U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [368]
-128-"But you can't think it's right to give them these dread-ful jail sentences."
"That's just to scare the others. . . . You'l see they'l be getting out as soon as the excitement quiets down . . . Debs's pardon is expected any day."
"I should hope so," said Mary.
"Poor Debs," said Mr. Barrow, "one mistake has de-stroyed the work of a lifetime, but he has a great heart, the greatest heart in the world." Then he went on to tel her about how he'd been a railroadman himself in the old days, a freightagent in South Chicago; they'd made him the businessagent of his local and he had worked for the Brotherhood, he'd had a hard time getting an education and suddenly he'd waked up when he was more than
thirty, in New York City writing a set of articles for the Evening Globe, to the fact that there was no woman in his life and that he knew nothing of the art of life and the sort of thing that seemed to come natural to them over there and to the Mexicans now. He'd married unwisely and gotten into trouble with a chorusgirl, and a woman had made his life a hel for five years but now that he'd broken away from al that, he found himself lonely get-ting old wanting something more substantial than the little pickups a man traveling on missions to Mexico and Italy and France and England, little international incidents, he cal ed them with a thinlipped grin, that were nice affairs enough at the time but were just dust and ashes. Of course he didn't believe in bourgeois morality but he wanted understanding and passionate friendship in a woman. When he talked he showed the tip of his tongue some-times through the broad gap in the middle of his upper teeth. She could see in his eyes how much he had suffered.
"Of course I don't believe in conventional marriage either," said Mary. Then Mr. Barrow broke out that she was so fresh so young so eager so lovely so what he needed in his life and his speech began to get a little thick and
-129-she guessed it was time she was getting back to Hul House because she had to get up so early. When he took her home in a taxi she sat in the furthest corner of the seat but he was very gentlemanly although he did seem to stagger a little when they said goodnight.
After that supper the work at Hul House got to be
more and more of a chore, particularly as George Barrow, who was making a lecturetour al over the country in de-fense of the President's policies, wrote her several times a week. She wrote him funny letters back, kidding about the oldmaids at Hul House and saying that she felt it in her bones that she was going to graduate from there soon, the way she had from Vassar. Her friends at Hul House
began to say how pretty she was getting to look now that she was curling her hair. For her vacation that June Mary French had been plan-ning to go up to Michigan with the Cohns, but when the time came she decided she real y must make a break; so instead she took the Northland around to Cleveland and got herself a job as countergirl in the Eureka Cafeteria on Lakeside Avenue near the depot.
It was pretty tough. The manager was a fat Greek who pinched the girls' bottoms when he passed behind them along the counter. The girls used rouge and lipstick and were mean to Mary, giggling in corners about their dates or making dirty jokes with the busboys. At night she had shooting pains in her insteps from being so long on her feet and her head spun from the faces the asking mouths the probing eyes jerking along in the rush hours in front of her like beads on a string. Back in the rattly brass bed in the big yel owbrick roominghouse, a girl she talked to on her boat had sent her to, she couldn't sleep or get the smel of cold grease and dishwashing out of her nose; she lay there scared and lonely listening to the other roomers stir-ring behind the thin partitions, tramping to the bathroom, slamming doors in the hal .
-130-After she'd worked two weeks at the cafeteria she de-cided she couldn't stand it another minute, so she gave up the job and went and got herself a room at the uptown Y.W.C.A. where they were very nice to her when they heard she'd come from Hul House and showed her a list of socialservice jobs she might want to try for, but she said No, she had to do real work in industry for once, and took the train to Pittsburgh where she knew a girl who was an assistant librarian at Carnegie Institute.