VI



They walked home again, more slowly. The Candidate asked Jimmie
about his life, and Jimmie told the story of a Socialist--not one of
the leaders, the "intellectuals", but of the "rank and file".
Jimmie's father was a working man out of a job, who had left his
family before Jimmie had joined it; Jimmie's mother had died three
years later, so he did not remember her, nor could he recall a word
of the foreign language he had spoken at home, nor did he even know
what the language was. He had been taken in charge by the city, and
farmed out to a negro woman who had eight miserable starvelings
under her care, feeding them on gruel and water, and not even giving
them a blanket in winter. You might not think that possible--

"I know America," put in the Candidate.

Jimmie went on. At nine he had been boarded with a woodsaw man, who
worked him sixteen hours a day and beat him in addition; so Jimmie
had skipped out, and for ten years had lived the life of a street
waif in the cities and a hobo on the road. He had learned a bit
about machinery, helping in a garage, and then, in a rush-time, he
had got a job in the Empire Machine Shops. He had stayed in
Leesville, because he had got married; he had met his wife in a
brothel, and she had wanted to quit the life, and they had taken a
chance together.