Jimmie Higgins Part 11

"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--me, that's been what I have?" And Lizzie went off into another fit, worse than ever.

VI

Jimmie found that it was with romance as with martyrdom--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--her shots went deep home. "How'd you feel, if you was to find out I'd been walkin'

home with some man?" When it was put to him that way, he realized that he would have felt very badly indeed.

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, p.r.o.nounced 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?

They sat on the bed and talked, and Jimmie told her a little about his life, and she told about hers--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 s.e.xually 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt for work as a nursemaid.

That story had made an especial impression upon Jimmie--it was truly a most pitiful episode.

Her place of employment had been a "swell" apartment, with a hall-boy and an elevator--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. "Them's only nits!" Lizzie had said; she had never heard of anybody who did not have "nits" 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 "nits" out of her hair, and how to bathe, and to clean her finger-nails and otherwise be physically decent.

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--he would see Comrade Baskerville at once and tell her it was "all off".

And so Lizzie looked up through her tears. "No," she said, "you don't need to see her at all!"

"What shall I do, then?'"

"Just let her alone--don't tell her nothin'. She'll know it's off all right."

VII

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--all the n.o.ble 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--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--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.

She saw him, and the vivid, welcoming smile came upon her face. She came up to him, and their hands clasped. "Why!" she cried. "What a pleasant meeting!"

Jimmie gulped twice, and then began, "Comrade Baskerville--" And then he gulped again, and began, "Comrade Baskerville--"

She stopped him. "I'm not Comrade Baskerville," she declared.

He could not get the meaning of these unexpected words.

"What?" he said.

"Haven't you heard the news?" she said, and beamed on him. "I'm Comrade Mrs. Gerrity."

He stared at her, utterly bewildered. "I've been that for twenty-four whole hours! Congratulate me!"

Little by little the meaning of the words began to dawn in Jimmie's stupid head. "Comrade Mrs. Gerrity!" he echoed. "But--but--I thought you didn't believe in marriage."

There came the most bewitching smile, a smile decorated with two rows of pearly white teeth. "Don't you understand, Comrade Higgins?

No woman believes in marriage--until she meets the right man."

This was much too subtle. Jimmie was still gaping open-mouthed.

"But then, I thought--I thought--" 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.

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. "Comrade Higgins," she said, "don't think I'm too mean!"

"Mean?" he cried. "Why, no! What? How--"

"Try to imagine you were a girl, Comrade Higgins. You can't propose to a man, can you?"

"Why, no--that is--"

"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?"

Jimmie was still bady dazed, but he saw enough to enable him to stammer, "Yes." And Comrade Baskerville--that is, Comrade Mrs.

Gerrity--gave him her hand again.

"Comrade Higgins," she said, "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?"

And Jimmie clasped the soft, warm hand, and gazed into the s.h.i.+ning brown eyes, and he made a part of the wonderful speech which he had been planning as he walked. He said: "Always! Always!"

CHAPTER VIII

JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT

I

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 airs.h.i.+ps to drop loads of bombs on London and their submarines to sink pa.s.senger-steamers and hospital-s.h.i.+ps. 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 k.u.mme's bicycle-shop on Jefferson Street, Leesville.

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 s.h.i.+pyards which caught fire and burned up, at railroad bridges and s.h.i.+ps at sea destroyed by mysterious explosions. k.u.mme, 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 s.h.i.+ps that went across the water, loaded with sh.e.l.ls 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. k.u.mme took a newspaper printed in German, and a couple of weeklies published in English for the promotion of the German cause; he would mark pa.s.sages in these papers and read them aloud--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 "muck-raked" 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 pa.s.s 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.