U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [7]
-15-about ready to cry himself Pop and Uncle Tim came and took them and the suitcase into the restaurant. A strong smel of fresh whisky came from their breaths, and they seemed very bright around the eyes. They al sat at a table with a white cloth and a sympathetic colored man in a white coat handed them a large card ful of printing. Let's eat a good supper, said Uncle Tim, if it's the last thing we do on this earth. Damn the expense, said Pop, it's the system that's
to blame.
To hel with the pope, said Uncle Tim. We'l make
a social-democrat out of you yet.
They gave Fainy fried oysters and chicken and ice-cream and cake, and when they al had to run for the train he had a terrible stitch in his side. They got into a day-coach that smelt of coalgas and armpits. When are we going to bed? Mil y began to whine. We're not going to bed, said Uncle Tim airily. We're going to sleep right here like little mice . . . like little mice in a cheese. I doan like mice, yel ed Mil y with a new flood of tears as the train started.
Fainy's eyes smarted; in his ears was the continuous roar, the clatter clatter over crossings, the sudden snarl under bridges. It was a tunnel, al the way to Chicago it was a tunnel. Opposite him Pop's and Uncle Tim's faces looked red and snarling, he didn't like the way they looked, and the light was smoky and jiggly and outside it was al a tunnel and his eyes hurt and wheels and rails roared in his ears and he fel asleep. When he woke up it was a town and the train was run-ning right through the main street. It was a sunny morn-ing. He could see people going about their business, stores, buggies and spring-wagons standing at the curb, newsboys sel ing newspapers, wooden Indians outside of cigarstores. At first he thought he was dreaming, but then he remem-bered and decided it must be Chicago. Pop and Uncle Tim
-16-were asleep on the seat opposite. Their mouths were open, their faces were splotched and he didn't like the way they looked. Mil y was curled up with a wooly shawl al over her. The train was slowing down, it was a station. If it was Chicago they ought to get off. At that moment the con-ductor passed, an old man who looked a little like Father O'Donnel .
Please, mister, is this Chicago? Chicago's a long way off yet, son, said the conductor without smiling. This is Syracuse.
And they al woke up, and for hours and hours the
telephone poles went by, and towns, frame houses, brick factories with ranks and ranks of glittering windows, dumping grounds, trainyards, plowed land, pasture, and cows, and Mil y got trainsick and Fainy's legs felt like they would drop off from sitting in the seat so long; some places it was snowing and some places it was sunny, and Mil y kept getting sick and smelt dismal y of vomit, and it got dark and they al slept; and light again, and then the towns and the framehouses and the factories al started drawing together, humping into warehouses and elevators, and the trainyards spread out as far as you could see and it was Chicago.
But it was so cold and the wind blew the dust so hard in his face and his eyes were so stuck together by dust and tiredness that he couldn't look at anything. After they had waited round a long while, Mil y and Fainy huddled to-gether in the cold, they got on a streetcar and rode and rode. They were so sleepy they never knew exactly where the train ended and the streetcar began. Uncle Tim's voice went on talking proudly excitedly, Chicago, Chicago, Chi-cago. Pop sat with his chin on his crutch. "Tim, I feel like a whipped cur."
Fainy lived ten years in Chicago.
At first he went to school and played basebal on back lots on Saturday afternoons, but then came his last com--17mencement, and al the children sang My Country, 'Tis Of Thee, and school was over and he had to go to work. Uncle Tim at that time had his own jobprinting shop on a dusty side street off North Clark in the ground floor of a cranky old brick building. It only occupied a smal sec-tion of the building that was mostly used as a ware-house and was famous for its rats. It had a single wide plateglass window made resplendent by gold Old English lettering: TIMOTHY O'HARA, JOB PRINTER. Now, Fainy, old sport, said Uncle Tim, you'l have