The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The West — John Shaqi
The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The WestWyckoff, Walter A. (Walter Augustus)
History
The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The West
Wyckoff, Walter A. (Walter Augustus)
Unemployed -- United States; Working class -- United States
In the midst of the singing the leader walks quietly down the aisle to
the rear. Two ladies are there struggling in a vain effort to quiet an
old man. They have come to help in the conduct of the service, and the
old man has increasingly claimed their care, for he is drunk and is
growing violent. I have noticed him in his restless movements. Upon his
stooping figure he wears an old army coat and cape that are dripping
with the rain. His gray mustache and beard are long and matted, and
stained all round his mouth with the deep brown of tobacco-juice. His
unkempt hair falls in frowsy masses about his ears, and his lustreless
eyes, inflamed and expressionless, bulge from their swollen sockets.
In an instant the leader’s strong hand is upon him, and with no
commotion above the sound of song the old man is soon without the hall,
and the leader back in his place again singing as heartily as ever.
When the meeting ends the crowd moves slowly and listlessly toward
the door, as though its prevailing mood were aimless beyond the dull
necessity of passing the time. The fine rain and melting snow are still
falling through the mist. The men drift away singly or in groups of
twos and threes, under the flickering lights, their heads bent slightly
forward and their bare hands thrust into the side-pockets of their
trousers.
In the crush about the foot of the aisle a young man speaks to me:
“You are pretty wet, aren’t you?” he says, quietly, as the jam presses
him against me.
I see at a glance that he is far more respectable than I, and my first
mental attitude is one of hospitality to further evangelizing effort.
But I shift at once, for without waiting for a reply from me, he adds:
“It’s d---- tough to go out into that,” as he turns up the collar of
his light covert coat in the blast of piercing dampness which strikes
our faces through the open door.
“It is tough,” I agree, as I study his face. He is about thirty, I
should say, and almost six feet high, but of rather slender figure.
He is smooth-shaven, and an effect of pallor is heightened by yellow
hair and pale blue eyes, with dark arcs beneath them and a bluish tinge
about his mouth. Plainly he has been little exposed to the outer air,
but he is an habitual workman, as his hands attest unmistakably when he
lifts them to adjust his coat-collar.
“Ain’t you got no place to go to?” he asks.
“No.”
“No more have I,” he adds, laconically. And then, after a pause:
“When did you strike this town?”
“This evening.”
“Looking for a job?”
“Yes.”
“Same as me. What kind of a job?”
“Any kind that I can get.”
“Ain’t you got a trade?”
“No.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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