It was now six o'clock. I had just one hour before going to work. I
realized that the annoyances I had contracted at this Rescue Hope
Mission, which each moment seemed to increase with startling force and
demand immediate action, must be gotten rid of. There was but one way
open and that was the river. While hurriedly going there, I searched
for some sort of vessel adequate to "boil up" with. Luckily I found
a five gallon Standard Oil can, and reaching a secluded spot with
available waste at hand for a fire, I hastily "boiled up." I also took
a bath in the icy waters of the Ohio. Using my jeans for underclothing,
and rolling in a bundle my now-purified wet garments, which in the rear
of the business house where I had been engaged I hung on some boxes
to dry, I entered, serene and smiling and started to work just as the
clock struck seven.
After working twelve long hours, which included time to eat two meals,
I asked the manager if he would kindly advance me the seventy-one cents
due for my day's work.
"No, it is impossible," he said. "It is not our custom. We pay only
when the week's work is done. If you have no place to sleep that is
your affair, not ours."
The reason the employer will not pay by the day is the same here as
elsewhere,--because all working men are regarded as drinkers and they
are fearful of losing the worker. I realized that I could not work
without rest. Louisville offered such a privilege to no one without
money, although I had become one of her army of toilers.
I strolled down to the river thinking of my objective point, the
government works below Memphis, which would afford me both shelter
and food. I decided to reach there as soon as possible. The steamer,
_Lucille Knowland_, running between Louisville and Evansville, was
then loading freight and was scheduled to leave the next day at two P.
M. Approaching a pompous, uniformed officer I asked if there was an
opportunity for a man to work his way to Evansville. "I don't know," he
replied, "Ask the cook." I left at once for the kitchen where I found a
large, robust colored man,--the man I was looking for. In reply to my
inquiry for the privilege of working my passage he kindly answered, "I
think so, Jack. Come around at one o'clock to-morrow and see me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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