U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [162]
Charley worked on that rol ercoaster al summer until the park closed in September. He lived in a little camp over at Excelsior with Ed Walters and a wop named Spagnolo who had a candy concession.
In the next camp Svenson lived with his six daughters. His wife was dead. Anna the eldest was about thirty and was cashier at the amusement park, two of them were waitresses at the Tonka Bay Hotel and the others were in highschool and didn't work. They were al tal and blond and had nice complexions. Charley fel for the youngest, Emiscah, who was just about his age. They had
-379-a float and a springboard and they al went in swimming together. Charley wore a bathingsuit upper and a pair of khaki pants al summer and got very sunburned. Ed's girl was Zona and al four of them used to go out canoe-ing after the amusement park closed, particularly warm nights when there was a moon. They didn't drink but they smoked cigarettes and played the phonograph and kissed and cuddled up together in the bottom of the canoe. When they'd got back to the boys' camp, Spagnolo would be in bed and they'd haze him a little and put junebugs under his blankets and he'd curse and swear and toss around. Emiscah was a great hand for making fudge, and Charley was crazy about her and she seemed to like him. She taught him how to frenchkiss and would stroke his hair and rub herself up against him like a cat but she never let him go too far and he wouldn't have thought it was right anyway. One night al four of them went out and built a fire under a pine in a patch of big woods up the hil back of the camps. They toasted marshmal ows and sat round the fire tel ing ghoststories. They had blankets and Ed knew how to make a bed with hemlock twigs
stuck in the ground and they al four of them slept in the same blankets and tickled each other and roughhoused around and it took them a long time to get to sleep. Part of the time Charley lay between the two girls and they cuddled up close to him, but he got a hard on and couldn't sleep and was worried for fear the girls would notice. He learned to dance and to play poker and when labor-day came he hadn't saved any money but he felt he'd had a wonderful summer.
He and Ed got a room together in St. Paul. He got
a job as machinist's assistant in the Northern Pacific shops and made fair money. He learned to run an electric lathe and started a course in nightschool to prepare for civil engineering at the Mechanical Arts High. Ed didn't seem to have much luck about jobs, al he seemed to be able
-380-to do was pick up a few dol ars now and then as attendant at a bowling al ey. Sundays they often ate dinner with the Svensons. Mr. Svenson was running a smal movie house cal ed the Leif Ericsson on Fourth Street but things weren't going so wel . He took it for granted that the boys were engaged to two of his daughters and was only too glad to see them come around. Charley took Emiscah out every Saturday night and spent a lot on candy and taking her to vaudevil e shows and to a Chink restaurant where you could dance afterwards. At Christmas he gave her his seal ring and after that she admitted that she was engaged to him. They'd go back to the Svensons' and sit on the sofa in the parlor hugging and kissing.
She seemed to enjoy getting him al wrought up, then she'd run off and go and fix her hair or put some rouge on her face and be gone a long time and he'd hear her upstairs giggling with her sisters. He'd walk up and down in the parlor, where there was only one light in a flowered shade, feeling nervous and jumpy. He didn't know what to do. He didn't want to get married because that 'ud keep him from traveling round the country and getting ahead in studying engineering. The other guys at the shop who weren't married went down the line or picked up streetwalkers, but Charley was afraid