things with us all the time. We just call 'em our little
companions."

He picked up the garments and walked off proud and happy. I
took my soap and warm water and scrubbed myself from crown to
heel. I put my clothing in the pail with more soap and water and
boiled the outfit thoroughly.

Then I went back to New Orleans and got my old job in the
boarding-house. I saved all my money except my fifteen cents for
the nightly flop. A month later my gang came roaring back from
the peon camp. They had worked thirty days and had not got a
cent. Slave-driver Legree had driven them out when they demanded
a reckoning. They were lucky to escape with their lives, their
cooties and their appetites. Instead of financing me, I had to
finance them again. They finally got cleaned up and we all went
back to Birmingham, where the strike was over.

"Show us that spieler," they said, "who told us the wage system
was the worst kind of slavery. If daily wages is slavery, God
grant that they never set us free again."



CHAPTER XXIX

A SICK, EMACIATED SOCIAL SYSTEM


The hard times I have been describing were in the early