theft and so kangarooed into a slave-camp.

But in spite of all my precautions, I landed there after all.
The gang down at the flop house was dazzled by an employment
agent, who offered to ship them out into the rice country to work
on the levee for a dollar a day and cakes. The men were wild for
a square meal and the feel of a dollar in their jeans. So they
all shipped out to the river levee and I went along with the
gang.

As our train rattled over the trestles and through the cypress
swamps the desperate iron workers were singing:


"We'll work a hundred days,

And we'll get a hundred dollars,

And then go North,

And all be rich and happy!"


When we reached the dyke-building camp I learned how ignorant I
really was. I could not do the things the older men could. I was
young and familiar only with the tools of an iron puddler. The
other men were ten years older and had acquired skill in handling
mule-teams and swinging an ax. They saw I couldn't do anything,
so they appointed me water carrier. The employing boss was what
is now called hard-boiled. He was a Cuban, with the face of a