U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [42]
Everything has happened just as I was afraid of. You know what I mean, dearest little husband. It's two months already and I'm so frightened and there's nobody I can tel . Darling, you must come right back. I'l die if you
-101-don't. Honestly I'l die and I'm so lonely for you any-ways and so afraid somebody'l notice. As it is we'l have to go away somewheres when we're married and not come back until plenty of time has elapsed. If I thought I could get work there I'd come to you to Goldfield. I think it would be nice if we went to San Diego. I have friends there and they say it's lovely and there we could tel peo-ple we'd been married a long time. Please come sweetest little husband. I'm so lonely for you and it's so terrible to stand this al alone. The crosses are kisses. Your loving wife,
MAISIE
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Big Bil talked about solidarity and sticking together in the face of the masterclass and Mac kept wondering what Big Bil would do if he'd got a girl in trouble like that. Big Bil was saying the day had come to start building a new society in the shel of the old and for the workers to get ready to assume control of the industries they'd created out of their sweat and blood. When he said, "We stand for the one big union," there was a burst of cheering and clapping from al the wobblies in the hal . Fred Hoff nudged Mac as he clapped. "Let's raise the roof, Mac." The exploiting classes would be helpless against the soli-darity of the whole working class. The militia and the yel owlegs were workingstiffs too. Once they realized the historic mission of solidarity the masterclass couldn't use them to shoot down their brothers anymore. The workers must realize that every smal fight, for higher wages, for freespeech, for decent living conditions, was only signifi-cant as part of the big fight for the revolution and the coöperative commonwealth. Mac forgot about Maisie. By the time Big Bil had finished speaking his mind had run ahead of the speech so that he'd forgotten just what he said, but Mac was in a glow al over and was cheering to beat hel . He and Fred Hoff were cheering and the stocky
-102-Bohemian miner that smelt so bad next them was clapping and the oneeyed Pole on the other side was clapping and the bunch of Wops were clapping and the little Jap who was waiter at the Montezuma Club was clapping and the sixfoot ranchman who'd come in in hopes of seeing a fight was clapping. "Ain't the sonofabitch some orator," he was saying again and again. "I tel yer, Utah's the state for mansized men. I'm from Ogden myself."
After the meeting Big Bil was round at the office and he joked everybody and sat down and wrote an article right there for the paper. He pul ed out a flask and every-body had a drink, except Fred Hoff who didn't like Big Bil 's drinking, or any drinking, and they al went to bed with the next issue on the press, feeling tired and flushed and fine. Next morning when Mac woke up he suddenly thought
of Maisie and reread her letter, and tears came to his eyes sitting on the edge of the cot before anybody was up yet. He stuck his head in a pail of icy water from the pump, that was frozen so hard he had to pour a kettleful of hot water off the stove into it to thaw it, but he couldn't get the worried stiff feeling out of his forehead. When he went over with Fred Hoff to the Chink joint for break-fast he tried to tel him he was going back to San Francisco to get married.
" Mac, you can't do it; we need you here.""But I'l come back, honest I wil , Fred.""A man's first duty's to the workin' class," said Fred Hoff.
"As soon as the kid's born an' she can go back to work I'l come back. But you know how it is, Fred. I can't pay the hospital expenses on seventeenfifty a week."
"You oughta been more careful."
"But hel , Fred, I'm made of flesh and blood like everybody else. For crissake, what do you want us to be, tin saints?"
-103-"A wobbly oughtn't to have any wife or children,