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.

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!




III



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--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.

Among those who came to the trial was Comrade Smith, editor of the
Worker, and Jimmie sat with him in Tom's "Buffeteria", 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.

The "boom" 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 "Nob Hill", 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.

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 "Wild Bill" 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; "war-babies", men called them, with
unthinkably cynical wit. On the "Great White Way", to which they
rushed to celebrate these new Arabian Nights, there was such an orgy
of dissipation as the world had never seen. "And is this what we
have to slave for!" yelled "Wild Bill"--looking wilder than ever
since the police had broken his nose and knocked out his three front
teeth. "This is why we are chained to our jobs--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--or steal away another man's wife, as they say he's doing just
now!"

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--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--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!






CHAPTER X

JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE OWNER

I





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--tearing over the country at night honking
their horns like they owned the roads, and covering poor walking
people with their splashings!

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--it had run off the road into the ditch, and then up the
other slope, and there rolled over on to its side.

"Hello!" said a voice, as Jimmie came slopping up.

"Hello!" he answered.

"How far is it to the nearest house?"

"Maybe half a mile."

"Who lives there?"

"I do."

"Have you got a horse and buggy?"

"There's one at the big house, just a piece beyond."

"Do you suppose we could get enough men to turn this car over?"

"I dunno; there ain't many about here."

"Damn!" muttered the man to himself. Then, after a moment, "Well,
there's no use staying here." 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,
"Lead the way, please." So Jimmie set out, slopping through the mud
as before.

Nothing more was said until they reached the "tenant-house" 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!




II



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. "Can you get us
a fire, so this lady can get dry?"

"Y--yes," said Jimmie. "I--I suppose so." But he made no move; he
stood rooted to the spot.

"Lacey," put in the woman, "don't stop for that. Get the car
started, or get another." And Jimmie looked at her; she was rather
small, and very beautiful--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.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Lacey. "You can't travel till you get
dry--you'd be ill." And he turned upon Jimmie. "Get a fire, won't
you?" he exclaimed. "A big fire. I'll make it worth while to you for
whatever you do. Only don't stand there gaping all night," he added
impatiently.

Jimmie leaped to obey; partly because he had been in the habit of
leaping to obey all his life--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.

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. "What does he matter?" 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--

"Oh, nonsense, Helen!" cried Lacey. "You are tormenting yourself
with nightmares. Be sensible and get dry." He piled the wood into
the stove, and ordered Jimmie to get another armful; and Jimmie
obeyed with his hands and feet--but meantime his rebellious little
brain was taking in every detail of the situation, putting this and
that together.

The talking had waked up Lizzie, so Jimmie rushed into the next room
and whispered, "Lacey Granitch is here!" 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--though
she would rather have crawled under the bed than face the celestial
personages who had taken possession of her home.




III



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: "See here, my man; I want you to help me get a gang together,
and I want you to keep quiet, please--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--well worth while.
Do you understand?"

Every instinct in Jimmie Higgins was ready to answer, "Yes, sir."
That was what he had always answered to such commands--he, and his
father, and his father's fathers before him. But something else
within him resisted this instinct--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. "WHO IS THAT LADY?" he
demanded.

Lacey Granitch was so taken aback that he started visibly. "What do
you mean?"

"I mean--is she your wife? Or is she some other man's wife?"

"Why you damned--" 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.

"I know you, Mr. Granitch," he said; "and I know what you're doing.
You might as well know you ain't foolin' nobody."

"What the hell is it to you?" 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. "Listen, my good fellow," he said. "You have a chance to
make a good deal of money to-night--"

"I don't want your money!" broke in Jimmie. "I wouldn't touch your
filthy money, that you get by murdering men!"

"My God!" said Lacey Granitch; and then, weakly: "What have you got
against me?"

"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'--"

"Oh! So that's it, is it?"

"Yes, that's it; but I wouldn't mind that so much--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!"

"You--" 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.

He sped down the path and out into the road--and there was the
headlight of an automobile, almost upon him. The vehicle came to an
instant stop, and a startled voice cried, "Hey, there!"

"Hey, there!" answered Jimmie, and stopped in the light; for he did
not believe that his enemy would dare pursue him there.

The voice from the car spoke again. "There's an automobile off the
road a ways back here. Do you know anything about who the people are
that were driving it?"

"Sure I do!" answered Jimmie promptly.

"Where are they?"

"They're up in that house--Lacey Granitch an' a lady named Helen--"

And instantly the door of the car was flung open. A man leaped out,
and another man, and another; they kept coming--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.




IV



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. "Paul!" she was screaming. "What are you going
to do?"

"Be quiet! Be quiet!" 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. "Answer me!" cried the woman again and again;
until finally he said: "I shan't kill him; but I mean to teach him
his lesson."

"Paul, Paul, have mercy!" sobbed the woman; she went on pleading
hysterically, in the most dreadful distress that Jimmie had ever
seen or heard. "It wasn't his fault, Paul, it was mine! I did it
all! Oh, for Christ's sake! You are driving me mad!" 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.

"You're not going to move me, Helen," he declared. "You might as
well get that clear."

"But I tell you it was my fault, Paul! I ran away with him!"

"All right," answered the man, grimly. "I'll fix him so no other
man's wife will ever run away with him."

Her clamour continued more wildly than ever, until two other men
came into the room. "Joe," said Paul, to one of them, "take her down
to the car and keep her there. Don't let her call for help--if
anybody comes along, keep her quiet, keep your hand tight over her
mouth."

"Paul, you're a fiend!" shrieked the woman. "I'll kill you for
this!"

"You're welcome to," answered the man. "I shouldn't care--but I'm
going to do this job before I die." 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.

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. "My good people,"
he said, "we want to borrow your room for a half-hour or so. We'll
pay you well for it--enough to buy the whole house if you want to."

"W--w--what are you goin' to do?" stammered Jimmie.

"We're going to teach a little fundamental morality to a young man
whose education has been neglected," 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.

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--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.

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 "Paul", now turned to
Jimmie and his wife. "You may take your lamp," he said. "Go into the
other room and stay there till we call you, please."

"W--w--what are you goin' to do?" 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.




V



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.

Every sound from the other room was plainly audible. Lacey was
pleading, and "Paul" 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 "Paul" came in, closing the door
behind him.

"It's all right," said he. "People always make a fuss when they're
given an anaesthetic, so don't let it frighten you." And he stood
there waiting, rigid, grim, while the sounds went on. Finally they
died away and silence fell--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.

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--when finally they began to hear Lacey Granitch again,
moaning, sobbing--most harrowing sounds. "My God! My God!" whispered
Lizzie, "What are they doing?" And when Jimmie did not answer, she
whispered again. "We ought to stop them! We ought to get help!"

But then once more the door opened, and "Paul" came in. "It's all
right now," he said. "He's coming out." Neither of the Jimmies had
the least idea what "coming out" meant, but they were reassured to
know that the masterful person at least was satisfied. They waited;
they heard Lacey vomiting, as it seemed--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--it brought one down to earth again!

"Paul" went out and stayed for a while, and when he came back, he
said, "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--"The man put out his
hand with a roll of bills, which Jimmie mechanically took--"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."

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.

Trembling with terror, Jimmie got up and stole to the door, and
opened it a tiny crack. The room was in utter darkness. "Get me some
water!" 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--everything but his head, which was resting on a pillow. His
face was yellow and twisted with pain. "Water! Water!" 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, "This is
what you got me in for, you damned little skunk!"






CHAPTER XI

JIMMIE HIGGINS FACES THE WAR

I





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--not for all the money that old Granitch had
heaped up in his vaults.

Jimmie kept quiet, as he had been bidden, and apparently no one told
about his part in the affair--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--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.

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.

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--had she not done her part to earn
it? "What part?" Jimmie asked; and she answered that she had kept
quiet--and what more had he done?

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--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--warming her heart, delighting her brain, and stimulating her
liver and digestion.




II



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
"help".

Jimmie stared at him in consternation--for he had thought that he
had a permanent job, having learned the work and having heard no
serious complaints.

"But," explained Cutter, "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."

"And what'll I do in the meantime?" 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--and not a pound of
it his! "Say," he remarked, "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'!"

The little Socialist was all the crosser, because he knew that his
boss had just made a lucky stroke--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
"timber", 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.

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!




III



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--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!

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--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.

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--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. "Freedom in
Ireland!" shrieked Comrade Mary Allen. "And in India! And in Egypt!"
bellowed Comrade Koeln, the glass-blower, whose mighty lungs had
been twenty years preparing for this emergency.

It was hard to stop the laughter--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--in Britain and Canada and Australia and New Zealand and the
United States--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--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--

"All right, you fight!" shouted Comrade Schneider, the brewer, his
purple face more purple than ever before in the history of Local
Leesville.

"I'm going to fight all right," answered the young lawyer. "This is
my last speech here or anywhere else--I'm leaving for an officers'
training-camp to-morrow. I have come here to do my duty, to warn you
comrades--even though I know it will be in vain. The time for debate
has passed--the country is going into war--"

"I'm not going into war!" roared Schneider.

"Be careful," answered the other. "You may find yourself in before
you know it."

And the big brewer laughed to shake the plaster off the walls. "I'd
like to see them send me! To fight for the British sea-power! Ho!
Ho! Ho!"




IV



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--it would show that in a crisis it was as
strong as militarism--

"Yes, and turn itself into militarism to do it!" 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.

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.

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!

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, "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!"






CHAPTER XII

JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS A PATRIOT

I





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--or, to be precise, four obstacles, one
large and three small, the large one being Eleeza Betooser.

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.

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--had there ever in history been such a thing as a married
martyr? If so, what had this martyr done with his family?

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--

"But it's the organization!" he cried. "It's all of us
together--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--"

"But you can't!" cried Lizzie.

"But we're doin' it! Come see!"

"And what can they do?"

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--

"But they won't!" sobbed the woman. "They got no use for you at all!
You go an' get fired--or you get your face beat in, like poor Bill
Murray--"

"But is that any worse than goin' to war?"

"You ain't got to go to war!"

"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?"

"But will they do it here?" cried Lizzie, aghast.

"Sure they will! That's exactly what they're gettin' ready for--what
we're fightin' to stop them from! You don't know what's goin' on in
this country--listen here!"

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. "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--or maybe drowned
by a submarine on the way?"

And thus a new terror was introduced into Lizzie's life--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. "What'd become of the babies?" she wailed; and
Jimmie answered: Whose business was it to bother about working-class
babies, under the hellish capitalist system?




II



So Jimmie had his way for a bit--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 "wilful men",
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!

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--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--and so to Leesville! Everywhere the people would
come into their own, and war and tyranny would vanish like a hateful
nightmare!

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?

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--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--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.




III



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--even here, the workers would read
the lesson of revolt!

"But in America the people can get anything they want!" cried the
bewildered old man. "They only have to vote--"

"VOTE?" snarled Jimmie. "An' have their votes thrown out by some
rotten political gang, like they got here in Leesville? Don't talk
to me about votin'--they told me I'd moved into a new district an'
lost my vote--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--half the
unskilled men in the country got no votes, because they got no home,
no nothin'."

"But," argued the old soldier, "how will you run your new
working-class government, if not by votes?"

"Sure, we'll run it by votes," Jimmie answered--"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--just plain downright lies
they print--we can't get any truth at all to the people."

And so it went. It was of no use for the old man to plead for the
"country"; to Jimmie the "country" had let itself be lost,
suppressed, taken over by the capitalists, the "plutes". 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 "plutes" would take his words and
twist them into whatever sense they wished; and meantime they went
on pouring abuse on Jimmie Higgins--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.