They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second ComingSinclair, Upton
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They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second Coming
Sinclair, Upton
Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Fiction; Jesus Christ -- Fiction
“I suppose I really have no right to see you,” continued the other,
“because I'm shadowed all the time, and you know my organization is
outlawed.”
“Why is it outlawed?”
“Well,” said Colver, “they say we burn crops and barns, and drive
copper-nails into fruit-trees, and spikes into sawmill lumber.”
“And do you do that?”
Colver laughed his merry laugh. “We do it just as often as you act
for the movies, Fellow-worker Carpenter!”
“I see,” said Carpenter. “What do you really do?”
“What we really do is to organize the unskilled workers.”
“For what do you organize them?”
“So that they will be able to run the industries when the system of
greed breaks down of its own rottenness.”
“I see,” said the prophet, and he thought for a moment. “It is a
slave revolt!”
“Exactly,” said the other.
“I know what they do to slave revolts, my brother. You are fortunate
if they only send you to prison.”
“They do plenty more than that,” said Colver. “I will give you our
pamphlet, 'Drops of Blood,' and you may read about some of the
lynching and tarring and feathering and shooting of Mobland.” His
eyes twinkled. “That's a dandy name you've hit on! I shall be
surprised if it doesn't stick.”
Carpenter went on questioning, bent upon knowing about this outlaw
organization and its members. It was clear before long that he had
taken a fancy to young John Colver. He made him sit beside him, and
asked to hear some of his poetry, and when he found it really vivid
and beautiful, he put his arm about the young poet's shoulders.
Again I found memories of old childhood phrases stirring in my mind.
Had there not once been a disciple named John, who was especially
beloved?
XLII
Presently the young agitator began telling about an investigation he
had been making in the lumber country of the Northwest. He was
writing a pamphlet on the subject of a massacre which had occurred
there. A mob of ex-soldiers had stormed the headquarters of the
“wobblies,” and the latter had defended themselves, and killed two
or three of their assailants. A news agency had sent out over the
country a story to the effect that the “wobblies” had made an
unprovoked assault upon the ex-soldiers. “That's what the papers do
to us!” said John Colver. “There have been scores of mobbings as a
result, and just now it may be worth a man's life to be caught
carrying a red card in any of these Western states.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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