U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [43]
in the middle of squirrels and minetipples in the
middle of the blue Pennsylvania summer sunday the
little glasses sucking to get the last drop of communion and I felt itchy in the back of my neck would I be
struck by lightning eating the bread drinking the com-munion me not believing or baptized or Presbyterian and who were the Mol y Maguires? masked men riding at night shooting bul ets into barns at night what were they after in the oldtime night?
church was over and everybody was filing out and
being greeted as they went out and everybody had a good appetite after communion but I couldn't eat much itchy in the back of the neck scary with masked men riding Mol y Maguires
NEWSREEL IX
FORFEIT STARS BY DRINKING
"Oh bury me not
on the lone prairie"
They heeded not his dying prayer
They buried him there on the lone prairie
-109-COLLEGE HEAD DENIES KISSES
then our courage returned for we knew that rescue was near at hand, we shouted and yel ed again but did not know whether we were heard. Then came the unsealing and I lost consciousness. Al the days and nights fel back and I dropped into a sleep VOTE AT MIDNIGHT ON ALTMAN'S FATE
This is the fourth day we have been down here. That is what I think but our watches stopped. I have been waiting in the dark because we have been eating the wax from our safety lamps. I have also eaten a plug of tobacco, some bark and some of my shoe. I could only chew it. I hope you can read this. I am not afraid to die. O holy Virgin have mercy on me. I think my time has come. You know what my property is. We worked for it together and it is all yours. This is my will and you must keep it. You have been a good Wife. May the holy virgin guard you. I hope this reaches you sometime and you can read it. It has been very quiet down here and I wonder what has become of our comrades. Goodby until heaven shall bring us together. Girls Annoyer Lashed in Public
COVETS OSTRICHES
In a little box just six by three
And his bones now rot on the lone prairie.
MAC
Mac went down to the watertank beyond the yards to
wait for a chance to hop a freight. The old man's hat and his ruptured shoes were ashen gray with dust; he was sit-ting al hunched up with his head between his knees and didn't make a move until Mac was right up to him. Mac
-110-sat down beside him. A rank smel of feverish sweat came from the old man.
"What's the trouble, daddy?"
"I'm through, that's al . . . I been a lunger al my life an' I guess it's got me now." His mouth twisted in a spasm of pain. He let his head droop between his knees. After a minute he raised his head again, making little feeble gasps with his mouth like a dying fish. When he got his breath he said, "It's a razor a' slicin' off my lungs every time. Stand by, wil you, kid?""Sure I wil ," said Mac.
"Listen, kid, I wanna go West to where there's trees an' stuff . . . You got to help me into one o' them cars. I'm too weak for the rods . . . Don't let me lay down
. . . I'l start bleedin' if I lay down, see." He choked again.
"I got a coupla bucks. I'l square it with the brakeman maybe."
"You don't talk like no vag."
"I'm a printer. I wanta make San Francisco soon as I can."
"A workin' man; I'l be a son of a bitch. Listen here, kid . . . I ain't worked in seventeen years."
The train came in and the engine stood hissing by the watertank.
Mac helped the old man to his feet and got him
propped in the corner of a flatcar that was loaded with machine parts covered with a tarpaulin. He saw the fire-man and the engineer looking at them out of the cab, but they didn't say anything.
When the train started the wind was cold. Mac took
off his coat and put it behind the old man's head to keep it from jiggling with the rattling of the car. The old man sat with his eyes closed and his head thrown back. Mac didn't know whether he was dead or not. It got to be night. Mac was terribly cold and huddled shivering in a fold of tarpaulin in the other end of the car.
-111-In the gray of dawn Mac woke up from a doze with his teeth chattering. The train had stopped on a siding. His legs were so numb it was some time before he could stand on them. He went to look at the old man, but he couldn't tel whether he was dead or not. It got a little lighter and the east began to glow like the edge of a piece of iron in a forge. Mac jumped to the ground and walked back along the train to the caboose. The brakeman was drowsing beside his lantern. Mac