necessary for the Allies
      to do something to counter the Brest-Litovsk treaty; if the Germans were
      allowed to take possession of helpless Russia and use it for their
      purposes, they might hold out for another hundred years. The Russian
      people themselves must realize this, and welcome Allied help! Jimmie
      wasn't sure on this latter point, but he remembered the Rabin brothers and
      their enthusiasm for the Allied cause, so he put his doubts to sleep, and
      helped get his motor-unit stowed on board a transport.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      There came a passage across the North Sea and up the coast of Norway; a
      region of fogs and restless winds, and incessant deadly peril of submarine
      and mine. There were three transports in the expedition, and a couple of
      warships convoying them, and half a dozen destroyers weaving their foam
      patterns in and out. Every day the air grew colder, and the period of
      daylight shorter; they were entering the Land of the Midnight Sun, but at
      the time of year when midnight noons were approaching. The men had plenty
      of time for reading and talk; so Jimmie discussed the war from the
      Socialist point of view, defending the Russian revolutionists; and so, as
      usual, he made somebody angry, and got himself and his seditious opinions
      reported.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lieutenant Gannet was the name of Jimmie's superior officer. He had been a
      clerk in a cotton-mill before the war, and had never had the exercise of
      authority. Now he had to learn suddenly to give orders, and his idea of
      doing it was to be extremely sharp and imperative. He was a deeply
      conscientious young man, keen on the war, and willing to face any hardship
      or peril in fulfilment of his duty; but Jimmie could not have been
      expected to appreciate that&mdash;all Jimmie knew was that his superior
      had a way of glaring from behind his spectacles as if he was sure that
      someone was lying to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lieutenant Gannet didn't ask what Jimmie had said; he told Jimmie what he
      had said, and informed him that that kind of talk wasn't going on in the
      army while he was in hearing. Jimmie's business was to keep some
      motor-cycles in repair, and some cyclists on their job; about other
      matters let him hold his tongue, and not try to run the affairs of the
      nation. Jimmie ventured the remark that he had said nothing but what
      President Wilson was saying all along. To which the lieutenant replied
      that he was not interested in Sergeant Higgins's opinions of President
      Wilson's opinions&mdash;Sergeant Higgins was to keep his opinions to
      himself, or he would get into serious trouble, So Jimmie went away,
      seething with indignation, as much of a rebel as he had ever been in Local
      Leesville.
    </p>
    <p>
      What were the rights of a soldier, anyway? Was he privileged to discuss
      political issues, and to agree with the utterances of the President of his
      country? Might he believe, as the President believed, in a just peace and
      the right of all peoples to freedom and self-determination, even though
      many of the officers of the army hated and despised such ideas? Jimmie
      didn't know, and there was nobody to tell him; but Jimmie knew that he
      hadn't meant to give up his rights as a citizen when he enlisted to fight
      for democracy, and if these rights were taken away from him, it would not
      be without a struggle.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The transports came into the region of icebergs, and low-hanging mists,
      and rocky cliffs covered with snow, and flocks of seagulls flying over
      them. For days and nights on end they steamed in those Arctic waters, and
      came at last into the White Sea, and the harbour of Archangel.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Allies had been here since the beginning of the war, building docks
      and sheds and railway yards; but they had never been able to build enough,
      and the transport department of the corrupt Russian government having gone
      to pieces, here were mountains of supplies of every sort you could think
      of for an army, piled high on the shores. At least, that was what Jimmie
      had been told; he had read in the newspapers that the statement was made
      officially in answer to questions in the British Parliament. Jimmie had
      understood that he was here to save those mountains of supplies from the
      Germans, and he was surprised when he looked about the harbour and saw no
      mountains of any sort.
    </p>
    <p>
      Back in the interior were vast trackless forests of fir-trees, and
      moss-covered swamps in which in summertime a man would sink up to his
      neck. Now, in September, they were already frozen solid, and you travelled
      over them with a sledge and a team of reindeer, bundled up in furs and
      looking, except for the whiskers, like the pictures of Santa Claus you had
      seen when you were a kid. But most of the traffic of the army was upon the
      rivers which cut the forests and swamps, and the single railroad, which
      was being put back into commission.
    </p>
    <p>
      This country had, of course, no roads on which motor-cycles could be used,
      even in summer. Jimmie found that his job would be confined to the city
      and the encampments near about. A few streets would be kept clear of snow,
      and the little band of messengers would scoot about them, now and then
      taking a slide into a snow-bank and smashing things up. That would have
      been all right, and Jimmie would have bossed the job and been happy as he
      knew how to be&mdash;had only his mind been at peace.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the first few days, of course, he had no time to think, he was as busy
      as an ant, getting himself and his men ashore, and setting up their
      benches and tools in an iron shed, with a roaring stove at each end, and
      heaps of firewood which the peasants brought on heavy flat sledges dragged
      by reindeer. Jimmie and his unit worked, not merely during the hours of
      daylight, but most of the hours of darkness, not stopping for Sundays.
      There were five thousand men to be got ashore with their supplies&mdash;and
      in a desperate rush, as if the Germans were expected at any hour. It was
      some while before Jimmie found time to go about the city, to meet the
      &ldquo;Tommies&rdquo;, who had been here a month before him, and to hear what they had
      done, and what they were expecting to do.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had understood that this expedition was to fight the Germans; but
      now he became suspicious; apparently it was to fight the Bolsheviki! The
      social revolution had accomplished itself in Archangel, and a council of
      working-men and peasants had been in full control, when the British troops
      and sailors had made a surprise attack and seized the port, driving the
      revolutionists in confusion before them. Now they were sending an
      expedition up the railroad, and another on steamers up the North Dwina
      river, pursuing Russian Socialists and driving them back into frozen
      swamps! And here were American troops, being hurried ashore, and outfitted
      and made ready to join in what seemed to Jimmie to be warfare upon
      organized working-men!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was almost beside himself with bewilderment. It was all so new and
      strange to him&mdash;and he had nobody to advise him. At home, if there
      were a Socialist problem to settle, he would take it to Meissner or
      Stankewitz, or Comrade Gerrity the organizer, or Comrade Mabel Smith, the
      chairman of the Literature Committee. But now, in all this expedition
      Jimmie did not know a single man who had any idea of radicalism; they
      looked upon the Bolsheviki as mad dogs, as traitors, criminals, lunatics,
      any word that seemed worst to you. The Bolsheviki had deserted the cause
      of the Allies, they had gone into league with Germany to betray Democracy;
      so now the Americans had come to teach them the lesson of law and order.
      The Americans looked upon themselves as an advance guard of a vast
      expedition which was to march to Petrograd and Moscow, and wipe the idea
      of Bolshevism off the map. And Jimmie Higgins was to help! Jimmie Higgins,
      bound and gagged, lashed to the chariot of Militarism, was to take part in
      destroying the first proletarian government in history!
    </p>
    <p>
      The more Jimmie thought of it, the more indignant he became; he took it as
      a personal outrage&mdash;a scurvy trick that had been played upon him. He
      had swallowed their propaganda, he had filled himself up with their
      patriotism, he had dropped everything to come and fight for Democracy. He
      had gone into battle, had risked his life, had suffered wounds and agony
      for them. And now they had broken their bargain with him, they had brought
      him here and ordered him to fight working-men&mdash;just as if he had been
      a militiaman at home! Democracy indeed! Here they were marching in,
      glorying in their purpose to conquer the Russian Revolutionists!
    </p>
    <p>
      And Jimmie Higgins, under martial law, must obey and hold his tongue!
      Jimmie thought of all his friends at home who had denounced the military
      machine; he thought of Comrade Mary Allen, of Comrade Mabel Smith, and
      Comrade Evelyn Baskerville and Comrade Gerrity; he had rejected their
      advice, and now, if they could see what he was doing, how they would spurn
      him! Jimmie writhed at the very thought; nor was he consoled when one of
      the men in his company gave him an &ldquo;inside&rdquo; story of what was happening
      here&mdash;that in order to persuade the British to submit their armies to
      the control of a French general, and thus to save the situation in France,
      the Americans had been forced to submit their own armies also; and now
      they found themselves ordered to march in and fight a revolutionary
      government which had repudiated its debt to France, and so had given
      offence to a naturally frugal people.
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie met a man whom he might almost have taken for Deror Rabin, so much
      did he resemble the little Jewish tailor. A big, black-whiskered peasant
      brought a load of wood for the fires; and there was a Jew helping him&mdash;a
      chap with a sharp face and keen black eyes, his cheeks sunken as if he had
      not had enough to eat for years, and his chest racked by a cough. He had
      wrapped his feet and his hands in rags, because he had neither boots nor
      gloves; but he seemed cheerful, and presently, as he dumped down a load,
      he nodded and said, &ldquo;Hello!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hello yourself!&rdquo; replied Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I speak English,&rdquo; said the fellow.
    </p>
    <p>
      It didn't surprise Jimmie that anybody should speak English; he was only
      surprised when they didn't. So he smiled and said, &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I been in America,&rdquo; went on the other. &ldquo;I vork by sveat-shop in Grand
      Street.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      You could see that he preferred gossiping to carrying wood; he stood about
      and questioned, &ldquo;Vere you vork in America?&rdquo; When the peasant grumbled at
      him in Russian, he went back at his job; but as he went away, he said, &ldquo;I
      talk vit you some time about America.&rdquo; To which, of course, Jimmie
      answered with a friendly assent.
    </p>
    <p>
      A couple of hours later, when he went out from his work, he found the
      little Jew waiting for him in the darkness. &ldquo;I git lonesome some time for
      America,&rdquo; he said; and walked down the street with Jimmie, beating his
      thin arms to keep warm.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why did you come back?&rdquo; Jimmie inquired.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I read about revolution. I tink maybe I git rich.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Huh!&rdquo; said Jimmie, and grinned. &ldquo;What did you get?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You belong to union in America?&rdquo; countered the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You bet I do!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vat sort of union?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Machinists.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You been on strike, maybe?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You bet I have!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You got licked, maybe?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You bet!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don't never scab, hey?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not much!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You vat you call class-conscious?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You bet! I'm a Socialist!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other turned upon him, his voice trembling with sudden excitement.
      &ldquo;You got a red card?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You bet!&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;Right inside my coat.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; cried the other. &ldquo;A comrade!&rdquo; He stretched out his hands, which
      were bundled up with old gunny-sacking, to Jimmie. &ldquo;Tovarish!&rdquo; cried he.
      And standing there in the freezing darkness, these two felt their hearts
      leap into a hot glow. Here, under the Arctic Circle, in this wilderness of
      ice and desolation, even here the spirit of international fraternity was
      working its miracles!
    </p>
    <p>
      But then, shaking with excitement, the little Jew pawed at Jimmie with his
      bundled hands. &ldquo;If you are Socialist, vy you fight de Russian vorkers?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm not fighting them!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You vear de uniform.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm only a motor-cycle man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you help! You kill de Russian people! You destroy de Soviets! Vy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I didn't know about it,&rdquo; pleaded Jimmie. &ldquo;I wanted to fight the Kaiser,
      and they brought me here without telling me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah! So it iss vit militarism, vit capitalism! Ve are slaves! But we vill
      be free! And you vill help, you vill not kill de Russian vorkers!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will not!&rdquo; cried Jimmie, quickly.
    </p>
    <p>
      And the little stranger put his arm through Jimmie's &ldquo;You come vit me,
      quick! I show you someting, tovarish!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      They threaded the dark streets till they came to a row of working-men's
      hovels, made of logs, the cracks stuffed with mud and straw&mdash;places
      in which an American farmer would not have thought it proper to keep his
      cattle. &ldquo;So live de vorkers,&rdquo; said the stranger, and he knocked on the
      door of one of the hovels. It was unbarred by a woman with several
      children about her skirts, and the men entered a cabin lighted by a
      feeble, smoky lamp. There was a huge oven at one side, with a kettle in
      which cabbage was cooking. The man said nothing to the woman, but signed
      Jimmie to a seat before the oven, and fixed his sharp black eyes on his
      face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You show me de red card?&rdquo; he said, suddenly.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie took off his sheepskin-lined overcoat, and unbuttoned his sweater
      underneath, and from an inside pocket of his jacket took out the precious
      card with the due-stamps initialled by the secretaries of Local Leesville
      and Local Hopeland and Local Ironton. The stranger studied it, then
      nodded. &ldquo;Good! I trust you.&rdquo; As he handed back the card he remarked, &ldquo;My
      name is Kalenkin. I am Bolshevik.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie's heart bounded&mdash;though he had guessed as much, of course. &ldquo;We
      called our local in Ironton Bolshevik,&rdquo; said he.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dey drive us out from here,&rdquo; continued the Jew, &ldquo;but I stay behind for
      propaganda. I look for comrades among de Americans, de British. I say, 'Do
      not fight de vorkers, fight de masters, de capitalists.' You understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If de masters find me, dey kill me. But I trust you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll not tell!&rdquo; said Jimmie quickly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You help me,&rdquo; went on the other. &ldquo;You go to de American soldiers, you
      say, 'De Russian people have been slaves so many years; now dey get free,
      and you come to kill dem and made dem slaves again!' Vy iss it? Vat vill
      dey say, tovarish?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie answered: &ldquo;They say they want to lick the Kaiser.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But we help to lick de Kaiser! Ve fight him!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They say you've made peace with him!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ve fight vit propaganda&mdash;de vay de Kaiser fear most of all. Ve spend
      millions of roubles, we print papers, leaflets&mdash;you know, comrade,
      vat Socialists do. Ve send dem into Germany, we drop dem by aeroplanes, we
      have printing-presses in&mdash;vat you call it, de Suisse, de Nederland&mdash;everyvere.
      De Germans read, dey tink, dey say. Vy do we fight for de Kaiser, vy do we
      not be free like de Russians? I know it, tovarish, I have talked vit many
      German soldiers. It goes like a fire in Germany. Maybe it take time&mdash;a
      year&mdash;two years&mdash;but some day people see de Bolsheviki vere
      right, dey know de vorkers, de heart of de vorkers&mdash;dey have de life,
      de fire dat cannot be put out in de heart!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;But you can't tell things like that to the
      doughboys.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; said Kalenkin. &ldquo;Don't I know! I vas in America! Dey tink dey are
      de people vat de good God made! Dey know everyting&mdash;you cannot teach
      dem. Dey are democracy; dey have no classes; vage-slaves&mdash;dat iss
      just foreign&mdash;vat you call it&mdash;scum, hey? Dey vill shoot us&mdash;I
      have seen how dey beat de vorkers ven dey strike on Grand Street.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I've been through it all,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;What can we do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Propaganda!&rdquo; cried Kalenkin. &ldquo;For de first time we have plenty money for
      propaganda&mdash;all de money in Russia for propaganda! Ever'vere in de
      vorld we reach de vorkers&mdash;everyvere we cry to dem: Rise! Rise and
      break your chains! You tink dey vill not hear us, tovarish! De capitalists
      know dey vill hear us, dey tremble, so dey send armies to beat us. Dey
      tink de armies vill obey&mdash;always&mdash;is it not so?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They think the Russian people will rise against you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At which the little man laughed, a wild hilarious laugh. &ldquo;Ve have got our
      own government! For de first time in Russia, de first time in de vorld, de
      vorkers rule; and dey tink we rise against ourselves! Dey put up&mdash;vat
      you call it&mdash;puppets, vat dey call Socialists, dey make a government
      here in Archangel, vat dey call Russian! Dey fool demselves, but dey don't
      fool de Russians!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They think this government will spread,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It vill spread just so far as de armies go&mdash;just so far. But in
      Russia, all de people come together&mdash;all are Bolsheviki, ven dey see
      de foreign armies coming. And vy, tovarish? Because dey know vat it means
      ven capitalists come to make new governments for Russia. It means bonds&mdash;de
      French, de British debt! You know?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure, I know,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is billions, fifteen billions of roubles to France alone. De
      Bolsheviki have said, 'Ve do not pay dem so quick.' And for vy? Vat did
      dey do vit dat money! Dey loaned it to de Tsar, and for vat? To make
      slaves out of de Russian people, to put dem in armies and make dem fight
      de Japanese, to make police-force and send hundert thousand Russian
      Socialists to Siberia! Is it not so? And Russian Socialists pay such
      debts? Not so quick! Ve say, 'Ve had nothing to do vit such money! You
      loaned it to de Tsar, now you collect it from de Tsar! But dey say, 'You
      must pay!' And dey send armies, to take de land of Russia, to take de oil
      and de coal and de gold. So, tovarish! Dey vill put down de Soviets! But
      if so, dey must take ever' town, ever' village in Russia&mdash;and all de
      time we make propaganda vit de soldiers, we make it vit Frenchmen and
      Englishmen and Americans, just like we make it vit Germans!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The little man had made a long speech, and was exhausted; the coughing
      seized him, and he pressed his hands to his chest, and his white face
      flushed red in the firelight. The woman brought him water to drink, and
      stood by him with a hand on his shoulder; her broad peasant's face, deeply
      lined with care, quivered at every spasm of the man's. Jimmie quivered,
      too, sitting there watching, and facing in his own soul a mighty destiny.
      He knew the situation now, he knew his own duty. It was perfectly plain,
      perfectly simple&mdash;his whole life had been one long training for it.
      Something cried out in him, in the words of another proletarian martyr,
      &ldquo;Let this cup pass from Me!&rdquo; But he stilled the voice of his weakness, and
      after a while he said: &ldquo;Tell me what to do, comrade.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Kalenkin asked, &ldquo;You have made propaganda in America?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;I went to jail once for makin' a speech on the
      street.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And the other went to a corner of the cabin, and dug under half a dozen
      cabbages, and brought out a packet. It contained leaflets, a couple of
      hundred perhaps, and the Jew handed one to Jimmie, explaining, &ldquo;Dey ask
      me, 'How shall we make de Americans understand?' I say, 'Dey must know how
      ve make propaganda vit de Germans.' I say, 'Print de proclamations vat we
      give to de German troops, and make English translation, so de Americans
      and de Englishmen can read.' You tink dat help?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie took the leaflet and moved the lamp a bit nearer and read:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Proclamation of the Army Committee of the Russian Twelfth Army
      (Bolshevik), posted throughout the city of Riga during its evacuation by
      the Russians:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;German Soldiers!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Russian soldiers of the Twelfth Army draw your attention to the fact
      that you are carrying on a war for autocracy against Revolution, freedom
      and justice. The victory of Wilhelm will be death to democracy and
      freedom. We withdraw from Riga, but we know that the forces of the
      Revolution will ultimately prove themselves more powerful than the force
      of cannons. We know that in the long run your conscience will overcome
      everything, and that the German soldiers, with the Russian Revolutionary
      Army, will march to the victory of freedom. You are at present stronger
      than we are, but yours is only the victory of brute force. The moral force
      is on our side. History will tell that the German proletarians went
      against their revolutionary brothers, and that they forgot international
      working-class solidarity. This crime you can expiate only by one means.
      You must understand your own and at the same time the universal interests,
      and strain all your immense power against imperialism, and go hand-in-hand
      with us&mdash;toward life and liberty!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie looked up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vat you tink of it?&rdquo; cried Kalenkin, eagerly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fine!&rdquo; cried Jimmie. &ldquo;The very thing they need! Nobody can object to
      that. It's a fact, it's what the Bolsheviki are doing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The other smiled grimly. &ldquo;Tovarish, if dey find you vit dat paper, dey
      shoot you like a dog! Dey shoot us all!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because it is Bolshevik.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie wanted to say. &ldquo;But it's true!&rdquo; However, he realized how naive that
      would sound. So he waited, while Kalenkin went on:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You show it only to men you can trust. You hide de copies, you take vun
      and make it dirty, so you say, 'I find it in de street.' See, iss it so de
      Bolsheviki fight de Kaiser? If it iss so, vy do we need to fight dem? So
      you give dese; and some day I come vit someting new.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie agreed that that was the way to set about it. He folded up a score
      of the leaflets and stowed them in an inside pocket of his jacket, and put
      on his heavy overcoat and gloves, which he wished he could give to the
      sick, half-starved and half-frozen Bolshevik. He patted him reassuringly
      on the back, and said: &ldquo;You trust me, comrade; I'll hand them out, and
      they'll bring results, too, I'll bet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don't tell about me!&rdquo; exclaimed Kalenkin with fierce intensity.
    </p>
    <p>
      To which Jimmie answered. &ldquo;Not if they boil me alive.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXVI. JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie went to supper in the mess-hall; but the piles of steaming hot food
      choked him&mdash;he was thinking of the half-starved little Jew. The
      thirty pieces of silver in the pocket of his army jacket burned each a
      separate hole. Like the Judas of old, he wanted to hang himself, and he
      took a quick method of doing it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Next to him at the table sat a motor-cyclist who had been a union plumber
      before the war, and had agreed with Jimmie that working-men were going to
      get their jobs back or would make the politicians sweat for it. On the way
      out from the meal, Jimmie edged this fellow off and remarked, &ldquo;Say, I've
      got somethin' interestin'.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Now interesting things were rare here under the Arctic Circle. &ldquo;What's
      that?&rdquo; asked the plumber.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was walkin' on the street,&rdquo; said Jimmie, &ldquo;an' I seen a printed paper in
      the gutter. It's a copy of the proclamation the Bolsheviki have made to
      the German soldiers, an' that they're givin' out in the German trenches.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By heck!&rdquo; said the plumber. &ldquo;What's in it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, it calls on them to rise against the Kaiser&mdash;to do what the
      Russians have done.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Can you read German?&rdquo; asked the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Naw,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;This is in English.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But what's it doin' in English?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm sure I dunno.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What's it doin' in Archangel?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dunno that either.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Holy Christ!&rdquo; cried the plumber. &ldquo;I bet them fellers are trying their
      stunts on us!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hadn't thought of that,&rdquo; said Jimmie, subtly. &ldquo;Maybe it's so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They won't get very far with the Yanks, I bet,&rdquo; predicted the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, I suppose not. But, anyhow, it's interesting, what they say.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lemme see it,&rdquo; said the plumber.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But say,&rdquo; said Jimmie, &ldquo;don't you tell nobody. I don't want to get into
      trouble.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mum's the word, old man.&rdquo; And the plumber took the dirty scrap of paper
      and read. &ldquo;By God!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;That's kind o' funny.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, that don't sound like them fellers were backing the Kaiser, does
      it?&rdquo; And the plumber scratched his head. &ldquo;Say, that sounds all right to
      me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Me too!&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;Didn't know they had that much sense.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's just what the German people ought to have, by God,&rdquo; said the
      plumber. &ldquo;Seems to me we ought to hire fellows to give out things like
      that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think so, too,&rdquo; said Jimmie, enraptured.
    </p>
    <p>
      The plumber reflected again. &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the trouble is they
      wouldn't give it to the Germans only; they'd want to give it to both
      sides.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Exactly!&rdquo; said Jimmie, enraptured still more.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And, of course, that wouldn't do,&rdquo; said the plumber; &ldquo;that would
      interfere with discipline.&rdquo; So Jimmie's hopes were dashed.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the upshot of the interview was that the plumber said he would like to
      keep the paper and show it to a couple of other fellows. He promised again
      that he wouldn't mention Jimmie, so Jimmie said all right, and went his
      way, feeling one seed was lodged in good soil.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The &ldquo;Y&rdquo; had come to Archangel along with the rest of the expedition, and
      had set up a hut, in which the men played checkers and read, and bought
      chocolate and cigarettes at prices which they considered too high. Jimmie
      strolled in, and there was a doughboy with whom he had had some chat on
      the transport. This doughboy had been a printer at home, and he had agreed
      with Jimmie that maybe a whole lot of politicians and newspaper editors
      didn't really understand President Wilson's radical thought, and so far as
      they did understand it, hated and feared it. This printer was reading one
      of the popular magazines, full of the intellectual pap which a syndicate
      of big bankers considered safe for the common people. He looked bored, so
      Jimmie strolled up and lured him away, and repeated his play-acting as
      with the plumber&mdash;and with the same result.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then he strolled in to see one of the picture-shows which had been brought
      along to beguile the long Arctic nights for the expedition. The picture
      showed a million-dollar-a-year girl doll-baby in her habitual role, a poor
      little child-waif dressed in the newest fashion and with a row of ringlets
      just out of a band-box, sharing those terrible fates which the poor take
      as an everyday affair, and being rewarded at the end by the love of a rich
      and noble and devoted youth who solves the social problem by setting her
      up in a palace. This also had met with the approval of a syndicate of
      bankers before it reached the common people; and in the very midst of it,
      while the child-waif with the ringlets was being shown in a &ldquo;close-up&rdquo;
       with large drops of water running down her cheeks, the doughboy in the
      seat next to Jimmie remarked, &ldquo;Aw, hell! Why do they keep on giving us
      this bunk?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie suggested that they &ldquo;cut it&rdquo;, and they went out, and Jimmie
      played his little game a third time, and again was asked to leave the
      leaflet he had picked out of the gutter.
    </p>
    <p>
      So on for two days until Jimmie had got rid of the last of the manifestoes
      which Kalenkin had entrusted to him. And on the evening of the last day,
      as the subtle propagandist was about to turn into his bunk for the night,
      there suddenly appeared a sergeant with a file of half a dozen men and
      announced, &ldquo;Higgins, you are under arrest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie stared at him. &ldquo;What for?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Orders&mdash;that's all I know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, wait&mdash;&rdquo; began Jimmie; but the other said there was no wait
      about it, and he took Jimmie by the arm, and one of the other men took him
      by the other arm, and marched him away. A third man slung Jimmie's kit-bag
      on to his shoulder, while the rest began to search the place, ripping open
      the mattress and looking for loose boards in the floor.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It didn't take Jimmie very long to figure out the situation. By that time
      he had come into the presence of Lieutenant Gannet, he had made up his
      mind what had happened, and what he would do about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The lieutenant sat at a table, erect and stiff, with a terrible frown
      behind his glasses. He had his sword on the table and also his automatic&mdash;as
      if he intended to execute Jimmie, and had only to decide which method to
      use.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Higgins,&rdquo; he thundered, &ldquo;where did you get that leaflet?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I found it in the gutter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You lie!&rdquo; said the lieutenant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How many did you find.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had imagined this emergency, and decided to play safe. &ldquo;Three,
      sir,&rdquo; said he; and added, &ldquo;I think.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You lie!&rdquo; thundered the lieutenant again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said Jimmie, meekly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Whom did you give them to?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie hadn't thought of that question. It stumped him. &ldquo;I&mdash;I'd
      rather not say,&rdquo; said he.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I command you to say,&rdquo; said the lieutenant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm sorry, sir, but I couldn't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll have to say before you get through,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;You might as
      well understand that now. You say you found three?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It might have been four,&rdquo; said Jimmie, playing still safer. &ldquo;I didn't pay
      any particular attention to them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You sympathize with these doctrines,&rdquo; said the lieutenant. &ldquo;Do you deny
      it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, no sir&mdash;not exactly. I sympathize with part of them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you found these leaflets in the gutter, and you didn't take the
      trouble to count whether there were three or four?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There couldn't have been five?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know, sir&mdash;I don't think so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Certainly not six?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said Jimmie, feeling quite safe now. &ldquo;I'm sure there weren't
      six.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So the lieutenant opened a drawer in the table before him, and took out a
      bunch of the leaflets, folded, wrinkled and dirt-stained, and spread them
      before Jimmie's eyes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. &ldquo;You lie!&rdquo;
       said the lieutenant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was mistaken, sir,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have you searched this man?&rdquo; the officer demanded of the other soldiers.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not yet, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do it now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They made certain that Jimmie had no weapons, and then they made him strip
      to the skin. They searched everything, even prying loose the soles of his
      boots; and, of course, one of the first things they found was the red card
      in the inside jacket-pocket. &ldquo;Aha!&rdquo; cried the lieutenant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's a card of the Socialist party,&rdquo; said Jimmie.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't you know that back home men who carry that card are being sent to
      jail for twenty years?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It ain't fer carryin' the card,&rdquo; said Jimmie, sturdily.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a pause, while Jimmie got his clothes on again. &ldquo;Now, Higgins,&rdquo;
       said the lieutenant, &ldquo;you have been caught red-handed in treason against
      your country and its flag. The penalty is death. There is just one way you
      can escape&mdash;by making a clean breast of everything. Do you
      understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then tell me who gave you those leaflets?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm sorry, sir, I found them in the gutter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You intend to stick to that silly tale?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's the truth, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You will protect your fellow-conspirators with your life?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have told you all I know, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said the lieutenant. He took a pair of handcuffs from the
      drawer and saw them put on Jimmie. He picked up his sword and his
      automatic&mdash;and Jimmie, who did not understand military procedure,
      stared with fright. But the lieutenant was merely intending to strap the
      weapons on to his belt; then he got into his overcoat and his big fur
      gloves and his fur hat that covered everything but his eyes and nose, and
      ordered Jimmie brought along. Outside an automobile was waiting, and the
      officer and the prisoner and two guards rode to the military jail.
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      There was terror in the soul of the prisoner, but he did not let anyone
      see it. And in the same way Lieutenant Gannet did not let anyone see the
      perplexity that was in his soul. He was a military officer, he had his
      stern military duty to do, and he was doing it; but he had never put
      anybody in handcuffs before, and had never taken anybody to jail before,
      and he was almost as much upset about it as the prisoner.
    </p>
    <p>
      The lieutenant had seen the terrible spectacle of Russia collapsing,
      falling into ruin and humiliation, because of what seemed to him a
      propaganda of treason which had been carried on in her armies; he realized
      that these &ldquo;mad dogs&rdquo; of Bolsheviki were deliberately conspiring to poison
      the other armies, to bring the rest of the world into their condition. It
      seemed to him monstrous that such efforts should be under way in the
      American army. How far had the thing gone? The lieutenant did not know,
      and he was terrified, as men always are in the presence of the unknown. It
      was his plain duty, to which he had sworn himself, to stamp his heel upon
      the head of this snake; but still he was deeply troubled. This Sergeant
      Higgins had been promoted for valour in France, and had been, in spite of
      his reckless tongue, a pretty decent subordinate. And behold, here he was,
      an active conspirator, a propagandist of sedition, a defiant and insolent
      traitor!
    </p>
    <p>
      They came to the jail, which had been constructed by the Tsar for the
      purpose of holding down the people of the region. It loomed, a gigantic
      stone bulk in the darkness; and Jimmie, who had preached in Local
      Leesville that America was worse than Russia, now learned that he had been
      mistaken&mdash;Russia was exactly the same.
    </p>
    <p>
      They entered through a stone gateway, and a steel door opened before them
      and clanged behind them. At a desk sat a sergeant, and except that he was
      British, and that his uniform was brown instead of blue, it might have
      been Leesville, U.S.A. They took down Jimmie's name and address, and then
      Lieutenant Gannet asked: &ldquo;Has Perkins come yet?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not yet, sir,&rdquo; was the reply; but at that moment the front door was
      opened, and there entered a big man, bundled in an overcoat which made him
      even bigger. From the first moment, Jimmie watched this man as a
      fascinated rabbit watches a snake. The little Socialist had had so much to
      do with policemen and detectives in his hunted life that he knew in a
      flash what he was &ldquo;up against&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Perkins before the war had been an &ldquo;operative&rdquo; for a private
      detective agency&mdash;what the workers contemptuously referred to as a
      &ldquo;sleuth&rdquo;. The government, having found itself in sudden need of much
      &ldquo;sleuthing&rdquo;, had been forced to take what help it could get, without too
      close scrutiny. So now Perkins was a sergeant in the secret service; and
      just as the carpenters were hammering nails as at home, and the surgeons
      were cutting flesh as at home, so Perkins was &ldquo;sleuthing&rdquo; as at home.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, sergeant?&rdquo; said the lieutenant. &ldquo;What have you got?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think I've got the story, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      You could see the relief in Gannet's face; and Jimmie's heart went down
      into his boots.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There's just one or two details I want to make sure about,&rdquo; continued
      Perkins. &ldquo;I suppose you won't mind if I question this prisoner?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, not at all,&rdquo; said the other. He was relieved to be able to turn this
      difficult matter over to a man of decision, a professional man, who was
      used to such cases and knew how to handle them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll report to you at once,&rdquo; said Perkins.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'll wait,&rdquo; said the lieutenant.
    </p>
    <p>
      And Perkins took Jimmie's trembling arm in a grip like a vice, and marched
      him down a long stone corridor and down a flight of steps. On the way he
      picked up two other men, also in khaki, who followed him; the four passed
      through a series of underground passages, and entered a stone cell with a
      solid steel door, which they clanged behind them&mdash;a sound that was
      like the knell of doom to poor Jimmie's terrified soul. And instantly
      Sergeant Perkins seized him by the shoulder and whirled him about, and
      glared into his eyes. &ldquo;Now, you little son-of-a-bitch!&rdquo; said he.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having been a detective in an American city, this man was familiar with
      the &ldquo;third degree&rdquo;, whereby prisoners are led to tell what they know, and
      many things which they don't know, but which they know the police want
      them to tell. Of the other two men, one Private Connor, had had this
      inquisition applied to him on more than one occasion. He was a burglar
      with a prison-record; but his last arrest had been in a middle Western
      town for taking part in a bar-room fight, and the judge didn't happen to
      know his record, and accepted his tearful plea, agreeing to suspend
      sentence provided the prisoner would enlist to fight for his country.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other man was named Grady, and had left a wife and three children in a
      tenement in &ldquo;Hell's Kitchen&rdquo;, New York, to come to fight the Kaiser. He
      was a kind-hearted and decent Irishman, who had earned a hard living
      carrying bricks and mortar up a ladder ten hours a day; but he was
      absolutely convinced that there existed, somewhere under his feet, a hell
      of brimstone and sulphur in which he would roast for ever if he disobeyed
      the orders of those who were set in authority over him. Grady knew that
      there were certain wicked men, hating and slandering religion, and luring
      millions of souls into hell; they were called Socialists, or Anarchists,
      and must obviously be emissaries of Satan, so it was God's work to root
      them out and destroy them. Thus the Gradys have reasoned for a thousand
      years; and thus in black dungeons underground they have turned the
      thumb-screws and pulled the levers of the rack. They do it still in many
      of the large cities of America, where superstition runs the police-force,
      in combination with liquor interests and public service corporations.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, you little son-of-a-bitch,&rdquo; said Perkins, &ldquo;listen to me. I been
      lookin' into this business of yours, and I got the names of most of them
      Bolsheviks you been dealing with. But I want to know them all, and I'm
      going to know&mdash;see?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In spite of all his terror, Jimmie's heart leaped with exultation. Perkins
      was lying! He hadn't found out a thing! He was just trying to bluff his
      prisoner, and to make his superior officer think he was a real &ldquo;sleuth&rdquo;.
      He was doing what the police everywhere do&mdash;trying to obtain by
      brutality what they cannot obtain by skill and intelligence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, you're goin' to tell,&rdquo; continued the man. &ldquo;You may think you can
      hold out, but you'll find it's no go. I'll tear you limb from limb if you
      make me&mdash;I'll do just whatever I have to do to make you come through.
      You get me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie nodded his head in a sort of spasm, but his effort to make a sound
      resulted only in a gulp in his throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll only make yourself a lot of pain if you delay, so you'd better be
      sensible. Now&mdash;who are they?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They ain't anybody. They&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So that's it? Well, we'll see.&rdquo; And the sergeant swung Jimmie about, so
      as to be at his back. &ldquo;Hold him,&rdquo; he said to the two men, and they grasped
      the prisoner's shoulders; the sergeant grasped his two wrists, which were
      handcuffed together, and began to force them up Jimmie's back.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ow!&rdquo; cried Jimmie. &ldquo;Stop! Stop!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Will you tell?&rdquo; said the sergeant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried Jimmie, wildly; and as the other pushed harder, he began to
      scream. &ldquo;You'll break my arm! The one that was wounded.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wounded?&rdquo; said the sergeant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was broken by a bullet!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The hell you say!&rdquo; said the sergeant.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's true&mdash;ask anybody! The battle of Chatty Terry in France!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      For just a moment the pressure on Jimmie's arms weakened; but then the
      sergeant remembered that military men who have a career to make do not go
      to their superior officers with sentimentalities. &ldquo;If you were wounded in
      battle,&rdquo; said the sergeant, &ldquo;what you turnin' traitor for? Give me the
      names I want!&rdquo; And he began to push again.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the most horrible agony that Jimmie had ever dreamed of. His voice
      rose to a shriek: &ldquo;Wait! Wait! Listen!&rdquo; The torturer would relax the
      pressure and say: &ldquo;The names?&rdquo; And when Jimmie did not give the names, he
      would press harder yet. Jimmie writhed convulsively, but the other two men
      held him as in a vice. He pleaded, he sobbed and moaned; but the walls of
      this dungeon had been made so that the owners of property outside would
      not be troubled by knowing what was being done in their interest.
    </p>
    <p>
      We go into museums and look at devilish instruments which men once
      employed for the torment of their fellows, and we shudder and congratulate
      ourselves that we live in more humane days; quite overlooking the fact
      that it does not need elaborate instruments to inflict pain on the human
      body. Any man can do it to another, if he has him helpless. The thing that
      is needed is the motive&mdash;that is to say, some form of privilege
      established by law, and protecting itself against rebellion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tell me the names!&rdquo; said the sergeant. He had Jimmie's two hands forced
      up the back of his neck, and was lying over on Jimmie, pushing, pushing.
      Jimmie was blinded with the pain, his whole being convulsed. It was too
      horrible, it could not be! Anything, anything to stop it! A voice shrieked
      in his soul: &ldquo;Tell! Tell!&rdquo; But then he thought of the little Jew, pitiful,
      trusting&mdash;no, no, he would not tell! He would never tell! But then
      what was he to do'? Endure this horror? He could not endure it&mdash;it
      was monstrous!
    </p>
    <p>
      He would writhe and scream, babble and plead and sob. Perhaps there have
      been men who have endured torture with dignity, but Jimmie was not one of
      these. Jimmie was abject, Jimmie was frantic; he did anything, everything
      he could think of&mdash;save one thing, the thing that Perkins kept
      telling him to do.
    </p>
    <p>
      This went on until the sergeant was out of breath; that being one
      disadvantage of the primitive hand-processes of torture to which American
      police-officials have been reduced by political sentimentalism. The
      torturer lost his temper, and began to shake and twist at Jimmie's arms,
      so that Connor had to warn him&mdash;he didn't want to break anything, of
      course.
    </p>
    <p>
      So Perkins said, &ldquo;Put his head down.&rdquo; They bent Jimmie over till his head
      was on the ground, and Grady tied Jimmie's legs to keep them quiet, and
      Connor held his neck fast, and Perkins put his foot on the handcuffs and
      pressed down. By this means he could continue the torture while standing
      erect and breathing freely, a great relief to him. &ldquo;Now, damn you!&rdquo; said
      he. &ldquo;I can stay here all night. Come through!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie thought that each moment of pain was the worst. He had never had
      any idea that pain could endure so long, could burn with such a white and
      searing flame. He ground his teeth together, he chewed his tongue through,
      he gound his face upon the stones. Anything for a respite&mdash;even a new
      kind of pain, that he might forget the screaming ache in his shoulders and
      elbows and wrists. But there was no respite; his spirit was whirled and
      beaten about in bottomless abysses, and from their depths he heard the
      voice of Perkins, as from a far-off mountain-top: &ldquo;Come through! Come
      through&mdash;or you'll stay like this all night!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But Jimmie did not stay like that; for Perkins got tired of standing on
      one foot, and he knew that the Lieutenant was pacing about upstairs,
      wondering why it took so long to ask a few questions. Jimmie heard the
      voice from the far-off mountain-top: &ldquo;This won't do; we'll have to string
      him up for a bit.&rdquo; And he took from his pocket a strong cord, and tied one
      end about Jimmie's two thumbs, and ran the other end over an iron ring in
      the wall of the dungeon&mdash;put there by some agent of the Tsar for use
      in the cause of democracy. The other two men lifted Jimmie till his feet
      were off the ground, and then made fast the cord, and Jimmie hung with his
      full weight from his thumbs, still handcuffed behind his back.
    </p>
    <p>
      So now he was no trouble to the three jailers&mdash;except that he was an
      ugly-looking object, with his face purple and convulsed, and his bloody
      tongue being chewed up. They turned him about, with his face against the
      stones, and then they had nothing but the sounds of him, which had become
      feebler, but were none the less disagreeable, a babbling and gabbling,
      continuous and yet unrhythmic, as if made by a whole menagerie of
      tormented animals.
    </p>
    <p>
      Still the minutes passed, and Perkins's irritation grew. He wouldn't have
      minded for himself, for his nerves were strong, he had handled a good many
      of the I.W.W. in the old days back home; but he had promised to get the
      information, and so his reputation was at stake. He would prod Jimmie and
      say: &ldquo;Will you tell?&rdquo; And when Jimmie still refused, finally he said:
      &ldquo;We'll have to try the water-cure. Connor, get me a couple of pitchers of
      water and a good-sized funnel.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said the ex-burglar, and went out; and meantime Perkins
      addressed his victim again. &ldquo;Listen, you little hell-pup,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I'm
      going to do something new, something that'll break you sure. I been with
      the army in the Philippines, and seen it worked there many's the time, and
      I never yet seen anybody that could stand it. We're going to fill you up
      with water; and we'll leave you to soak for a couple of hours, and then
      we'll put in some more, and we'll keep that up day and night till you come
      through. Now, you better think it over and speak quick, before we get the
      water in, because it ain't so easy to get out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie lay with his face against the wall, and the agony of his tortured
      thumbs was like knives twisted into him; he listened to these threats and
      heard again the cry in his soul for respite at any hazard.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was fighting a battle, the sternest ever fought by man&mdash;the
      battle of conscience against the weakness of the flesh. To tell or not to
      tell? The poor tormented body shrieked, Tell! But conscience, in a feeble
      voice, gasped over and over and over, No! No! No! It had to keep on
      insisting, because the battle was never over, never won. Each moment was a
      new agony, and therefore a fresh temptation; each argument had to be
      repeated without end. Why should he not tell? Because Kalenkin had trusted
      him, and Kalenkin was a comrade. But maybe Kalenkin was gone now, maybe he
      had died of one of his coughing spells, maybe he had heard of Jimmie's
      arrest and made his escape. Maybe they would not torture Kalenkin as they
      had Jimmie, because he was not a soldier; they might just put him in jail
      and keep him there, and others would do the work. Maybe&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      And so on. But the feeble voice whispered in the soul of Jimmie Higgins:
      You are the revolution. You are social justice, struggling for life in
      this world. You are humanity, setting its face to the light, striving to
      reach a new goal, to put behind it an old horror. You are Jesus on the
      Cross; and if you fail, the world goes back, perhaps for ever. You must
      hold out! You must bear this! And this! And this! You must bear everything&mdash;for
      ever&mdash;as long as needs be! You must not &ldquo;come through!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      VIII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Connor came back with his pitchers of water and his funnel! They took
      Jimmie down&mdash;oh, the blessed relief to his thumbs!&mdash;and laid him
      on the ground, with his racked and swollen hands still handcuffed under
      him; and Grady sat on his feet, and Connor sat on his chest, and Perkins
      forced the funnel down his throat and poured in the water.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had to swallow, of course; he had to gulp desperately, to keep from
      being choked; and pretty soon the water filled him up, and then began the
      most fearful agony he had yet endured. It was like the pain of the
      ether-gas, only infinitely worse. He was blown out like a balloon; his
      insides were about to burst; his whole body was one sore boil&mdash;and
      Connor, sitting on his stomach, sat a little harder now and then, to make
      sure the water got jostled into place. Jimmie could not scream, but his
      face turned purple and the cords stood out on his forehead and neck; he
      began to strangle, and this was worst of all; every convulsion of his body
      stabbed him with ten thousand knives.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had talked with a number of the &ldquo;wobblies&rdquo; who had had this
      &ldquo;water-cure&rdquo;, a regular device of police-authorities in small towns and
      villages. It is simple and cheap and cleanly; it leaves no blood and no
      bruises to be exhibited in court; it muzzles the victim, so that his
      screams cannot be heard through jail-windows&mdash;therefore a simple
      denial covers it completely. &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; had had this treatment,
      &ldquo;Strawberry&rdquo; Curran had had it several times. But oh, thought Jimmie, it
      could not be like this&mdash;no human being had ever endured anything like
      this! Poor Jimmie was not learned in history, and did not realize that men
      have endured everything that other men can inflict. They will continue to
      endure it, so long as privilege is written in the law, and allowed to use
      the law in its unholy cause.
    </p>
    <p>
      So the battle of the ages went on in the soul of Jimmie Higgins. He was a
      little runt of a Socialist machinist, with bad teeth and gnarled hands,
      and he could do nothing sublime or inspiring, nothing even dignified; in
      fact, it would be hard for anyone to do anything dignified, when he lies
      on the floor with a gallon or two of water in him, and one man sitting on
      his legs and another on his stomach, and another jamming a funnel into his
      mouth. All Jimmie could do was to fight the fearful fight in the deeps of
      him, and not lose it. &ldquo;Lift your knee if you are ready to tell,&rdquo; Perkins
      would say; and Grady would rise up, so that Jimmie could lift his knee if
      he wanted to; but Jimmie's knee did not lift.
    </p>
    <p>
      Far down in the deeps of Jimmie Higgins' tormented soul, something strange
      was happening. Lying there bound and helpless, despairing, writhing with
      agony, half-insane with the terror of it, Jimmie called for help&mdash;and
      help came to him; the help which penetrates all dungeon walls, and cheats
      all jailors and torturers; that power which breaks all bars of steel and
      bars of fear&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thou has great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love,
      and man's unconquerable mind!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In the soul of Jimmie Higgins was heard that voice which speaks above the
      menaces and commands of tyranny: which says: I am Man, and I prevail. I
      conquer the flesh, I trample upon the body and rise above it. I defy its
      imprisonments, its prudences and fears. I am Truth, and will be heard in
      the world. I am Justice, and will be done in the world. I am Freedom, and
      I break all laws, I defy all repressions, I exult, I proclaim deliverance!&mdash;and
      because, in every age and in every clime, this holy Power has dwelt in the
      soul of man, because this mystic Voice has spoken there, humanity has
      moved out of darkness and savagery into at least the dream of a decent and
      happy world.
    </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie lay, converting his pain into ecstasy, a dizzy and perilous
      rapture, close to the border-line of madness; and Sergeant Perkins arose
      and looked down on him and shook his head. &ldquo;By God!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;What's in
      that little hell-pup?&rdquo; He gave Jimmie a kick in the ribs; and Jimmie's
      soul took a leap, and went whirling through eternities of anguish.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By Jesus, I'll make you talk!&rdquo; cried Perkins, and he began to kick with
      his heavy boots&mdash;until Connor stopped him, knowing that this was not
      ethical&mdash;it would leave marks.
    </p>
    <p>
      So finally the sergeant said abruptly, &ldquo;Wait here.&rdquo; And he went upstairs
      to where Gannet was pacing about.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lieutenant,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that fellow's a stubborn case.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What does he say?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can't get a word out of him. He's a Socialist and a crank, you know,
      and you'd be surprised how ugly some of them fellows can be. As soon as I
      get the story complete I'll report to you, but meantime there's no use
      your waiting here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      So the officer went away, and Perkins went back to the dungeon and gave
      orders that every two hours someone should come and fill Jimmie up with
      water, and give him another chance to say &ldquo;Yes&rdquo;. And Jimmie lay and moaned
      and wept, all by himself, quivering now and then with the perilous
      ecstasy, which does not last, but has to be renewed by continuous efforts
      of the will, as a tired horse has to be driven with spur and whip. Never,
      never could this battle be truly won! Never could the body be wholly
      forgotten, its clamorous demands wholly stilled! God comes, but doubt
      follows closely. What is the use of this fearful sacrifice? What good will
      it accomplish, who will know about it, who will care? Thus Satan in the
      soul, and thus the eternal duel between the new thing that man dreams, and
      the old thing that he has made into law.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXVII. JIMMIE HIGGINS VOTES FOR DEMOCRACY
    </h2>
    <h3>
      I.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Another day had come&mdash;though Jimmie did not know it in his dungeon.
      All he knew was that Sergeant Perkins returned, and stood looking at him,
      picking his teeth with a quill. This little Bolshevik had stood the
      water-cure longer than any man whom Perkins had ever known, and he
      wondered vaguely what sort of damned fool he was, what he thought he was
      accomplishing, anyhow.
    </p>
    <p>
      But it was necessary to keep after him, for Perkins knew that his career
      was at stake. He was supposed to have found out something, and he hadn't!
      So he ordered Jimmie tied up by the thumbs, the poor thumbs that were
      swollen to three times their normal size, and nearly black in colour. But
      now Jimmie's good Mother Nature interfered to stop the proceedings; the
      pain was so exquisite that Jimmie fainted, and when the sergeant saw that
      he was being cheated, he cut his victim down and left him lying on the
      damp stones.
    </p>
    <p>
      So for three days Jimmie's life consisted of alternating swoons and agony&mdash;the
      regular routine of the &ldquo;third degree&rdquo; in more obstinate cases; and always,
      in his conscious moments, Jimmie called upon the God in himself, and the
      God responded with his hosts, and trumpets of triumph echoed in Jimmie's
      soul and he did not &ldquo;come through&rdquo;.
    </p>
    <p>
      So on the fourth day the three torturers entered the cell, and lifted him
      to his feet, and carried him up the stone stairs, and wrapped him in a
      blanket and put him in an automobile.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Listen now,&rdquo; said Perkins, who sat by his side, &ldquo;they're going to try you
      by court-martial. Hear me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie made no response.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And I'll explain this for your health&mdash;if you tell any lies about
      what we done to you, I'll take you back to that dungeon and tear you limb
      from limb. You get me?&rdquo; Still Jimmie did not answer&mdash;the sullen
      little devil, thought Perkins. But in Jimmie's soul there was a faint
      flicker of hope. Might he not make appeal to the higher authorities, and
      be saved from further torture? Jimmie had believed in his country, and in
      his country's purpose to defend democracy; he had read the wonderful
      speeches of President Wilson, and could not bring himself to think that
      the President would permit any man to be tortured in prison. But alas, it
      was a long way from the White House to Archangel&mdash;and still longer if
      you measured it through the ramifications of the army machine, a route
      more thoroughly criss-crossed with red tape than any sector of the
      Hindenburg line with barbed wire.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie was taken into a room where seven officers sat at a big table,
      looking very stern and solemn. Perkins supported him under the arm-pits,
      thus making it look as if he were walking. He was placed in a chair, and
      took a glance about him&mdash;but without seeing much hope in the faces
      which confronted him.
    </p>
    <p>
      The president of the court-martial was Major Gaddis, who had been a
      professor of economics in a great university before the war: that is to
      say, he had been selected by a syndicate of bankers as a man who believed
      in a ruling class, and could never by any possibility be brought to
      believe in anything else. He was a man of strict honour, a very gracious
      and cultivated gentleman if you happened to belong in his social circle;
      but he was convinced that the duty of the lower classes was to obey, and
      that the existence of civilized society depended upon their being made to
      obey.
    </p>
    <p>
      Next to him sat Colonel Nye, as different a type as could be imagined. Nye
      had been a soldier of fortune in Mexico and Central America, and had found
      prosperity as a captain of one of those condottieri bands which were
      organized by the big corporations of America before the war, for the
      purpose of crushing strikes. He had commanded a private army of five
      thousand men, horse, foot and artillery, known to the public as the
      Smithers Detective Agency. During a great coal-strike he had been placed
      by a state government in virtual charge of the militia, and had occupied
      himself in turning loose machine-guns on tent-colonies filled with women
      and children. He had been tried by a militia court-martial for murder and
      acquitted&mdash;thus making it impossible for any civilian grand-jury ever
      to indict him and have him hanged. And now he had been automatically taken
      from the state militia into the national army, where he made a most
      efficient officer, with a reputation as a strict disciplinarian.
    </p>
    <p>
      First-Lieutenant Olsen had been a dry goods clerk, who had gone into an
      officers' training-camp. As he hoped to rise in the world, he looked to
      his superiors always before he expressed an opinion. The same was true of
      Captain Gushing, who was a good-natured young bank-cashier with a pretty
      wife who spent his salary a couple of months before he got it. The fifth
      officer, Lieutenant Gannet, did most of the talking, because he was
      Jimmie's immediate superior, and had conducted the investigations into the
      case. He had discussed the matter with Major Prentice, the Judge-Advocate
      of the court, also with Captain Ardner, the young military lawyer who went
      through the form of defending Jimmie; the three had agreed that the case
      was a most serious one. The propaganda of Bolshevism in this Archangel
      expedition must certainly be nipped in the bud. The charge against Jimmie
      was insubordination and incitement to mutiny, and the penalty was death.
    </p>
    <h3>
      II.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Jimmie sat in his chair, only partly aware of what was going on, because
      of the agony in his swollen thumbs and his twisted arms. His flicker of
      hope had died, and he had lost interest in the proceedings&mdash;all his
      energy was needed to endure his pain. He would not tell them where he had
      got the leaflets, and when they badgered him, he just grunted with pain.
      He would not talk with Captain Ardner, who tried in vain to persuade him
      that he was acting in his&mdash;the prisoner's&mdash;interest. Only twice
      did Jimmie flare up; the first time when Major Gaddis voiced his
      indignation that any citizen of the great American democracy should ally
      himself with these Bolshevik vermin, who were carrying on a reign of
      terror throughout Russia, burning, slaying, torturing&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who talks about torturing?&rdquo; shrieked Jimmie, half-starting from his
      chair. &ldquo;Ain't you been torturing me&mdash;regular tearin' me to pieces?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The court was shocked. &ldquo;Torturing?&rdquo; said Captain Gushing.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Torturin' me for days&mdash;a week, maybe, I dunno, in that there
      dungeon!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Major Gaddis turned to Sergeant Perkins, who stood behind Jimmie's chair,
      barely able to withhold his hands from the prisoner. &ldquo;How about that,
      Sergeant?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is utterly false, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look at these thumbs!&rdquo; cried Jimmie. &ldquo;They strung me up by them!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The prisoner was violent,&rdquo; said Perkins. &ldquo;He nearly killed Private
      Connor, one of the guards, so we had to use severe measures.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's a lie!&rdquo; shrieked Jimmie. But they shut him up, and the dignified
      military machine ground on. Anybody could see that discipline would go to
      pieces if the word of a jailer did not prevail over that of a prisoner,
      the word of a loyal and tried subordinate over that of a traitor and
      conspirator, an avowed sympathizer with the enemy.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presently the presiding officer inquired if the prisoner was aware that he
      had incurred the death-penalty. Getting no reply, he went on to inform the
      prisoner that the court would be apt to inflict this extreme penalty,
      unless he would reconsider and name his accomplices among the Bolsheviki,
      so that the army could protect itself against the propaganda of these
      murderers. So Jimmie flared up again&mdash;but not so violently, rather
      with a touch of fierce irony. &ldquo;Murderers, you say? Ain't you gettin' ready
      to murder me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We are enforcing the law,&rdquo; said the court.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You make what you call law, an' they make what they call law. You kill
      people that disobey, an' so do they. What's the difference?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They are killing all the educated and law-abiding people in Russia,&rdquo;
       declared Major Gaddis, severely.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All the rich people, you mean,&rdquo; said Jimmie. &ldquo;They make the rich obey
      their laws; they give them a chance, the same as everybody else, then if
      they don't obey they kill them&mdash;just as many as they have to kill to
      make them obey. An' don't you do the same with the poor people? Ain't I
      seen you do it, every time there was a strike? Ask Colonel Nye there!
      Didn't he say: 'To hell with habeas corpus&mdash;we'll give them
      post-mortems?'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Colonel Nye flushed; he did not know that his fame had followed him all
      the way from Colorado to the Arctic Circle. The court made haste to
      protect him: &ldquo;We are not conducting a Socialist debate here. It is evident
      that the prisoner is impenitent and defiant, and that there is no reason
      for leniency.&rdquo; So the court proceeded to find Jimmie Higgins guilty as
      charged, and to sentence him to twenty years' military confinement&mdash;really
      quite a mild sentence, considering the circumstances. In New York City at
      this very time they were trying five Russian Jews, all of them mere
      children, one a girl, for exactly the same offence as Jimmie had committed&mdash;distributing
      a plea that American troops should cease to kill Russian Socialists; these
      children received twenty years, and one of them died soon after his arrest&mdash;his
      fellows swore as a result of torture inflicted by Federal secret service
      agents.
    </p>
    <h3>
      III.
    </h3>
    <p>
      So Jimmie was taken back to prison. Major Gaddis, who was really a just
      man, and made law and order his religion, gave the strictest orders that
      the prisoner should not again be hung up by the thumbs. It was, of course,
      desirable to find out who had printed the Bolshevik leaflets, but in the
      effort to make the prisoner tell he should receive only the punishments
      formally approved by the army authorities.
    </p>
    <p>
      So Jimmie went back to the underground dungeon, and for eight hours every
      day a chain was fastened about his wrists, and the other end run up into
      the iron ring, so that his feet barely touched the floor; and there Jimmie
      hung, and tried out his conscience&mdash;this being the test then being
      undergone by many men at the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth.
      Jimmie's conscience really was nothing like as strong as it ought to have
      been. Jimmie had moods of shameless self-pity, moods of desperate and
      agonizing doubt. He did not mean to let his dungeon-keepers know this, but
      they listened behind the door through a slot which the Tsar had had
      contrived for this purpose; it could be closed while the prisoner was
      screaming under torture, and then opened by the jailer without the
      prisoner's knowledge.
    </p>
    <p>
      So Perkins heard Jimmie sobbing and wailing, talking to himself and to
      other people&mdash;to someone called &ldquo;Strawberry&rdquo;, and to someone else
      called &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;, asking them if they had ever suffered anything like
      this, and was it really worth while, would it help the revolution? Perkins
      thought he had got some important information here, and took it to
      Lieutenant Gannet, with the result that inquiry was made through all the
      American Forces for men known as &ldquo;Strawberry&rdquo; and &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo;. But these
      men could not be found; as it happened, &ldquo;Wild Bill&rdquo; had taken refuge in a
      place to which not even the army intelligence service can penetrate, and
      &ldquo;Strawberry&rdquo; Curran was just then being tried with a bunch of other
      &ldquo;wobblies&rdquo; in California and subjected to much the same kind of treatment
      as Jimmie was receiving in Archangel.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a big advantage that Sergeant Perkins had in his struggle with
      Jimmie, that the pitiful weakness of Jimmy's soul was exposed to him,
      while the soul of Perkins was hidden from Jimmie. For the truth was that
      Perkins was suffering from rage, mingled with not a little fear. What the
      hell was this idea that could keep a little runt of a working-man stronger
      than all in authority? And how was this idea to be kept from spreading and
      wrecking the comfortable, well-ordered world in which Perkins expected
      soon to receive an army commission? The very day after the court-martial,
      which was supposed to be a profound military secret, the army authorities
      were astounded to discover, posted in several conspicuous places, a
      placard in English, reading:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;American soldiers, do you know that an army sergeant is being tortured
      and has been sentenced to twenty years in a dungeon for having tried to
      tell you how the Bolsheviki are making propaganda against the German
      Kaiser?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you know the true reason your armies are here? Are you willing to die
      to compel the Russian people to accept your ideas of government? Are you
      willing to have your comrades tortured to keep the facts from you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And of course the doughboys who read this placard wanted to know if it
      told the truth. And quickly word spread that it did. Men who still had
      copies of the leaflet which Jimmie had distributed now found eager readers
      for it, and soon all the men knew its contents, and were debating the
      question of the use of American armies to put down social revolution in a
      foreign country. These same questions were being asked in the halls of
      Congress back home. Senators were questioning the right of sending troops
      into a country against which war had never been declared, and other
      Senators were demanding that they be immediately withdrawn. And this news
      also reached the men, and increased the danger. Archangel was not a
      pleasant place to stay, especially with winter coming on fast; men were
      disposed to grumble&mdash;and now they had a pretext!
    </p>
    <h3>
      IV.
    </h3>
    <p>
      The authorities who were handling this army laboured under one grievous
      handicap, probably never before faced by any army in history. The
      Commander-in-Chief of the army, who determined its policies and tried to
      set its moral tone, kept coming now and then before Congress and making
      speeches full of incendiary and reckless utterances, calculated to set
      dangerous thoughts to buzzing in the heads of soldiers, to break down
      discipline and undermine morale. The President wrote a letter to a
      political convention in which he declared that the workers of America were
      living in &ldquo;economic serfdom&rdquo;; he declared again and again that every
      people had a right to determine their own destinies and form of government
      without outside interference. This while the army was trying to put down
      those Russians who were in revolt against &ldquo;economic serfdom&rdquo; in their own
      country!
    </p>
    <p>
      An army, you see, is a machine built to fight; a man who goes into it and
      takes part in its work, very quickly acquires its tone, which is one of
      abysmal contempt for all politicians, particularly of the talking and
      letter-writing variety, the &ldquo;idealists&rdquo; and &ldquo;dreamers&rdquo; and &ldquo;theorists&rdquo;,
      who do not understand that the business of men is to fight battles and win
      them. All the officers of the old army, the West-Pointers, had been bred
      in the tradition of class-rule, they had in their very bones the idea that
      they were a special breed, that obedience to them was a law of God; while
      of the new officers, the overwhelming majority came from the well-to-do,
      and were not favourable to speech-making and letter-writing about the
      rights of man. They were without enthusiasm for the idea of having a
      pacifist secretary of war set over them by the &ldquo;idealist&rdquo;
       commander-in-chief. They did not hesitate to vent their indignation; and
      when this pacifist secretary gave orders about conscientious objectors
      which were based upon sentimentalism and theory, the army machine took the
      liberty of interpreting these orders and trimming the nonsense out of
      them. And the farther away you got from the office of the pacifist
      secretary, the more thorough the trimming inevitably became; thus
      producing the phenomenon which poor Jimmie Higgins found so bewildering&mdash;that
      policies laid down by sincere humanitarians and liberals in Washington
      were carried out in Archangel by an ex-detective trained in a school of
      corruption and cruelty.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie Higgins couldn't understand that here in Archangel were Americans
      taking their orders from British and French officers, who wasted no breath
      on pacifism and sentiment, who had no fool ideas about wars for democracy.
      Was one obscure little runt of a Socialist machinist to be allowed to
      block their world-plans? Setting himself up as an authority, presuming to
      accept literally the passages of his President, in defiance of their
      authority in Archangel! Allying himself with traitorous and criminal
      scoundrels, trying to poison the minds of American soldiers and light the
      flame of mutiny among them! Just as once Jimmie Higgins had found himself
      in a strategic position where he had held up the whole Hun army and won
      the battle of Chateau-Thierry, so now he found himself in a position of
      equal strategic importance&mdash;on the line of communication of the
      Allied armies attacking Russia, and threatening to cut the line and force
      the armies into retreat!
    </p>
    <h3>
      V.
    </h3>
    <p>
      It became more essential than ever to discover these Bolshevik
      sympathizers and stamp out their propaganda. As hanging Jimmie up by the
      wrists had not brought forth the desired information, Jimmie was put in
      solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water, this being another test
      of sincerity of conscience. For the conscience a diet of white flour and
      water may be all right, but Jimmie soon found that it is very bad indeed
      for the intestinal tract and the blood-stream&mdash;being, in truth, far
      worse than a diet of water alone. The man who lives on white flour and
      water for a few days suffers either from complete stopping of the bowels,
      or else from dysentery; his blood becomes clogged with starch poisons, his
      nerves degenerate, he falls a quick victim to tuberculosis, or pernicious
      anasmia, or some other disease which will prevent his ever being a sound
      man again.
    </p>
    <p>
      Also, Jimmie received the water-treatment, as included in the Fort
      Leavenworth regiment. It was necessary that all prisoners should be
      bathed; which was interpreted by some guards to mean that they should have
      a stream of icy water turned on them, and be forced to stand under it.
      Because Jimmie's arms were too badly injured for him to scrub himself,
      Connor seized a rough brush and salt, and rubbed off strips of his skin.
      When Jimmy wriggled away, they followed him with the hose; when he
      screamed, they turned it into his mouth and nose; when he fell down, they
      let the cold water run over him for ten or fifteen minutes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jimmie had had a good deal of harsh treatment in the course of his outcast
      life, but never so closely concentrated in point of time. His spirit
      remained unbroken, but his body gave way, and then his mind began to give
      also. He fell a victim to delusions; the nightmares which haunted his
      sleep lay siege to his waking hours also, and he thought he was being
      tortured at times when he was just hanging by his chains. Until at last
      Perkins, listening through the door, heard strange cries and grunts,
      beast-like noises, barkings, and growlings. He called Connor and Grady,
      and the three of them stood listening.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By God!&rdquo; said Grady. &ldquo;He's dippy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's nutty,&rdquo; said Connor.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He's batty,&rdquo; said Perkins.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the idea occurred to all of them&mdash;perhaps he was shamming! What
      was easier than for one of those emissaries of Satan to pretend to have a
      devil inside him? So they waited a bit longer, until Connor, coming to
      chain Jimmie up, found him gnawing off the ends of his fingers. That was
      really serious, so they sent for the prison-surgeon, who had to make but a
      brief inspection to convince himself that Jimmie Higgins was a raving
      madman. Jimmie fancied himself some kind of fur-bearing animal, and he was
      in a trap, and was trying to gnaw off his foot so as to escape. He snapped
      his teeth at everyone who came near him; he had to be knocked senseless
      before a straight-jacket could be got on him.
    </p>
    <h3>
      VI.
    </h3>
    <p>
      And so it was that Jimmie Higgins at last made his escape from his
      tormentors. Jimmie doesn't know anything about the Russian Jew, Kalenkin,
      any more; he could not tell the secret if he wanted to, so they have given
      up testing his conscience, and they treat him kindly, and have succeeded
      in persuading him that he is out of the trap. Therefore he is a good beast&mdash;he
      crawls about on all fours, and eats his food out of a tin platter without
      using his gnawed-off fingers. He still has torturing pains in the
      arm-joints, but he does not mind them so much, because, being a beast, he
      suffers only the pain of the moment; he does not know that he is going to
      suffer to-morrow, nor worry about it. He is no longer one of those who
      &ldquo;look before and after and pine for what is not&rdquo;. He is a &ldquo;good doggie&rdquo;,
      and when you pat him on the head he rubs against you and whines
      affectionately.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor, mad Jimmie Higgins will never again trouble his country; but
      Jimmie's friends and partisans, who know the story of his experiences,
      cannot be thus lightly dismissed by Society. In the industrial troubles
      which are threatening the great democracy of the West, there will appear
      men and women animated by a fierce and blazing bitterness; and the great
      democracy of the West will marvel at their state of mind, unable to
      conceive what can have caused it. These rebellious ones will be heard
      quoting to the great democracy the words of its greatest democrat, spoken
      in solemn warning during the slaughter and destruction of the Civil War:
      &ldquo;If God will that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's
      two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until
      every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn
      with the sword, as it was said three thousand years ago, so still it must
      be said, 'The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <h3>
      THE END
    </h3>
    <div style="height: 6em;">
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