U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [363]
and creak of rockers on the porch of the scrol saw cot-tage and uncles' voices pokerface stories told sideways out of the big mouth (from Missouri who took no rubber nickels) the redskin in the buffalorobe sel ing snakeroot in the flare of oratorical redfire the sulphury choke and the hookandladder clanging down the redbrick street while the clinging firemen with uncles' faces pul on their rubbercoats and the crunch of whitecorn muffins and coffee with cream gulped in a hurry before traintime and apartment-house mornings stifling with newspapers and the smooth powdery feel of new greenbacks and the whack of a cop's bil y cracking a citizen's skul and the faces blurred with newsprint of men in jail
the whine and shriek of the buzzsaw and the tipsy
smel of raw lumber and straggling through slagheaps through fireweed through wasted woodlands the shanty-towns the shantytowns what good burying those years in the old graveyard
by the brokendown brick church that morning in the spring
-27-when the sandy lanes were streaked with blue puddles and the air was violets and pineneedles
what good burying those hated years in the latrine-stench at Brocourt under the starshel s if today the crookedfaced customsinspector with the soft tough talk the burring speech the funnypaper antics of thick hands jerking thumb
(So you brought home French books didjer?)
is my uncle
NEWSREEL XLVII
boy seeking future offered opportunity . . . good posi-tions for bright . . . CHANCE FOR
ADVANCEMENT . . . boy to learn . . . errand boy office boy
YOUNG MAN WANTED
Oh tell me how long
I'll have to wait
OPPORTUNITY
in bank that chooses its officers from the ranks, for wide-awake ambitious bookkeeper .
. . architectural draftsman with experience on factory and industrial buildings in brick, timber, and reinforced concrete . . . bronze fitter . . . let-terer . . . patternmaker . . . carriage painter . . . first class striper and finisher . . . young man for hosiery, underwear and notion house . . . assistant in order department . . . first class penman accurate at figures . . . energetic hard-worker for setting dies in power presses for metal parts canvasser . . . flavor chemist . . . freight elevator man
. . . house salesman . . . insurance man . . . insurance
-28-man . . . invoice clerk . . . jeweler . . . laborer . . . ma-chinist . . . mil ing machine man .
. . shipping clerk . . . shipping clerk . . . shipping clerk . . . shoe salesman . . . signwriter . .
. solicitor for retail fishmarket . . . teacher
. . . timekeeper . . . tool and diemaker, tracer, toolroom foreman, translator, typist . . . window trimmer . . . wrap-per
OPPORTUNITY FOR
Do I get it now
Or must I hesitate
young man not afraid of hard work
young man for office
young man for stockroom
young man as stenographer
young man to travel
young man to learn
OPPORTUNITY
Oh tell me how long
to superintend municipal light, water and ice plant in beautiful growing, healthful town in Florida's highlands . . . to take charge of underwear department in large wholesale mail house . . . to assist in railroad investigation . . . to take charge of about twenty men on tools, dies, gigs and gauges
. . . as bookkeeper in stockroom . . . for light porter work
. . . civil engineer . . . machinery and die appraiser . . . building estimator . . . electrical and power plant engineer THE CAMERA EYE (44)
the unnamed arrival
(who had hung from the pommel of the unshod
white stal ion's saddle
a ful knapsack
-29-and leaving the embers dying in the hol ow of the barren Syrian hil s where the Agail had camped when dawn sharpshining cracked night off the ridged desert had ridden towards the dungy vil ages and the patches of ses-ame and the apricotgardens) shaved off his beard in Damascus
and sat drinking hot milk and coffee in front of the hotel in Beirut staring at the white hulk of Lebanon fumbling with letters piled on the table and clipped streamers of newsprint addressed not to the unspeaker of arabic or the clumsy scramblerup on camelback so sore in the rump from riding but to someone