LOVER OF MANKIND

Debs was a railroad man, born in a weather-
boarded shack at Terre Haute.

He was one of ten children.

His father had come to America in a sailingship
in '49,

an Alsatian from Colmar; not much of a money-
maker, fond of music and reading,

he gave his children a chance to finish public
school and that was about all he could do.

At fifteen Gene Debs was already working as a
machinist on the Indianapolis and Terre Haute Rail-
way.

He worked as locomotive fireman,

clerked in a store

joined the local of the Brotherhood of Locomo-
tive Firemen, was elected secretary, traveled all over
the' country as organizer.

He was a tall shamblefooted man, had a sort of
gusty rhetoric that set on fire the railroad workers in
their pineboarded halls

made them want the world he wanted,

a world brothers might own

where everybody would split even:

I am not a labor leader. I don't want you to fol-
low me or anyone else. If you are looking for a Moses
to lead you out of the capitalist wilderness you will stay
right where you are. I would not lead you into this
promised land if I could, because if I could lead you
in, someone else would lead you out.

That was how he talked to freighthandlers and
gandywalkers, to firemen and switchmen and engi-
neers, telling them it wasn't enough to organize the
railroadmen, that all workers must be organized, that

-26-

all workers must be organized in the workers' coopera-
tive commonwealth.

Locomotive fireman on many a long night's run,

under the smoke a fire burned him up, burned in
gusty words that beat in pineboarded halls; he wanted
his brothers to be free men.

That was what he saw in the crowd that met him
at the Old Wells Street Depot when he came out of
jail after the Pullman strike,

those were the men that chalked up nine hundred
thousand votes for him in nineteen twelve and scared
the frockcoats and the tophats and diamonded hostesses
at Saratoga Springs, Bar Harbor, Lake Geneva with
the bogy of a socialist president.

But where were Gene Debs' brothers in nineteen
eighteen when Woodrow Wilson had him locked up
in Atlanta for speaking against war,

where were the big men fond of whisky and fond
of each other, gentle rambling tellers of stories over
bars in small towns in the Middle West,

quiet men who wanted a house with a porch to
putter around and a fat wife to cook for them, a few
drinks and cigars, a garden to dig in, cronies to chew
the rag with

and wanted to work for it

and others to work for it;

where were the locomotive firemen and engineers
when they hustled him off to Atlanta Penitentiary?

And they brought him back to die in Terre Haute
to sit on his porch in a rocker with a cigar in his
mouth,

-27-

beside him American Beauty roses his wife fixed
in a bowl;

and thepeople of Terre Haute and the people in
Indiana and the people of the Middle West were fond
of him and afraid of him and thought of him as an old
kindly uncle who loved them, and wanted to be with
him and to have him give them candy,

but they were afraid of him as if he had contracted
a social disease, syphilis or leprosy, and thought it was
too bad,

but on account of the flag

and prosperity

and making the world safe for democracy,

they were afraid to be with him,

or to think much about him for fear they might
believe him;

for he said:

While there is a lower class I am of it, while there
is a criminal class I am of it, while there is a soul in
prison I am not free.

THE CAMERA EYE (4.)

riding backwards through the rain in the rumbly cab
looking at their two faces in the jiggly light of the four-
wheeled cab and Her big trunks thumping on the roof
and He reciting Othello in his lawyer's voice

Her father loved me, oft invited me
Still questioned me the story of my life
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes

-28-

That I have past.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it
Wherein I spoke of the most disastrous chances
Of moving accidents by flood and field
Of hairbreadth' scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach

why that's the Schuylkill the horse's hoofs rattle
sharp on smooth wet asphalt after cobbles through the
gray streaks of rain the river shimmers ruddy with winter
mud When I was your age Jack I dove off this bridge
through the rail of the bridge we can look way down
into the cold rainyshimmery water Did you have any
clothes on? Just my shirt

MAC Fainy stood near the door in the crowded elevated
train; against the back of the fat man who held on to the
strap in front of him, he kept rereading a letter on crisp
watermarked stationery:

The Truthseeker Literary Distributing Co., Inc.
General Offices 1104 S. Hamlin Avenue
Chicago, Ill. April 14, 1904
Fenian O'H. McCreary
456 N. Wood Street
Chicago, I11.

DEAR SIR:

We take the pleasure to acknowledge yours of the
10th inst.

-29-

In reference to the matter in hand we feel that much
could be gained by a personal interview. If you will be so
good as to step around to the above address on Monday
April 16th at nine o'clock, we feel that the matter of your
adaptability for the position for which you have applied
can be thoroughly thrashed out.

Yours in search for Truth,

The last one was a grimy door in the back beside the
toilet. The goldleaf had come off the letters, but he was
able to spell out from the outlines:

THE GENERAL OUTFITTING AND MER-
CHANTIZING CORPORATION

Then he saw a card on the wall beside the door with
a hand holding a torch drawn out on it and under it the
words "Truthseeker Inc." He tapped gingerly on the
glass. No answer. He tapped again.

Come in . . . Don't knock, called out a deep voice.
Fainy found himself stuttering as he opened the door and
stepped into a dark, narrow room completely filled up by
two huge rolltop desks:

Please, I called to see Mr. Bingham, sir.

At the further desk, in front of the single window sat
a big man with a big drooping jaw that gave him a little
of the expression of a setter dog. His black hair was long
and curled a little over each ear, on the back of his head
was a broad black felt hat. He leaned back in his chair and
looked Fainy up and down.

How do you do, young man? What kind of books are
you inclined to purchase this morning? What can I do for
you this morning? he boomed.

Are you Mr. Bingham, sir, please?

This is Doc Bingham right here before you.

Please, sir, I . . . I came about that job.

Doc Bingham's expression changed. He twisted his
mouth as if he'd just tasted something sour. He spun
round in his swivelchair and spat into a brass spittoon in
the corner of the room. Then he turned to Fainy again
and leveled a fat finger at him, Young man, how do you
spell experience?

E . . . x . . . p . . . er . . . er . . . er . . . i
a . . . n . . .

That'll do . . . No education . . . I thought as

-31-

EMMANUEL R. BINGHAM, D.D.

Fainy was scared. The train got to his station too soon.
He had fifteen minutes to walk two blocks in. He loafed
along the street, looking in store windows. There was a
golden pheasant, stuffed, in a taxidermist's; above it hung
a big flat greenish fish with a sawtoothed bill from which
dangled a label:

SAWFISH (pristis perrotetti)

Habitat Gulf and Florida waters. Frequents shallow
bays and inlets.

Maybe he wouldn't go at all. In the back of the window
was a lynx and on the other side a bobtailed cat, each on
its limb of a tree. Suddenly he caught his breath. Held be
late. He went tearing off down the block.

He was breathless and his heart was pounding to beat
the cars when he reached the top of the fourth flight of
stairs. He studied the groundglass doors on the landing;

THE UNIVERSAL CONTACT COMPANY
F. W. Perkins
Assurance

THE WINDY CITY MAGIC AND NOVELTY
COMPANY
Dr. Noble
Hospital and Sickroom Supplies

-30-

The last one was a grimy door in the back beside the
toilet. The goldleaf had come off the letters, but he was
able to spell out from the outlines:

THE GENERAL OUTFITTING AND MER-
CHANTIZING CORPORATION

Then he saw a card on the wall beside the door with
a hand holding a torch drawn out on it and under it the
words "Truthseeker Inc." He tapped gingerly on the
glass. No answer. He tapped again.

Come in . . . Don't knock, called out a deep voice.
Fainy found himself stuttering as he opened the door and
stepped into a dark, narrow room completely filled up by
two huge rolltop desks:

Please, I called to see Mr. Bingham, sir.

At the further desk, in front of the single window sat
a big man with a big drooping jaw that gave him a little
of the expression of a setter dog. His black hair was long
and curled a little over each ear, on the back of his head
was a broad black felt hat. He leaned back in his chair and
looked Fainy up and down.

How do you do, young man? What kind of books are
you inclined to purchase this morning? What can I do for
you this morning? he boomed.

Are you Mr. Bingham, sir, please?

This is Doc Bingham right here before you.

Please, sir, I . . . I came about that job.

Doc Bingham's expression changed. He twisted his
mouth as if he'd just tasted something sour. He spun
round in his swivelchair and spat into a brass spittoon in
the corner of the room. Then he turned to Fainy again
and leveled a fat finger at him, Young man, how do you
spell experience?

E . . . x . . . p . . . er . . . er . . . er . . . i
a . . . n . . .

That'll do . . . No education . . . I thought as

-31-

much . . . No culture, none of those finer feelings that
distinguish the civilized man from the savage aborigines
of the wilds . . . No enthusiasm for truth, for bringing
light into dark places . . . Do you realize, young man,
that it is not a job I'm offering you, it is a great oppor-
tunity . . . a splendid opportunity for service and self-
improvement. I'm offering you an education gratis.

Fainy shuffled his feet. He had a husk in his throat.

If it's in the printin' line I guess I could do it.

Well, young man, during the brief interrogatory
through which I'm going to put you, remember that you
stand on the threshold of opportunity.

Doc Bingham ferreted in the pigeonholes of his desk
for a long time, found himself a cigar, bit off the end, lit
it, and then turned again to Fainy, who was standing first
on one foot and then on the other

Well, if you'll tell me your name.

Fenian O'Hara McCreary . . .

Hum . . . Scotch and Irish . . . that's pretty good
stock . . . that's the stock I come from.

Religion?

Fainy squirmed. Pop was a Catholic but . . . He
turned red.

Dr. Bingham laughed, and rubbed his hands.

Oh, religion, what crimes are committed in thy name.
I'm an agnostic myself . . . caring nothing for class or
creed when among friends, though sometimes, my boy,
you have to bow with the wind . . . No, sir, my God is
the truth, that rising ever higher in the hands of honest
men will dispel the mists of ignorance and greed, and
bring freedom and knowledge to mankind . . . Do you
agree with me?

I've been working for my uncle. He's a social-
democrat.

Ah, hotheaded youth . . . Can you drive a horse?

Why, yessir, I guess I could.

-32-

"Well, I don't see why I shouldn't hire you."

"The advertisement in the Tribune said fifteen dollars
a week."

Doc Bingham's voice assumed a particularly velvety
tone.

"Why, Fenian my boy, fifteen dollars a week will be
the minimum you will make . . . Have you ever heard
of the cooperative system? That is how I'm going to hire
you . . . As sole owner and representative of the Truth-
seeker Corporation, I have here a magnificent line of
small books and pamphlets covering every phase of human
knowledge and endeavor . . . I am embarking immedi-
ately on a sales campaign to cover the whole country.
You will be one of my distributors. The books sell at
from ten to fifty cents. On each ten-cent book you make
a cent, on the fifty-cent books you make five cents . . ."

"And don't I get anything every week?" stammered
Fainy.

"Would you be penny-wise and pound-foolish? Throw-
ing away the most magnificent opportunity of a lifetime
for the assurance of a paltry pittance. No, I can see by
your flaming eye, by your rebellious name out of old Ire-
land's history, that you are a young man of spirit and
determination . . . Are we on? Shake hands on it then
and by gad, Fenian, you shall never regret it."

Doc Bingham jumped to his feet and seized Fainy's
hand and shook it.

"Now, Fenian, come with me; we have an important
preliminary errand to perform." Doc Bingham pulled his
hat forward on his head and they walked down the stairs
to the front door; he was a big man and the fat hung
loosely on him as he walked. Anyway, it's a job, Fainy
told himself.

First they went to a tailorshop where a longnosed yel-
low man whom Doc Bingham addressed as Lee shuffled
out to meet them. The tailorshop smelt of steamed cloth

-33-

and cleansing fluid. Lee talked as if he had no palate to
his mouth.

"'M pretty sick man," he said. "Spen' mor'n thou'an'
dollarm on doctor, no get well."

"Well, I'll stand by you; you know that, Lee."

"Hure, Mannie, hure, only you owe me too much
money."

Dr. Emmanuel Bingham glanced at Fainy out of the
corner of his eye.

"I can assure you that the entire financial situation will
be clarified within sixty days . . . But what I want you
to do now is to lend me two of your big cartons, those
cardboard boxes you send suits home in."

"What you wan' to do?"

"My young friend and I have a little project."

"Don't you do nothin' crooked with them cartons; my
name)s on them."

Doc Bingham laughed heartily as they walked out the
door, carrying under each arm one of the big flat cartons
that had Levy and Goldstein, Reliable Tailoring, written
on them in florid lettering.

"He's a great joker, Fenian," he said. "But let that
man's lamentable condition be a lesson to you . . . The
poor unfortunate is suffering from the consequences of a
horrible social disease, contracted through some youthful
folly."

They were passing the taxidermist's store again. There
were the wildcats and the golden pheasant and the big
sawfish . . . Frequents shallow bays and inlets. Fainy
had a temptation to drop the tailor's cartons and run for
it. But anyhow, it was a job.

" Fenian," said Doc Bingham, confidentially, "do you
know the Mohawk House?"

"Yessir, we used to do their printing for them."

"They don't know you there, do they?"

-34-

"Naw, they wouldn't know me from Adam . . . I just
delivered some writin' paper there once."

"That's superb . . . Now get this right; my room is
303. You wait and come in about five minutes. You're the
boy from the tailor's, see, getting some suits to be cleaned.
Then you come up to my room and get the suits and take
'em round to my office. If anybody asks you where you're
going with 'em, you're goin' to Levy and Goldstein, see?"

Fainy drew a deep breath.

"Sure, I get you."

When he reached the small room in the top of the
Mohawk House, Doc Bingham was pacing the floor.

" Levy and Goldstein, sir," said Fainy, keeping his face
straight.

"My boy," said Doc Bingham, "you'll be an able assist-
ant; I'm glad I picked you out. I'll give you a dollar in
advance on your wages." While he talked he was taking
clothes, papers, old books, out of a big trunk that stood
in the middle of the floor. He packed them carefully in
one of the cartons. In the other he put a furlined over-
coat. "That coat cost two hundred dollars, Fenian, a rem-
nant of former splendors . . . Ah, the autumn leaves at
Vallombrosa. . . . Et tu in Arcadia vixisti . . . That's
Latin, a language of scholars."

"My Uncle Tim who ran the printing shop where I
worked knew Latin fine."

"Do you think you can carry these, Fenian . . . they're
not too heavy?"

"Sure I can carry 'em." Fainy wanted to ask about the
dollar.

"All right, you'd better run along . . . Wait for me
at the office."

In the office Fainy found a man sitting at the second
rolltop desk. "Well, what's your business?" he yelled out
in a rasping voice. He was a sharpnosed waxyskinned
young man with straight black hair standing straight up.

-35-

Fainy was winded from running up the stairs. His arms
were stiff from carrying the heavy cartons. "I suppose
this is some more of Mannie's tomfoolishness. Tell him
he's got to clear out of here; I've rented the other desk."

"But Dr. Bingham has just hired me to work for the
Truthseeker Literary Distributing Company."

"The hell he has."

"He'll be here in a minute."

"Well, sit down and shut up; can't you see I'm busy?"

Fainy sat down glumly in the swivelchair by the win-
dow, the only chair in the office not piled high with small
papercovered books. Outside the window he could see a
few dusty roofs and fire escapes. Through grimy windows
he could see other offices, other rolltop desks. On the desk
in front of him were paperwrapped packages of books.
Between them were masses of loose booklets. His eye
caught a title:

THE QUEEN OF THE WHITE SLAVES

Scandalous revelations of Milly Meecham stolen from
her parents at the age of sixteen, tricked by her vile
seducer into a life of infamy and shame.

He started reading the book. His tongue got dry and
he felt sticky all over.

"Nobody said anything to you, eh?" Doc Bingham's
booming voice broke in on his reading. Before he could
answer the voice of the man at the other desk snarled out:
"Look here, Mannie, you've got to clear out of here . . .
I've rented the desk."

"Shake not thy gory locks at me, Samuel Epstein. My
young friend and I are just preparing an expedition
among the aborigines of darkest Michigan. We are leav-
ing for Saginaw tonight. Within sixty days I'll come back
and take the office off your hands. This young man is
coming with me to learn the business."

-36-

"Business, hell," growled the other man, and shoved
his face back down among his papers again.

"Procrastination, Fenian, is the thief of time," said Doc
Bingham, putting one fat hand Napoleonfashion into his
doublebreasted vest. "There is a tide in the affairs of men
that taken at its full . . ." And for two hours Fainy
sweated under his direction, packing booklets into brown
paper packages, tying them and addressing them to Truth-
seeker Inc., Saginaw, Mich.

He begged off for an hour to go home to see his folks.
Milly kissed him on the forehead with thin tight lips.
Then she burst out crying. "You're lucky; oh, I wish I
was a boy," she spluttered and ran upstairs. Mrs. O'Hara
said to be a good boy and always live at the Y.M.C.A. --
that kept a boy out of temptation, and to let his Uncle
Tim be a lesson to him, with his boozin' ways.

His throat was pretty tight when he went to look for
his Uncle Tim. He found him in the back room at
O'Grady's. His eyes were a flat bright blue and his lower
lip trembled when he spoke, "Have one drink with me,
son, you're on your own now." Fainy drank down a beer
without tasting it.

" Fainy, you're a bright boy . . . I wish I could have
helped you more; you're an O'Hara every inch of you.
You read Marx . . . study all you can, remember that
you're a rebel by birth and blood . . . Don't blame peo-
ple for things . . . Look at that terrible forktongued
virago I'm married to; do I blame her? No, I blame the
system. And don't ever sell out to the sons of bitches, son;
it's women'll make you sell out every time. You know
what I mean. All right, go on . . . better cut along or
you'll miss your train." "I'll write you from Saginaw,
Uncle Tim, honest I will."

Uncle Tim's lanky red face in the empty cigarsmoky
room, the bar and its glint of brass and the pinkarmed
barkeep leaning across it, the bottles and the mirrors and

-37-

the portrait of Lincoln gave a misty half turn in his head
and he was out in the shiny rainy street under the shiny
clouds, hurrying for the Elevated station with his suitcase
in his hand.

At the Illinois Central station he found Doc Bingham
waiting for him, in the middle of a ring of brown paper
parcels. Fen felt a little funny inside when he saw him,
the greasy sallow jowls, the doublebreasted vest, the
baggy black ministerial coat, the dusty black felt hat that
made the hair stick out in a sudden fuzzycurl over the
beefy ears. Anyway, it was a job.

"It must be admitted, Fenian," began Doc Bingham as
soon as Fainy had come up to him, "that confident as I
am of my knowledge of human nature I was a little afraid
you wouldn't turn up. Where is it that the poet says that
difficult is the first fluttering course of the fledgeling from
the nest. Put these packages on the train while I go pur-
chase tickets, and be sure it's a smoker."

After the train had started and the conductor had
punched the tickets Doc Bingham leaned over and tapped
Fainy on the knee with a chubby forefinger. "I'm glad
you're a neat dresser, my boy; you must never forget the
importance of putting up a fine front to the world.
Though the heart be as dust and ashes, yet must the outer
man be sprightly and of good cheer. We will go sit for
a while in the pullman smoker up ahead to get away from
the yokels."

It was raining hard and the windows of the train were
striped with transverse beaded streaks against the dark-
ness. Fainy felt uneasy as he followed Doc Bingham
lurching through the greenplush parlor car to the small
leather upholstered smokingcompartment at the end.
There Doc Bingham drew a large cigar from his pocket
and began blowing a magnificent series of smoke rings.
Fainy sat beside him with his feet under the seat trying
to take up as little room as possible.

-38-

Gradually the compartment filled up with silent men
and crinkly spiralling cigarsmoke. Outside the rain beat
against the windows with a gravelly sound. For a long
time nobody said anything. Occasionally a man cleared his
throat and let fly towards the cuspidor with a big gob of
phlegm or a jet of tobacco juice.

"Well, sir," a voice began, coming from nowhere in-
particular, addressed to nowhere in particular, "it was a
great old inauguration even if we did freeze to death."

"Were you in Washington?"

"Yessir, I was in Washington."

"Most of the trains didn't get in till the next day."

"I know it; I was lucky, there was some of them
snowed up for forty-eight hours."

"Some blizzard all right."

All day the gusty northwind bore
The lessening drift its breath before
Low circling through its southern zone
The sun through dazzling snowmist shone,

recited Doc Bingham coyly, with downcast eyes.

"You must have a good memory to be able to recite
verses right off the reel like that."

"Yessir, I have a memory that may I think, without
undue violation of modesty, be called compendious. Were
it a natural gift I should be forced to blush and remain
silent, but since it is the result of forty years of study of
what is best in the world's epic lyric and dramatic litera-
tures, I feel that to call attention to it may sometimes
encourage some other whose feet are also bound on the
paths of enlightenment and selfeducation." He turned
suddenly to Fainy. "Young man, would you like to hear
Othello's address to the Venetian senate?"

"Sure I would," said Fainy, blushing.

"Well, at last Teddy has a chance to carry out his word
about fighting the trusts." "I'm telling you the insurgent

-39-

farmer vote of the great Northwest . . ." "Terrible thing
the wreck of those inauguration specials."

But Doc Bingham was off:

Most potent grave and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter
It is most true; true, I have married her . . .

"They won't get away with those antitrust laws, be-
lieve me they won't. You can't curtail the liberty of the
individual liberty in that way." "It's the liberty of the
individual business man that the progressive wing of the
Republican party is trying to protect."

But Doc Bingham was on his feet, one hand was tucked
into his doublebreasted vest, with the other he was mak-
ing broad circular gestures:

Rude am I in speech
And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace,
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith
Till now some nine moons wasted they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field.

"The farmer vote," the other man began shrilly, but
nobody was listening. Doc Bingham had the floor.

And little of the great world can I speak
More than pertains to broils and battle
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself.

The train began to slacken speed. Doc Bingham's voice
sounded oddly loud in the lessened noise. Fainy felt his
back pushing into the back of the seat and then suddenly
there was stillness and the sound of an engine bell in the
distance and Doc Bingham's voice in a queasy whisper:

"Gentlemen, I have here in pamphlet form a complete
and unexpurgated edition of one of the world's classics, the

-40-

famous Decameron of Boccaccio, that for four centuries has
been a byword for spicy wit and ribald humor . . ." He
took a bundle of little books out of one of his sagging
pockets and began dandling them in his hand. "Just as an
act of friendship I would be willing to part with some if
any of you gentlemen care for them . . . Here, Fenian,
take these and see if anybody wants one; they're two dol-
lars apiece. My young friend here will attend to distribu-
tion . . . Goodnight, gentlemen." And he went off and
the train had started again and Fainy found himself stand-
ing with the little books in his hand in the middle of the
lurching car with the suspicious eyes of all the smokers
boring into him like so many gimlets.

"Let's see one," said a little man with protruding ears
who sat in the corner. He opened the book and started
reading greedily. Fainy stood in the center of the car,
feeling pins and needles all over. He caught a white glint
in the corner of an eyeball as the little man looked down
the line of cigars through the crinkly smoke. A touch of
pink came into the protruding ears.

"Hot stuff," said the little man, "but two dollars is too
much."

Fainy found himself stuttering: "They're nnnot
mmmine, sir; I don't know . . ."

"Oh, well, what the hell . . ." The little man dropped
two dollar bills in Fainy's hand and went back to his read-
ing. Fainy had six dollars in his pocket and two books left
when he started back to the daycoach. Half way down the
car he met the conductor. His heart almost stopped beat-
ing. The conductor looked at him sharply but said noth-
ing.

Doc Bingham was sitting in his seat with his head in his
hand and his eyes closed as if he were dozing. Fainy
slipped into the seat beside him.

"How many did they take?" asked Doc Bingham talk-

-41-

ing out of the corner of his mouth without opening his
eyes.

"I got six bucks . . . Golly, the conductor scared me,
the way he looked at me."

"You leave the conductor to me, and remember that it's
never a crime in the face of humanity and enlightenment
to distribute the works of the great humanists among the
merchants and moneychangers of this godforsaken coun-
try . . . You better slip me the dough."

Fainy wanted to ask about the dollar he'd been prom-
ised, but Doc Bingham was off on Othello again:

If after every tempest there come such calms as this
Then may the laboring bark climb hills of seas
Olympus high.

They slept late at the Commercial House in Saginaw,
and ate a large breakfast, during which Doc Bingham
discoursed on the theory and practice of book salesman-
ship. "I am very much afraid that through the hinterland
to which we are about to penetrate," he said as he cut up
three fried eggs and stuffed his mouth with bakingpowder
biscuit, "that we will find the yokels still hankering after
Maria Monk."

Fainy didn't know who Maria Monk was, but he didn't
like to ask. He went with Doc Bingham round to Hum-
mer's livery stable to hire a horse and wagon. There fol-
lowed a long wrangle between the firm of Truthseeker
Inc., and the management of Hummer's Livery Stable
as to the rent of a springwagon and an elderly piebald
horse with cruppers you could hang a hat on, so that it
was late afternoon before they drove out of Saginaw with
their packages of books piled behind them, bound for the
road.

It was a chilly spring day. Sagging clouds moved in a
gray blur over a bluish silvery sky. The piebald kept
slackening to a walk; Fainy clacked the reins continually

-42-

on his caving rump and clucked with his tongue until his
mouth was dry. At the first whack the piebald would go
into a lope that would immediately degenerate into an
irregular jogtrot and then into a walk. Fainy cursed and
clucked, but he couldn't get the horse to stay in the lope
or the jogtrot. Meanwhile Doc Bingham sat beside him
with his broad hat on the back of his head, smoking a
cigar and discoursing: "Let me say right now, Fenian, that
the attitude of a man of enlightened ideas, is, A plague
on both your houses. . . I myself am a pantheist . . .
but even a pantheist . . . must eat, hence Maria Monk."
A few drops of rain, icy and stinging as hail, had begun
to drive in their faces. "I'll get pneumonia at this rate,
and it'll be your fault, too; I thought you said you could
drive a horse . . . Here, drive into that farmhouse on
the left. Maybe they'll let us put the horse and wagon in
their barn."

As they drove up the lane towards the gray house and
the big gray barn that stood under a clump of pines a little
off from the road, the piebald slowed to a walk and began
reaching for the bright green clumps of grass at the edge
of the ditch. Fainy beat at him with the ends of the reins,
and even stuck his foot over the dashboard and kicked
him, but he wouldn't budge.

"Goddam it, give me the reins."

Doc Bingham gave the horse's head a terrible yank, but
all that happened was that he turned his head and looked
at them, a green foam of partly chewed grass between his
long yellow teeth. To Fainy it looked as if he were laugh-
ing. The rain had come on hard. They put their coat col-
lars up. Fainy soon had a little icy trickle down the back
of his neck.

"Get out and walk; goddam it to hell, lead it if you
can't drive it," sputtered Doc Bingham. Fainy jumped
out and led the horse up to the back door of the farm-

-43-

house; the rain ran down his sleeve from the hand he
held the horse by.

"Good afternoon, ma'am." Doc Bingham was on his
feet bowing to a little old woman who had come out of
the door. He stood beside her on the stoop out of the
rain. "Do you mind if I put my horse and wagon in your
barn for a few moments? I have valuable perishable ma-
terials in the wagon and no waterproof covering . . ."
The old woman nodded a stringy white head. "Well,
that's very kind of you, I must say . . . All right,
Fenian, put the horse in the barn and come here and
bring in that little package under the seat . . . I was
just saying to my young friend here that I was sure that
some good samaritan lived in this house who would take
in two weary wayfarers." "Come inside, mister . . .
maybe you'd like to set beside the stove and dry your-
self. Come inside, mister-er?" "Doc Bingham's the name
. . . the Reverend Doctor Bingham," Fainy, heard him
say as he went in the house.

He was soaked and shivering when he went into the
house himself, carrying a package of books under his arm.
Doc Bingham was sitting large as life in a rocking chair
in front of the kitchen stove. Beside him on the well-
scrubbed deal table was a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.
The kitchen had a warm cosy smell of apples and bacon
grease and lamps. The old woman was leaning over the
kitchen table listening intently to what Doc Bingham was
saying. Another woman, a big scrawny woman with her
scant sandy hair done up in a screw on top of her head,
stood in the background with her redknuckled hands on
her hips. A black and white cat, back arched and tail in
the air, was rubbing against Doc Bingham's legs.

"Ah, Fenian, just in time," he began in a voice that
purred like the cat, "I was just telling . . . relating to
your kind hostesses the contents of our very interesting
and educational library, the prime of the world's devo-

-44-

tional and inspirational literature. They have been so
kind to us during our little misfortune with the weather
that I thought it would be only fair to let them see a few
of our titles."

The big woman was twisting her apron. "I like a mite
o' readin' fine," she said, shyly, "but I don't git much
chanct for it, not till wintertime."

Benignly smiling, Doc Bingham untied the string and
pulled the package open on his knees. A booklet dropped
to the floor. Fainy saw that it was The Queen of the
White Slaves. A shade of sourness went over Doc Bing-
ham's face. He put his foot on the dropped book,
"These are Gospel Talks, my boy," he said. "I wanted
Doctor Spikenard's Short Sermons for All Occasions."
He handed the halfopen package to Fainy, who snatched
it to him. Then he stooped and picked the book up from
under his foot with a slow sweeping gesture of the hand
and slipped it in his pocket. "I suppose I'll have to go
find them myself," he went on in his purringest voice.
When the kitchen door closed behind them he snarled in
Fainy's ear, "Under the seat, you little rat . . . If you
play a trick like that again I'll break every goddam
bone in your body." And he brought his knee up so hard
into the seat of Fainy's pants that his teeth clacked to-
gether and he shot out into the rain towards the barn.
"Honest, I didn't do it on purpose," Fainy whined. But
Doc Bingham was already back in the house and his voice
was burbling comfortably out into the rainy dusk with
the first streak of lamplight.

This time Fainy was careful to open the package before
he brought it in. Doc Bingham took the books out of his
hand without looking at him and Fainy went round be-
hind the stovepipe. He stood there in the soggy steam of
his clothes listening to Doc Bingham boom. He was
hungry, but nobody seemed to think of offering him a
piece of pie.

-45-

"Ah, my dear friends, how can I tell you with what
gratitude to the Great Giver a lonely minister of the
gospel of light, wandering among the tares and troubles
of this world, finds ready listeners. I'm sure that these
little books will be consoling, interesting and inspirational
to all that undertake the slight effort of perusal. I feel
this so strongly that I always carry a few extra copies with
me to dispose of for a moderate sum. It breaks my heart
that I can't yet give them away free gratis."

"How much are they?" asked the old woman, a sud-
den sharpness coming over her features. The scrawny
woman let her arms drop to her side and shook her head.

"Do you remember, Fenian," asked Doc Bingham,
leaning genially back in his chair, "what the cost price of
these little booklets was?" Fainy was sore. He didn't
answer. "Come here, Fenian," said Doc Bingham in
honied tones, "allow me to remind you of the words of
the immortal bard:

Lowliness is your ambition's ladder
Whereto the climber upward turns his face
But when he once attains the topmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back

"You must be hungry. You can eat my pie."

"I reckon we can find the boy a piece of pie," said the
old woman.

"Ain't they ten cents?" said Fainy, coming forward.

"Oh, if they're only ten cents I think I'd like one,"
said the old woman quickly. The scrawny woman started
to say something, but it was too late.

The pie had hardly disappeared into Fainy's gullet and
the bright dime out of the old tobaccobox in the cup-
board into Doc Bingham's vest pocket when there was a
sound of clinking harness and the glint of a buggylamp
through the rainy dark outside the window. The old
woman got to her feet and looked nervously at the door,

-46-

which immediately opened. A heavyset giayhaired man.
with a small goatee sprouting out of a round red face
came in, shaking the rain off the flaps of his coat. After
him came a skinny lad about Fainy's age.

"How do you do, sir; how do you do, son?" boomed
Doc Bingham through the last of his pie and coffee.

"They asked if they could put their horse in the barn
until it should stop rainin'. It's all right, ain't it, James?"
asked the old woman nervously. "I reckon so," said the
older man, sitting down heavily in the free chair. The old
woman had hidden the pamphlet in the drawer of the
kitchen table. "Travelin' in books, I gather." He stared
hard at the open package of pamphlets. "Well, we don't
need any of that trash here, but you're welcome to stay
the night in the barn. This is no night to throw a human
being out inter."

So they unhitched the horse and made beds for them-
selves in the hay over the cowstable. Before they left the
house the older man made them give up their matches.
"Where there's matches there's danger of fire," he said.
Doc Bingham's face was black as thunder as he wrapped
himself in a horseblanket, muttering about "indignity to
a wearer of the cloth." Fainy was excited and happy. He
lay on his back listening to the beat of the rain on the
roof and its gurgle in the gutters, and the muffled stirring
and chomping of the cattle and horse, under them; his
nose was full of the smell of the hay and the warm
meadowsweetness of the cows. He wasn't sleepy. He
wished he had someone his own age to talk to. Anyway,
it was a job and he was on the road.

He had barely got to sleep when a light woke him.
The boy he'd seen in the kitchen was standing over him
with a lantern. His shadow hovered over them enormous
against the rafters.

"Say, I wanner buy a book."

"What kind of a book?"

Fainy yawned and sat up.

-47-

"You know . . . one o' them books about chorus girls
an' white slaves an' stuff like that."

"How much do you want to pay, son? " came Doc
Bingham's voice from under the horseblanket. "We have
a number of very interesting books stating the facts of
life frankly and freely, describing the deplorable licen-
tiousness of life in the big cities, ranging from a dollar to
five dollars. The Complete Sexology of Dr. Burnside,
is six fifty."

"I couldn't go higher'n a dollar . . . Say, you won't
tell the ole man on me?" the young man said, turning
from one to another. "Seth Hardwick, he lives down the
road, he went into Saginaw onct an' got a book from a
man at the hotel. Gosh, it was a pippin." He tittered un-
easily.

" Fenian, go down and get him The Queen of the White
Slaves for a dollar," said Doc Bingham, and settled back
to sleep.

Fainy and the farmer's boy went down the rickety
ladder.

"Say, is she pretty spicy? . . . Gosh, if pop finds it
he'll give me a whalin' . . . Gosh, I bet you've read all
them books."

"Me?" said Fainy haughtily. "I don't need to read
books. I kin see life if I wanter. Here it is . . . it's about
fallen women."

"Ain't that pretty short for a dollar? I thought you
could get a big book for a dollar."

"This one's pretty spicy."

"Well, I guess I'll take it before dad ketches me
snoopin' around . . . Goodnight." Fainy went back to
his bed in the hay and fell fast asleep. He was dreaming
that he was going up a rickety stair in a barn with his
sister Milly who kept getting all the time bigger and
whiter and fatter, and had on a big hat with ostrich
plumes all round it and her dress began to split from the

-48-

neck and lower and lower and Doc Bingham's voice was
saying, She's Maria Monk, the queen of the white slaves,
and just as he was going to grab her, sunlight opened his
eyes. Doc Bingham stood in front of him, his feet wide
apart, combing his hair with a pocketcomb and reciting:

"Let as depart, the universal sun
Confines not to one land his blessed beams
Nor is man rooted like a tree . . .

"Come, Fenian," he boomed, when he saw that Fainy
was awake, "let us shake the dust of this inhospitable farm,
latcheting our shoes with a curse like philosophers of old
. . . Hitch up the horse; we'll get breakfast down the
road."

This went on for several weeks, until one evening they
found themselves driving up to a neat yellow house in
a grove of feathery dark tamaracks. Fainy waited in the
wagon while Doc Bingham interviewed the people in the
house. After a while Doc Bingham appeared in the door,
a broad smile creasing his cheeks. "We're going to bev'ery
handsomely treated, Fenian, as befits a wearer of the cloth
and all that . . . You be careful how you talk, will you?
Take the horse to the barn and unhitch."

"Say, Mr. Bingham, how about my money? It's three
weeks now." Fainy jumped down and went to the horse's
head.

An expression of gloom. passed over Doc Bingham's
face. "Oh, lucre, lucre . . .

"Examine well
His milkwhite hand, the palm is hardly clean
But here and there an ugly smutch appears,
Foh, 'twas a bribe that left it. . . .

"I had great plans for a cooperative enterprise that
you are spoiling by your youthful haste and greed . . .
but if you must I'll hand over to you this very night

-49-

everything due you and more. All right, unhitch the horse
and bring me that little package with Maria Monk, and
The Popish Plot."

It was a warm day. There were robins singing round
the barn. Everything smelt of sweetgrass and flowers.
The barn was red and the yard was full of white leg-
horns. After he had unhitched the spring wagon and put
the horse in a stall, Fainy sat on a rail of the fence look-
ing out over the silvergreen field of oats out back, and
smoked a cigarette. He wished there was a girl there he
could put his arm round or a fellow to talk to.

A hand dropped onto his shoulder. Doc Bingham was
standing beside him.

" Fenian, my young friend, we are in clover," he said.
"She is alone in the house, and her husband has gone to
town for two days with the hired man. There'll be nobody
there but her two little children, sweet bairns. Perhaps I
shall play Romeo. You've never seen me in love. It's
my noblest role. Ah, some day I'll tell you about my
headstrong youth. Come and meet the sweet charmer."

When they went in the kitchen door a dimplefaced
pudgy woman in a lavender housecap greeted them coyly.

"This is my young assistant, ma'am," said Doc Bing-
ham, with a noble gesture. "Fenian, this is Mrs. Kovach."

"You must be hungry. We're having supper right
away."

The last of the sun lit up a kitchen range that was
crowded with saucepans and stewpots. Fragrant steam rose
in little jets from round wellpolished lids. As she spoke
Mrs. Kovach leaned over so that her big blue behind with
starched apronstrings tied in a bow above it stood up
straight in the air, opened the oven door and pulled out
a great pan of cornmuffins that she dumped into a dish
on the dining table already set next the window. Their
warm toasted smoke filled the kitchen. Fainy felt his
mouth watering. Doc Bingham was rubbing his hands and

-50-

rolling his eyes. They sat down, and the two blue-eyed
smearyfaced children were sat down and started gobbling
silently, and Mrs. Kovach heaped their plates with stewed
tomatoes, mashed potatoes, beef stew and limabeans with
pork. She poured them out coffee and then said with
moist eyes, as she sat down herself:

"I love to see men eat."

Her face took on a crushed pansy look that made Fainy
turn away his eyes when he found himself looking at it.
After supper she sat listening with a pleased, frightened
expression while Doc Bingham talked and talked, now
and then stopping to lean back and blow a smoke ring
at the lamp.

"While not myself a Lutheran as you might say, ma'am,
I myself have always admired, nay, revered, the great
figure of Martin Luther as one of the lightbringers of
mankind. Were it not for him we would be still groveling
under the dread domination of the Pope of Rome."

"They'll never get into this country; land sakes, it gives
me the creeps to think of it."

"Not while there's a drop of red blood in the veins of
freeborn Protestants . . . but the way to fight darkness,
ma'am, is with light. Light comes from education, reading
of books and studies . . ."

"Land sakes, it gives me a headache to read most books,
an' I don't get much time, to tell the truth. My husband,
he reads books he gets from the Department of Agricul-
ture. He tried to make me read one once, on raisin' poul-
try, but I couldn't make much sense out of it. His folks
they come from the old country . . . I guess people feels
different over there."

"It must be difficult being married to a foreigner like
that."

"Sometimes I don't know how I stand it; course he
was awful goodlookin' when I married him . . . I never
could resist a goodlookin' man."

-51-

Doc Bingham leaned further across the table. His eyes
rolled as if they were going to drop out.

"I never could resist a goodlooking lady."

Mrs. Kovach sighed deeply.

Fainy got up and went out. He'd been trying to get in
a word about getting paid, but what was the use? Outside
it was chilly; the stars were bright above the roofs of the
barns and outhouses. From the chickencoop came an occa-
sional sleepy cluck or the rustle of feathers as a hen lost
her balance on her perch. He walked up and down the
barnyard cursing Doc Bingham and kicking at an occa-
sional clod of manure.

Later he looked into the lamplit kitchen. Doc Bingham
had his arm around Mrs. Kovach's waist and was declaim-
ing verses, making big gestures with his free hand:

. . . These things to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline
But still the house affairs would draw her hence
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch
She'd come again and with a greedy ear . . .

Fainy shook his fist at the window. "Goddam your
hide, I want my money," he said aloud. Then he went for
a walk down the road. When he came back he was sleepy
and chilly. The kitchen was empty and the lamp was
turned down low. He didn't know where to go to sleep,
so he settled down to warm himself in a chair beside the
fire. His head began to nod and he fell asleep.

A tremendous thump on the floor above and a woman's
shrieks woke him. His first thought was that Doc Bing-
ham was robbing and murdering the woman. But im-
mediately he heard another voice cursing and shouting
in broken English. He had half gotten up from the chair,
when Doc Bingham dashed past him. He had on only
his flannel unionsuit. In one hand were his shoes, in the

-52-

other his clothes. His trousers floated after him at the
end of his suspenders like the tail of a kite.

"Hey, what are we going to do?" Fainy called after
him, but got no answer. Instead he found himself face to
face with a tall dark man with a scraggly black beard who
was coolly fitting shells into a doublebarrelled shotgun.

"Buckshot. I shoot the sonabitch."

"Hey, you can't do that," began Fainy. He got the butt
of the shotgun in the chest and went crashing down into
the chair again. The man strode out the door with a long
elastic stride, and there followed two shots that went
rattling among the farm buildings. Then the woman's
shrieks started up again, punctuating a longdrawnout
hysterical tittering and sobbing.

Fainy sat in the chair by the stove as if glued to it.
He noticed a fiftycent piece on the kitchen floor that
must have dropped out of Doc Bingham's pants as he
ran. He grabbed it and had just gotten it in his pocket
when the tall man with the shotgun came back.

"No more shells," he said thickly. Then he sat down
on the kitchen table among the uncleared supper dishes
and began to cry like a child, the tears trickling through
the knobbed fingers of his big dark hands. Fainy stole out
of the door and went to the barn. " Doc Bingham," he
called gently. The harness lay in a heap between the
shafts of the wagon, but there was no trace of Doc Bing-
ham or of the piebald horse. The frightened clucking of
the hens disturbed in the hencoop mixed with the woman's
shrieks that still came from upstairs in the farmhouse.
"What the hell shall I do?" Fainy was asking himself
when he caught sight of a tall figure outlined in the
bright kitchen door and pointing the shotgun at him.
Just as the shotgun blazed away he ducked into the barn
and out through the back door. Buckshot whined over his
head. "Gosh, he found shells." Fainy was off as fast as

-53-

his legs could carry him across the oatfield. At last, with-
out any breath in his body, he scrambled over a railfence
full of briars that tore his face and hands and lay flat in
a dry ditch to rest. There was nobody following him.

NEWSREEL III

"IT TAKES NERVE TO LIVE IN THIS
WORLD" LAST WORDS OF GEORGE SMITH
HANGED WITH HIS BROTHER BY MOB IN
KANSAS MARQUIS OF QUEENSBERRY DEAD
FLAMES WRECK SPICE PLANT COURT SETS
ZOLA FREE

a few years ago the anarchists of New Jersey, wearing the
McKinley button and the red badge of anarchy on their coats
and supplied with beer by the republicans, plotted the death of
one of the crowned heads of Europe and it is likely that the
plan to assassinate the president was hatched at the same time
or soon afterward

It's moonlight fair tonight upon the Wabash
From the fields there comes the breath of newmown hay
Through the sycamores the candlelight is gleaming
On the banks of the Wabash for away

OUT FOR BULLY GOOD TIME

Six Thousand Workmen at Smolensk Parade With Plac-
ards Saying Death To Czar Assassin.
riots and streetblockades mark opening of teamster's strike

WORLD'S GREATEST SEA BATTLE NEAR Madrid police clash with 5000 workmen carrying black
flag
spectators become dizzy while dancer eats orange break-
ing record that made man insane

-54-

THE CAMERA EYE (5)

and we played the battle of Port Arthur in the bath-
tub and the water leaked down through the drawing-
room ceiling and it was altogether too bad but in Kew
Gardens old Mr. Garnet who was still hale and hearty
although so very old came to tea and we saw him first
through the window with his red face and John Bull
whiskers and aunty said it was a sailor's rolling gait and he
was carrying a box under his arm and Vickie and Pompom
barked and here was Mr. Garnet come to tea and he
took a gramophone out of a black box and put a cylinder
on the gramophone and they pushed back the tea-things
off the corner of the table Be careful not to drop it
now they scratch rather heasy Why a hordinary
sewin' needle would do maam but I ave special needles

and we got to talking about Hadmiral Togo and
the Banyan and how the Roosians drank so much vodka
and killed all those poor fisherlads in the North Sea and
he wound it up very carefully so as not to break the spring
and the needle went rasp rasp Yes I was a bluejacket
miself miboy from the time I was a little shayver not
much bigger'n you rose to be bosun's mite on the first
British hironclad the Warrior and I can dance a ornpipe
yet maam and he had a mariner's compass in red and
blue on the back of his hand and his nails looked black

-55-

and thick as he fumbled with the needle and the needle
went rasp rasp and far away a band played and out of a
grindy noise in the little black horn came God Save the
King and the little dogs howled

NEWSREEL IV

I met my love in the Alamo
When the moon was on the rise
Her beauty quite bedimmed its light
So radiant were her eyes

during the forenoon union pickets turned back a wagon
loaded with 50 campchairs on its way to the fire engine house
at Michigan Avenue and Washington street. The chairs it is
reported, were ordered for the convenience of policemen de-
tailed on strike duty

FLEETS MAY MEET IN BATTLE TODAY
WEST OF LUZON three big wolves were killed before the dinner.

A grand parade is proposed here in which President
Roosevelt shall ride so that he can be seen by citizens. At the
head will be a caged bear recently captured after killing a
dozen dogs and injuring several men. The bear will be g