The Friendly Road [55]
and then he said, as if a little remorseful at having turned thus on me:
"Comrade, I tell you, the iron entered my soul--them days."
It seems that the leaders of the strike were mostly old employees like Bill Hahn, and the company had conceived the idea that if these men could be eliminated the organization would collapse, and the strikers be forced back to work. One day Bill Hahn found that proceedings had been started to turn him out of his home, upon which he had not been able to keep up his payments, and at the same time the merchant, of whom he had been a respected customer for years, refused to give him any further credit.
"But we lived somehow," he said, "we lived and we fought."
It was then that he began to see clearly what it all meant. He said he made a great discovery: that the "black people" against whom they had struck in 1894 were not to blame!
"I tell you," said he, "we found when we got started that them black people--we used to call 'em dagoes--were just workin' people like us--and in hell with us. They were good soldiers, them Eyetalians and Poles and Syrians, they fought with us to the end."
I shall not soon forget the intensely dramatic but perfectly simple way in which he told me how he came, as he said, "to see the true light." Holding up his maimed right hand (that trembled a little), he pointed one finger upward.
"I seen the big hand in the sky," he said, "I seen it as clear as daylight."
He said he saw at last what Socialism meant. One day he went home from a strikers' meeting--one of the last, for the men were worn out with their long struggle. It was a bitter cold day, and he was completely discouraged. When he reached his own street he saw a pile of household goods on the sidewalk in front of his home. He saw his wife there wringing her hands and crying. He said he could not take a step further, but sat down on a neighbour's porch and looked and looked. "It was curious," he said, "but the only thing I could see or think about was our old family clock which they had stuck on top of the pile, half tipped over. It looked odd and I wanted to set it up straight. It was the clock we bought when we were married, and we'd had it about twenty years on the mantel in the livin'-room. It was a good clock," he said.
He paused and then smiled a little.
"I never have figured it out why I should have been able to think of nothing but that clock," he said, "but so it was."
When he got home, he found his frail daughter just coming out of the empty house, "coughing as though she was dyin'." Something, he said, seemed to stop inside him. Those were his words: "Something seemed to stop inside 'o me."
He turned away without saying a word, walked back to strike headquarters, borrowed a revolver from a friend, and started out along the main road which led into the better part of the town.
"Did you ever hear o' Robert Winter?" he asked.
"No," said I.
"Well, Robert Winter was the biggest gun of 'em all. He owned the mills there and the largest store and the newspaper-- he pretty nearly owned the town."
He told me much more about Robert Winter which betrayed still a curious sort of feudal admiration for him, and for his great place and power; but I need not dwell on it here. He told me how he climbed through a hemlock hedge (for the stone gateway was guarded) and walked through the snow toward the great house.
"An' all the time I seemed to be seein' my daughter Margy right there before my eyes coughing as though she was dyin'."
It was just nightfall and all the windows were alight. He crept up to a clump of bushes under a window and waited there a moment while he drew out and cocked his revolver. Then he slowly reached upward until his head cleared the sill and he could look into the room. "A big, warm room," he described it.
"Comrade," said he, "I had murder in my heart that night."
So he stood there looking in with the revolver ready cocked in his hand.
"And what do you think I seen there?" he asked.
"I cannot guess," I said.
"Well," said Bill Hahn,
"Comrade, I tell you, the iron entered my soul--them days."
It seems that the leaders of the strike were mostly old employees like Bill Hahn, and the company had conceived the idea that if these men could be eliminated the organization would collapse, and the strikers be forced back to work. One day Bill Hahn found that proceedings had been started to turn him out of his home, upon which he had not been able to keep up his payments, and at the same time the merchant, of whom he had been a respected customer for years, refused to give him any further credit.
"But we lived somehow," he said, "we lived and we fought."
It was then that he began to see clearly what it all meant. He said he made a great discovery: that the "black people" against whom they had struck in 1894 were not to blame!
"I tell you," said he, "we found when we got started that them black people--we used to call 'em dagoes--were just workin' people like us--and in hell with us. They were good soldiers, them Eyetalians and Poles and Syrians, they fought with us to the end."
I shall not soon forget the intensely dramatic but perfectly simple way in which he told me how he came, as he said, "to see the true light." Holding up his maimed right hand (that trembled a little), he pointed one finger upward.
"I seen the big hand in the sky," he said, "I seen it as clear as daylight."
He said he saw at last what Socialism meant. One day he went home from a strikers' meeting--one of the last, for the men were worn out with their long struggle. It was a bitter cold day, and he was completely discouraged. When he reached his own street he saw a pile of household goods on the sidewalk in front of his home. He saw his wife there wringing her hands and crying. He said he could not take a step further, but sat down on a neighbour's porch and looked and looked. "It was curious," he said, "but the only thing I could see or think about was our old family clock which they had stuck on top of the pile, half tipped over. It looked odd and I wanted to set it up straight. It was the clock we bought when we were married, and we'd had it about twenty years on the mantel in the livin'-room. It was a good clock," he said.
He paused and then smiled a little.
"I never have figured it out why I should have been able to think of nothing but that clock," he said, "but so it was."
When he got home, he found his frail daughter just coming out of the empty house, "coughing as though she was dyin'." Something, he said, seemed to stop inside him. Those were his words: "Something seemed to stop inside 'o me."
He turned away without saying a word, walked back to strike headquarters, borrowed a revolver from a friend, and started out along the main road which led into the better part of the town.
"Did you ever hear o' Robert Winter?" he asked.
"No," said I.
"Well, Robert Winter was the biggest gun of 'em all. He owned the mills there and the largest store and the newspaper-- he pretty nearly owned the town."
He told me much more about Robert Winter which betrayed still a curious sort of feudal admiration for him, and for his great place and power; but I need not dwell on it here. He told me how he climbed through a hemlock hedge (for the stone gateway was guarded) and walked through the snow toward the great house.
"An' all the time I seemed to be seein' my daughter Margy right there before my eyes coughing as though she was dyin'."
It was just nightfall and all the windows were alight. He crept up to a clump of bushes under a window and waited there a moment while he drew out and cocked his revolver. Then he slowly reached upward until his head cleared the sill and he could look into the room. "A big, warm room," he described it.
"Comrade," said he, "I had murder in my heart that night."
So he stood there looking in with the revolver ready cocked in his hand.
"And what do you think I seen there?" he asked.
"I cannot guess," I said.
"Well," said Bill Hahn,