"It's a job worth seeing through," he said.
Sue was leaning forward now.
"Where did you get that picture, Joe?" she asked.
"It was an illustration," he said, "for a thing I once had in a
magazine." And then as though almost forgetting us all, his eyes still
upon those immigrant faces, he said with a slow, rough intensity:
"I know every figure in it. I know just where they're strong and where
each one of 'em is weak. I've never made gods out of 'em. But I know
they do all the real work in the world. They're the ones who get all the
rotten deals, the ones who get shot down in wars and worked like dogs in
time of peace. They're the ones who are ready to go out on strike and
risk their lives to change all this. They're the people worth spending
your life with. But it's a job for your whole life--and before a man or
a woman jumps in they want to be sure they're ready."
He did not look at Sue as he spoke. He seemed barely able to hold
himself in. His relief was plain when we took her away.
Sue took a car to Brooklyn and we started homeward. Eleanore wanted to
walk for a while. She walked quickly, her face set.
"What do you think of it?" I asked.
"I wasn't thinking of Sue," she said. "I was thinking of Mrs. Marsh.
I've never tormented a woman like that and I never will again in my
life--not for Sue or anyone else--she can marry anybody she likes!"
"Well, she won't marry Joe," I said. "Did you see his face--poor devil?
You've certainly settled that affair."
"Have I?" she asked sharply. And then her curious feminine mind took a
long leap. "And what are _you_ going to be," she asked, "in a year from
now?" I smiled at her.
"Not a second Marsh," I said. "But even if I were the man in the moon,
you'd make a success of being my wife."
"I think I would," said Eleanore. "It must be so quiet up there in the
moon."
CHAPTER XI
"Come over here at once." My father's voice over the telephone, one
morning a few days later, sounded thick and unnatural.
"What about?" I asked.
"Your sister."
When I reached the house in Brooklyn he came himself to let me in and
took me into the library. I was shocked by his face, it was terribly
worn, quite plainly he had been up all night. As he began speaking his
voice shook and he leaned forward, every inch of him tense.
Sue had told him the night before that she was going to marry Joe
Kramer. In reply to his anxious questions she had given him some of the
facts about what Joe was doing. And Dad had stormed at her half the
night.
"She wants to marry him, Billy," he cried. "She's got her mind set on a
man like that! What has he got to support her with? Not a cent, not even
a decent job! He's not writing now. Do you know what he's doing?
Stirring up strikes--of the ugliest kind--of the most ignorant class of
men--foreigners! I know such strikes--I've fought 'em myself and I know
how they're handled! That young man will land in jail! And it's where he
belongs! Do you know what he's up to right here on the docks?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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