U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [7]
"But I've been a quiet and respectable man, steady and misfortunate ever since I married and settled down. And now what'l they be thinkin' of me sneakin' out like a whipped cur?"
" John, take it from me that I'd be the last one to want to bring disrespect on the dead that was my own sister by birth and blood . . . But it ain't your fault and it ain't my fault . . . it's the fault of poverty, and poverty's the fault of the system . . . Fenian, you listen to Tim O'Hara for a minute and Mil y you listen too, cause a girl ought to know these things just as wel as a man and
-14-for once in his life Tim O'Hara's tel in' the truth . . . It's the fault of the system that don't give a man the fruit of his labor . . . The only man that gets anything out of capitalism is a crook, an' he gets to be a mil ionaire in short order . . . But an honest workin' man like John or muself we can work a hundred years and not leave enough to bury us decent with."
Smoke rol ed white in front of the window shaking out of its folds trees and telegraph poles and little square shingleroofed houses and towns and trol eycars, and long rows of buggies with steaming horses standing in line.
"And who gets the fruit of our labor, the goddam busi-ness men, agents, middlemen who never did a productive piece of work in their life."
Fainy's eyes are fol owing the telegraph wires that sag and soar.
Now, Chicago ain't no paradise, I can promise you
that, John, but it's a better market for a workin' man's muscle and brains at present than the East is . . . And why, did you ask me why . . . ? Supply and demand, they need workers in Chicago.
Tim, I tel yer I feel like a whipped cur.
It's the system, John, it's the goddam lousy system. A great bustle in the car woke Fainy up. It was dark. Mil y was crying again. He didn't know where he was. Wel , gentlemen, Uncle Tim was saying, we're
about to arrive in little old New York.
In the station it was light; that surprised Fainy, who thought it was already night. He and Mil y were left a long time sitting on a suitcase in the waitingroom. The waitingroom was huge, ful of unfamiliarlooking people, scary like people in picturebooks. Mil y kept crying. Hey, Mil y, I'l biff you one if you don't stop crying. Why? whined Mil y, crying al the more. Fainy stood as far away from her as possible so that people wouldn't think they were together. When he was
-15-about ready to cry himself Pop and Uncle Tim came and took them and the suitcase into the restaurant. A strong smel of fresh whisky came from their breaths, and they seemed very bright around the eyes. They al sat at a table with a white cloth and a sympathetic colored man in a white coat handed them a large card ful of printing. Let's eat a good supper, said Uncle Tim, if it's the last thing we do on this earth. Damn the expense, said Pop, it's the system that's
to blame.
To hel with the pope, said Uncle Tim. We'l make
a social-democrat out of you yet.
They gave Fainy fried oysters and chicken and ice-cream and cake, and when they al had to run for the train he had a terrible stitch in his side. They got into a day-coach that smelt of coalgas and armpits. When are we going to bed? Mil y began to whine. We're not going to bed, said Uncle Tim airily. We're going to sleep right here like little mice . . . like little mice in a cheese. I doan like mice, yel ed Mil y with a new flood of tears as the train started.
Fainy's eyes smarted; in his ears was the continuous roar, the clatter clatter over crossings, the sudden snarl under bridges. It was a tunnel, al the way to Chicago it was a tunnel. Opposite him Pop's and Uncle Tim's faces looked red and snarling, he didn't like the way they looked, and the light was smoky and jiggly and outside it was al a tunnel and his eyes hurt and wheels and rails roared in his ears and he fel asleep. When he woke up it was a town and the train was run-ning right through the main street. It was a sunny morn-ing. He could