The Harbor Part 38

"I say it still," J. K. cut in. "If you want to help the people you've got to drop your efficiency G.o.ds. You've got to believe in the people first--that all they need is waking up to handle this whole job themselves. You've got to see that they're waking up fast--all over the world--that they're getting tired of G.o.ds above 'em slowly planning out their lives--that they don't want to wait till they're dead to be happy--that they feel poverty every day like a million tons of brick on their chests--it's got so they can't even breathe without thinking! And you've got to see that what they're thinking is, 'Do it yourself and do it quick!' The only thing that's keeping them back is that in these times of peace men get out of the habit of violence!

"But the minute you get this clear in your mind, then I say you can help 'em. Because what's needed is so big. It's not only more pay and shorter hours and homes where they needn't die off like flies--they need more than that--they need a change as much as you--in their whole way of looking at things. They've got to learn that they are a crowd--and can't get anywhere at all until all pull together. Ignorant? Of course they are! But that's where you and me come in--we can help 'em get together faster than they would if left to themselves! You can help that way a lot--by writing to the tenements! _That's_ what I meant!"

Joe stopped short. And after his pa.s.sionate outburst, Eleanore spoke up quietly.

"This sounds funny from you," she said. "A few weeks ago you were just as sure that Billy could do nothing. What has made you change so?"

Joe reddened and looked down at his hands.

"I suppose," he said gruffly after a moment, "it's because I'm still weak from typhoid--weak enough to want to see some one but stokers get into the job that's become my life. You see," he muttered, "I was raised among people like you. It's a kind of a craving, I suppose--like cigarettes." Again he stopped short and there was a pause.

"Rather natural," Sue murmured. Again he turned sharply from her to me.

"I say you can help by your writing," he said. "You call my friends an ignorant mob. But thousands of 'em have read your stuff!"

I looked up at Joe with a start.

"Oh they don't like it," he went on. "It only makes 'em sore and mad.

But if you ever see things right, and get into their side of this fight with that queer fountain-axe of yours, you'll be surprised at the tenement friends who'll pop up all around you. The first thing you know they'll be calling you 'Bill.' That's the kind they are--they don't want to shut anyone out--all they want to know is whether he means business.

If he doesn't he's no use, because they know that sooner or later they'll do it anyhow themselves. It's going to be the biggest fight that's happened since the world began! No cause has ever been so fine, so worth a man's giving his life to aid! And all you've got to decide is this--whether you're to get in now, and help make it a little easier, help make it come without violence--or wait till it all comes to a crash and then be yanked in like a sack of meal!"

Before I could speak, Sue drew a deep breath.

"I don't see how there's any choice about that," she said.

Eleanore turned to her again:

"Do you mean for Billy?"

"I mean for us all," Sue answered. "Even for a person like me!" Sue was beautiful just then--her cheeks aglow, her features tense, a radiant eagerness in her eyes. "I've felt it, oh so long," she said. "It's gone all through my suffrage work--through every speech that I have made--that the suffragists need the working girls and ought to help them win their strikes!"

"And what do _you_ think, Joe?" Eleanore persisted. "Were you speaking of Billy alone just now or did you have Sue, too, in mind?"

Joe looked back at her steadily.

"I don't want to shut out the women," he said. "I've seen too many girls jump in and make a big success of it. Not only working girls, but plenty of college girls like you." He turned from Eleanore to Sue--and with a gruff intensity, "You may think you can't do it, Sue," he said. "But I know you can. I've seen it done, I tell you, all the way from here to the Coast--girls like you as speakers, as regular organizers--forgetting themselves and sinking themselves--ready for any job that comes."

"That's the way I should want to do it," said Sue, her voice a little breathless.

"But how about wives?" asked Eleanore. "For some of these girls marry, I suppose," she added thoughtfully. "At least I hope they do. I hope Sue will."

"I never said anything against that," Joe answered shortly.

"But if they marry and have children," Eleanore continued, "aren't they apt to get sick of it then, even bitter about it, this movement you speak of that takes you in and sinks you down, swallows up every dollar you have and all your thoughts and feelings?"

"It needn't do as much as that," Joe muttered as though to himself.

"Still--I'd like to see it work out," Eleanore persisted. "Do you happen to know the wives of any labor leaders?"

"I do," Joe answered quickly. "The wife of the biggest man we've got.

Jim Marsh arrived in town last night. His wife is with him. She always is."

"Now are you satisfied, dear?" Sue asked. But Eleanore smiled and shook her head.

"Is Mrs. Marsh a radical, too--I mean an agitator?" she asked. Joe's face had clouded a little.

"Not exactly," he replied. Eleanore's eyes were attentive now:

"Do you know her well, Joe?"

"I've met her----"

"I'd like to meet her, too," she said. "And find out how she likes her life."

"I think I know what you'd find," said Sue, in her old c.o.c.ksure, superior manner. "I guess she likes it well enough----"

"Still, dear," Eleanore murmured, "instead of taking things for granted it would be interesting, I think, in all this talk to have one look at a little real life."

"Aren't you just a little afraid of real life, Eleanore?" Sue demanded, in a quick challenging tone.

"Am I?" asked Eleanore placidly.

Long after Joe had left us, Sue kept up that challenging tone. But she did not speak to Eleanore now, her talk like Joe's was aimed at me.

"Why not think it over, Billy?" she urged. "You're not happy now, I never saw you so worried and blue."

"I'm not in the least!" I said stoutly. But Sue did not seem to hear me.

She went on in an eager, absorbed sort of way:

"Why not try it a little? You needn't go as far as Joe Kramer. He may even learn to go slower himself--now that he has had typhoid----"

"Do you think so?" Eleanore put in.

"Why not?" cried Sue impatiently. "If he keeps on at this pace it will kill him! Has he no right to some joy in life? Why should you two have it all? Just think of it, Billy, you have a name, success and a lot of power! Why not use it here? Suppose it is harder! Oh, I get so out of patience with myself and all of us! Our easy, lazy, soft little lives!

Why can't we _give_ ourselves a little?" And she went back over all Joe had said. "It's all so real. So tremendously real," she ended.

"I wonder what's going to happen," said Eleanore when we were alone.

"G.o.d knows," I answered gloomily. That hammering from Joe and Sue had stirred me up all over again. I had doggedly resisted, I had told Sue almost angrily that I meant to keep right on as before. But now she was gone, I was not so sure. "I still feel certain Joe's all wrong," I said aloud. "But he and his kind are so dead in earnest--so ready for any sacrifice to push their utterly wild ideas--that they may get a lot of power. G.o.d help the country if they do."

"I wasn't speaking of the country, my love," my wife informed me cheerfully. "I was speaking of Sue and Joe Kramer."

"Joe," I replied, "will slam right ahead. You can be sure of that, I've got him down cold."

"Have you?" she asked. "And how about Sue?"