Social problems -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
Jimmie met a man whom he might almost have taken for Deror Rabin, so
much did he resemble the little Jewish tailor. A big,
black-whiskered peasant brought a load of wood for the fires; and
there was a Jew helping him--a chap with a sharp face and keen
black eyes, his cheeks sunken as if he had not had enough to eat for
years, and his chest racked by a cough. He had wrapped his feet and
his hands in rags, because he had neither boots nor gloves; but he
seemed cheerful, and presently, as he dumped down a load, he nodded
and said, “Hello!”
“Hello yourself!” replied Jimmie.
“I speak English,” said the fellow.
It didn't surprise Jimmie that anybody should speak English; he was
only surprised when they didn't. So he smiled and said, “Sure!”
“I been in America,” went on the other. “I vork by sveat-shop in
Grand Street.”
You could see that he preferred gossiping to carrying wood; he stood
about and questioned, “Vere you vork in America?” When the peasant
grumbled at him in Russian, he went back at his job; but as he went
away, he said, “I talk vit you some time about America.” To which,
of course, Jimmie answered with a friendly assent.
A couple of hours later, when he went out from his work, he found
the little Jew waiting for him in the darkness. “I git lonesome some
time for America,” he said; and walked down the street with Jimmie,
beating his thin arms to keep warm.
“Why did you come back?” Jimmie inquired.
“I read about revolution. I tink maybe I git rich.”
“Huh!” said Jimmie, and grinned. “What did you get?”
“You belong to union in America?” countered the other.
“You bet I do!” said Jimmie.
“Vat sort of union?”
“Machinists.”
“You been on strike, maybe?”
“You bet I have!”
“You got licked, maybe?”
“You bet!”
“You don't never scab, hey?”
“Not much!”
“You vat you call class-conscious?”
“You bet! I'm a Socialist!”
The other turned upon him, his voice trembling with sudden
excitement. “You got a red card?”
“You bet!” said Jimmie. “Right inside my coat.”
“My God!” cried the other. “A comrade!” He stretched out his hands,
which were bundled up with old gunny-sacking, to Jimmie. “Tovarish!”
cried he. And standing there in the freezing darkness, these two
felt their hearts leap into a hot glow. Here, under the Arctic
Circle, in this wilderness of ice and desolation, even here the
spirit of international fraternity was working its miracles!
But then, shaking with excitement, the little Jew pawed at Jimmie
with his bundled hands. “If you are Socialist, vy you fight de
Russian vorkers?”
“I'm not fighting them!”
“You vear de uniform.”
“I'm only a motor-cycle man.”
“But you help! You kill de Russian people! You destroy de Soviets!
Vy?”
“I didn't know about it,” pleaded Jimmie. “I wanted to fight the
Kaiser, and they brought me here without telling me.”
“Ah! So it iss vit militarism, vit capitalism! Ve are slaves! But we
vill be free! And you vill help, you vill not kill de Russian
vorkers!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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