U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [207]
MOBS PLUNDER CITIES
NEWSPAPERMAN LEADS THROUGH BARRAGE
it was a pitiful sight at dusk every evening when the whole population evacuated the city, going to sleep in the fields until daylight. Old women and tiny children, cripples drawn in carts or wheeled in barrows men carrying chairs bring those too feeble and old to walk JERSEY TROOPS TAKE WOMAN GUNNERS
the trouble had its origin with the demand of the marine workers for an eight hour day If you dont like the stars in Old Glory
Then go back to your land across the sea
To the land from which you came
Whatever be its name
-106-G.O.P. LEADER ACCUSED OF DRAFT FRAUDS
If you dont like the red white and blue
Then dont act like the cur in the story
Dont bite the hand that's feeding you
EVELINE HUTCHINS
Little Eveline and Arget and Lade and Gogo lived on the top floor of a yel owbrick house on the North Shore Drive. Arget and Lade were little Eveline's sisters. Gogo was her little brother littler than Eveline; he had such nice blue eyes but Miss Mathilda had horrid blue eyes. On the floor below was Dr. Hutchins' study where Your-father mustn't be disturbed, and Dearmother's room where she stayed al morning painting dressed in a lavender smock. On the groundfloor was the drawingroom and the diningroom, where parishioners came and little children must be seen and not heard, and at dinnertime you could smel good things to eat and hear knives and forks and tinkly companyvoices and Yourfather's booming scary voice and when Yourfather's voice was going al the company-voices were quiet. Yourfather was Dr. Hutchins but Our Father art in heaven. When Yourfather stood beside the bed at night to see that little girls said their prayers Eve-line would close her eyes tightscared. It was only when she'd hopped into bed and snuggled way down so that the covers were light across her nose that she felt cosy. George was a dear although Adelaide and Margaret
teased him and said he was their Assistant like Mr. Bless-ington was Father's assistant. George always caught things first and then they al had them. It was lovely when they had the measles and the mumps al at once. They stayed in bed and had hyacinths in pots and guinea pigs and Dear--107-mother used to come up and read the Jungle Book and do funny pictures and Yourfather would come up and make funny birdbeaks that opened out of paper and tel stories he made up right out of his head and Dearmother said he had said prayers for you children in church and that made them feel fine and grownup. When they were al up and playing in the nursery
George caught something again and had monia on account of getting cold on his chest and Yourfather was very sol-emn and said not to grieve if God cal ed little brother away. But God brought little George back to them only he was delicate after that and had to wear glasses, and when Dearmother let Eveline help bathe him because Miss Mathilda was having the measles too Eveline noticed he had something funny there where she didn't have anything. She asked Dearmother if it was a mump, but Dearmother scolded her and said she was a vulgar little girl to have looked. "Hush, child, don't ask questions." Eveline got red al over and cried and Adelaide and Margaret wouldn't speak to her for days on account of her being a vulgar little girl.
Summers they al went to Maine with Miss Mathilda
in a drawingroom. George and Eveline slept in the upper and Adelaide and Margaret slept in the lower; Miss Ma-thilda was trainsick and didn't close her eyes al night on the sofa opposite. The train went rumblebump chug chug and the trees and houses ran by, the front ones fast and those way off very slow and at night the engine wailed and the children couldn't make out why the strong nice tal conductor was so nice to Miss Mathilda who was so hateful and trainsick. Maine smelt al woodsy and mother and father were there to meet them and they al put on khaki jumpers and went camping with Father and the
guides. It was Eveline who learned to swim quicker than anybody.
Going back to Chicago it would be autumn and Mother
-108-loved the lovely autumn foliage that made Miss Mathilda feel so traurig on account of winter coming on, and the frost on the grass beyond the shadows of the cars out of the trainwindow in the morning. At home Sam would be scrubbing the enamel paint and Phoebe and Miss Mathilda would be putting up curtains and the nursery would smel traurig of mothbal s. One fal Father started to read aloud a little of the Ideals of the King every night after they were al tucked into bed. Al that winter Adelaide and Margaret were King Arthur and Queen Whenever. Ev-eline wanted to be Elaine the Fair, but Adelaide said she couldn't because her hair was mousy and she had a face like a pie, so she had to be the Maiden Evelina.