U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [32]
old tramp boiling coffee in a tin can. He gave them some coffee and bread and baconrind and they told him their troubles. He said he was headed south for the winter and that the thing to cure it up was tea made out of cherry pits and stems. "But where the hel am I going to get cherry pits and stems?" Anyway he said not to worry, it was no worse than a bad cold. He was a cheerful old man with a face so grimed with dirt it looked like a brown leather mask. He was going to take a chance on a freight that stopped there to water a little after sundown. Mac dozed off to sleep while Ike and the old man talked. When he woke up Ike was yel ing at him and they were al running for the freight that had already started. In the dark Mac missed his footing and fel flat on the ties.
-78-He wrenched his knee and ground cinders into his nose and by the time he had got to his feet al he could see were the two lights on the end of the train fading into the November haze.
That was the last he saw of Ike Hal .
He got himself back on the road and limped along until he came to a ranch house. A dog barked at him and
worried his ankles but he was too down and out to care. Final y a stout woman came to the door and gave him some cold biscuits and applesauce and told him he could sleep in the barn if he gave her al his matches. He limped to the barn and snuggled into a pile of dry sweetgrass and went to sleep.
In the morning the rancher, a tal ruddy man named
Thomas, with a resonant voice, went over to the barn and offered him work for a few days at the price of his board and lodging. They were kind to him, and had a pretty daughter named Mona that he kinder fel in love with. She was a plump rosycheeked girl, strong as a boy and afraid of nothing. She punched him and wrestled with him; and, particularly after he'd gotten fattened up a little and rested, he could hardly sleep nights for think-ing of her. He lay in his bed of sweetgrass tel ing over the touch of her bare arm that rubbed along his when she handed him back the nozzle of the sprayer for the fruittrees, or was helping him pile up the pruned twigs to burn, and the roundness of her breasts and her breath sweet as a cow's on his neck when they romped and played tricks on each other evenings after supper. But the Thomases had other ideas for their daughter and told Mac that they didn't need him any more. They sent him off kindly with a lot of good advice, some old clothes and a cold lunch done up in newspaper, but no money. Mona ran after him as he walked off down the dustyrutted wagonroad and kissed him right in front of her parents.
"I'm stuck on you," she said. "You make a lot of money
-79-and come back and marry me.""By gum, I'l do that," said Mac, and he walked off with tears in his eyes and feeling very good. He was particularly glad he hadn't got the clap off that girl in Seattle.
NEWSREEL VI
Paris Shocked At Last
HARRIMAN SHOWN AS RAIL COLOSSUS
noted swindler run to earth
TEDDY WIELDS BIG STICK
straphangers demand relief.
We were sailing along
On moonlight bay
You can hear the voices ringing
They seem to say
You have stolen my heart, now don't go away
Just as we sang
love's
old
sweet
songs
On moonlight bay
MOB LYNCHES AFTER PRAYER
when the metal poured out of the furnace I saw the men running to a place of safety. To the right of the furnace I saw a party of ten men al of them running wildly and their clothes a mass of flames. Apparently some of them had been injured when the explosion occurred and several of them tripped and fel . The hot metal ran over the poor men in a moment.
PRAISE MONOPOLY AS BOON TO ALL
-80-industrial foes work for peace at Mrs. Potter Palmer's love's old
sweet
song
We were sailing along song
on moonlight bay
THE CAMERA EYE (7)
skating on the pond next the silver company's mil s where there was a funny fuzzy smel from the dump
whaleoil soap somebody said it was that they used in cleaning the silver knives and spoons and forks putting shine on them for sale there was shine on the ice early black ice that rang like a sawblade just scratched white by the first skaters I couldn't learn to skate and kept fal -ing down look out for the muckers everybody said bohunk and polak kids put stones in their snowbal s write dirty words up on wal s do dirty things up al eys their folks work in the mil s