Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in CaliforniaDixon, Thomas, Jr.
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Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
California -- Fiction; Socialism -- Fiction
"Comrades," she began, in slow, measured tones, "after to-night I
retire from the platform to take up work for which I am better fitted.
I promised you a big surprise this evening, and you shall not be
disappointed----"
A murmur rippled the audience and she paused, smiling into Norman's
face with a curious look. She spoke with a decided foreign accent with
little moments of coquettish hesitation as though feeling for words.
Norman felt an almost irresistible impulse to help her.
"I am going to in-tro-duce to you to-night," she continued, "a new
leader, whose tongue the God of the poor and the outcast and the
dis-in-herited has touched with divine fire. She is no stran-ger.
Twenty years ago she was born beneath the bright skies of
Cal-i-for-nia at Anaheim, in the little Socialist colony of Polish
dreamers led by Madame Modjeska, Count Bozenta, and Henry Sienkiewicz,
the distin-guished author of 'Quo Vadis.' As you know, the colony
failed. Her mother died in poverty and she was placed in an orphan
asylum until eight years of age, when she was taken back to Poland by
her foolish kins-men. Four years later I found her, a ragged,
homeless waif, in the streets of Warsaw, alone and star-ving. Since
then she has been mine. Amid the squalor and misery of the old world
her busy little tongue never tired telling of the glories of
Cali-for-nia! Always she sighed for its groves of oranges and olives,
its dazzling flowers, its luscious grapes, its rich valleys, its
cloud-kissed, snow-clad mountains and the mur-mur of its mighty seas!
It was her tiny hand that led me across the ocean to you. I have sent
her to school in one of your Western colleges where a great Socialist
professor has taught her history and e-con-omics. I have the high
honour, comrades, of intro-ducing to you the child of genius who from
to-night will be the Joan of Arc of our Cause, Comrade Barbara
Bozenta!"
She quickly turned and drew forward a trembling slip of a girl whose
big brown eyes were swimming in tears of excitement. A moment of
intense silence, and the crowd burst into cheers as the dazzling
beauty of their new champion slowly dawned on their understanding. The
woman in red resumed her seat, and the girl stood bowing, trembling,
and smiling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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