I BECOME A DAY LABORER
That night Ruth and I had a talk about the boy. We both came back from
our walk, with him more on our minds than anything else. He had been
interested in everything and had asked about a thousand questions and
gone to bed eager to be out on the street again the next day. We knew
we couldn't keep him cooped up in the flat all the time and of course
both Ruth and I were going to be too busy to go out with him every
time he went. As for letting him run loose around these streets with
nothing to do, that would be sheer foolhardiness. It was too late in
the season to enroll him in the public schools and even that would
have left him idle during the long summer months.
We talked some at first of sending him off into the country to a farm.
There were two or three families back where Ruth had lived who might
be willing to take him for three or four dollars a week and we had
the money left over from the sale of our household goods to cover
that. But this would mean the sacrifice of our emergency fund which we
wished to preserve more for the boy's sake than our own and it would
mean leaving Ruth very much alone.
"I'll do it, Billy," she said bravely, "but can't we wait a day or two
before deciding? And I think I can _make_ time to get out with him.
I'll get up earlier in the morning and I'll leave my work at night
until after he's gone to bed."
So she would. She'd have worked all night to keep him at home and then
gone out with him all day if it had been possible. I saw it would be
dragging the heart out of her to send the boy away and made up my mind
right then and there that some other solution must be found for the
problem. Good Lord, after I'd led her down here the least I could do
was to let her keep the one. And to tell the truth I found my own
heart sink at the suggestion.
"What do the boys round here do in the summer?" she asked.
I didn't know and I made up my mind to find out. The next day I went
down to a settlement house which I remembered passing at some time or
other. I didn't know what it was but it sounded like some sort of
philanthropic enterprise for the neighborhood and if so they ought to
be able to answer my questions there. The outside of the building was
not particularly attractive but upon entering I was pleasantly
surprised at the air of cleanliness and comfort which prevailed. There
were a number of small boys around and in one room I saw them reading
and playing checkers. I sought out the secretary and found him a
pleasant young fellow though with something of the professional
pleasantness which men in this work seem to acquire. He smiled too
much and held my hand a bit too long to suit me. He took me into his
office and offered me a chair. I told him briefly that I had just
moved down here and had a boy of ten whom I wished to keep off the
streets and keep occupied. I asked him what the boys around here did
during the summer.
"Most of them work," he answered.
I hadn't thought of this.
"What do they do?"
"A good many sell papers, some of them serve as errand boys and others
help their parents."
Dick was certainly too inexperienced for the first two jobs and there
was nothing in my work he could do to help. Then the man began to ask
me questions. He was evidently struck by the fact that I didn't seem
to be in place here. I answered briefly that I had been a clerk all my
life, had lost my position and was now a common day laborer. The boy,
I explained, was not yet used to his life down here and I wanted to
keep him occupied until he got his strength.
"You're right," he answered. "Why don't you bring him in here?"
"What would he do here?"
"It's a good loafing place for him and we have some evening classes."
"I want him at home nights," I answered.
"The Y.M.C.A. has summer classes which begin a little later on. Why
don't you put him into some of those?"
I had always heard of the Y.M.C.A., but I had never got into touch
with it, for I thought it was purely a religious organization. But
that proposition sounded good. I'd passed the building a thousand
times but had never been inside. I thanked him and started to leave.
"I hope this won't be your last visit," he said cordially. "Come down
and see what we're doing. You'll find a lot of boys here at night."
"Thanks," I answered.
I went direct to the Y.M.C.A. building. Here again I was surprised to
find a most attractive interior. It looked like the inside of a
prosperous club house. I don't know what I expected but I wouldn't
have been startled if I'd found a hall filled with wooden settees and
a prayer meeting going on. I had a lot of such preconceived notions
knocked out of my head in the next few years.
In response to my questions I received replies that made me feel I'd
strayed by mistake into some university. For that matter it _was_ a
university. There was nothing from the primary class in English to a
professional education in the law that a man couldn't acquire here for
a sum that was astonishingly small. The most of the classes cost
nothing after payment of the membership fee of ten dollars. The
instructors were, many of them, the same men who gave similar courses
at a neighboring college. Not only that, but the hours were so
arranged as to accommodate workers of all classes. If you couldn't
attend in the daytime, you could at night. I was astonished to think
that this opportunity had always been at my hand and I had never
suspected it. In the ten years before I was married I could have
qualified as a lawyer or almost anything else.
This was not all; a young man took me over the building and showed me
the library, the reading-room, rooms where the young men gathered for
games, and then down stairs to the well equipped gymnasium with its
shower baths. Here a boy could take a regular course in gymnasium work
under a skilled instructor or if he showed any skill devote himself to
such sports as basketball, running, baseball or swimming. In addition
to these advantages amusements were provided through the year in the
form of lectures, amateur shows and music. In the summer, special
opportunities were offered for out-door sports. Moreover the
Association managed summer camps where for a nominal fee the boys
could enjoy the life of the woods. A boy must be poor indeed who could
not afford most of these opportunities. And if he was out of work the
employment bureau conducted here would help him to a position. I came
back to the main office wondering still more how in the world I'd
ever missed such chances all these years. It was a question I asked
myself many times during the next few months. And the answer seemed to
lie in the dead level of that other life. We never lifted our eyes; we
never looked around us. If we were hard pressed either we accepted our
lot resignedly or cursed our luck, and let it go at that. These
opportunities were for a class which had no lot and didn't know the
meaning of luck. The others could have had them, too--can have
them--for the taking, but neither by education nor temperament are
they qualified to do so. There's a good field for missionary work
there for someone.
Before I came out of the building I had enrolled Dick as a member and
picked out for him a summer course in English in which he was a bit
backward. I also determined to start him in some regular gymnasium
work. He needed hardening up.
I came home and announced my success to Ruth and she was delighted. I
suspected by the look in her eyes that she had been worrying all day
for fear there would be no alternative but to send the boy off.
"I knew you would find a way," she said excitedly.
"I wish I'd found it twenty years ago," I said regretfully. "Then
you'd have a lawyer for a husband instead of a--."
"Hush," she answered putting her hand over my mouth. "I've a man for a
husband and that's all I care about."
The way she said it made me feel that after all being a man was what
counted and that if I could live up to that day by day, no matter what
happened, then I could be well satisfied. I guess the city directory
was right when before now it couldn't define me any more definitely
than, "clerk." And there is about as much man in a clerk as in a
valet. They are both shadows.
The boy fell in with my plans eagerly, for the gymnasium work made him
forget the study part of the programme. The next day I took him up
there and saw him introduced to the various department heads. I paid
his membership fee and they gave him a card which made him feel like a
real club man. I tell you it took a weight off my mind.
On the Monday following our arrival in our new quarters, I rose at
five-thirty, put on my overalls and had breakfast. I ate a large bowl
of oatmeal, a generous supply of flapjacks, made of some milk that had
soured, sprinkled with molasses, and a cup of hot black coffee--the
last of a can we had brought down with us among the left-over kitchen
supplies.
For lunch Ruth had packed my box with cold cream-of-tartar biscuit,
well buttered, a bit of cheese, a little bowl of rice pudding, two
hard-boiled eggs and a pint bottle of cold coffee. I kissed her goodby
and started out on foot for the street where I was to take up my work.
The foreman demanded my name, registered me, told me where to find a
shovel and assigned me to a gang under another foreman. At seven
o'clock I took my place with a dozen Italians and began to shovel. My
muscles were decidedly flabby, and by noon I began to find it hard
work. I was glad to stop and eat my lunch. I couldn't remember a meal
in five years that tasted as good as that did. My companions watched
me curiously--perhaps a bit suspiciously--but they chattered in a
foreign tongue among themselves and rather shied away from me. On that
first day I made up my mind to one thing--I would learn Italian before
the year was done, and know something more about these people and
their ways. They were the key to the contractor's problem and it would
pay a man to know how to handle them. As I watched the boss over us
that day it did not seem to me that he understood very well.
From one to five the work became an increasing strain. Even with my
athletic training I wasn't used to such a prolonged test of one set of
muscles. My legs became heavy, my back ached, and my shoulders finally
refused to obey me except under the sheer command of my will. I knew,
however, that time would remedy this. I might be sore and lame for a
day or two, but I had twice the natural strength of these short,
close-knit foreigners. The excitement and novelty of the employment
helped me through those first few days. I felt the joy of the
pioneer--felt the sweet sense of delving in the mother earth. It
touched in me some responsive chord that harked back to my ancestors
who broke the rocky soil of New England. Of the life of my fellows
bustling by on the earth-crust overhead--those fellows of whom so
lately I had been one--I was not at all conscious. I might have been
at work on some new planet for all they touched my new life. I could
see them peering over the wooden rail around our excavation as they
stopped to stare down at us, but I did not connect them with myself.
And yet I felt closer to this old city than ever before. I thrilled
with the joy of the constructor, the builder, even in this humble
capacity. I felt superior to those for whom I was building. In a
coarse way I suppose it was a reflection of some artistic
sense--something akin to the creative impulse. I can say truthfully
that at the end of that first day I came home--begrimed and sore as I
was--with a sense of fuller life than so far I had ever experienced.
I found Ruth waiting for me with some anxiety. She came into my
soil-stained arms as eagerly as a bride. It was good. It took all the
soreness out of me. Before supper I took the boy and we went down to
the public baths on the waterfront and there I dived and splashed and
swam like a young whale. The sting of the cold salt water was all the
further balm I needed. I came out tingling and fit right then for
another nine-hour day. But when I came back I threatened our first
week's savings at the supper-table. Ruth had made more hot
griddle-cakes and I kept her at the stove until I was ashamed to do it
longer. The boy, too, after his plunge, showed a better appetite than
for weeks.