Peter waited until after dark, in order to indulge his sense of the
romantic; also he flattered his self-importance by looking carefully
about him as he walked down the street. He did not know just who
would be shadowing him, but Peter wanted to be sleuthy.
Also he had a bit of genuine anxiety. He had told the truth when he
said to Guffey that he didn’t know what a “Red” was; but since then
he had been making in quiries, and now he knew. A “Red” was a fellow
who sympathized with labor unions and with strikes; who wanted to
murder the rich and divide their property, and believed that the
quickest way to do the dividing was by means of dynamite. All “Reds”
made bombs, and carried concealed weapons, and perhaps secret
poisons--who could tell? And now Peter was going among them, he was
going to become one of them! It was almost too interesting, for a
fellow who aimed above everything to be comfortable. Something in
him whispered, “Why not skip; get out of town and be done with it?”
But then he thought of the rewards and honors that Guffey had
promised him. Also there was the spirit of curiosity; he might skip
at any time, but first he would like to know a bit more about being
a “dick.”
He came to the number which had been given him, a tiny bungalow in a
poor neighborhood, and rang the doorbell. It was answered by a girl,
and at a glance Peter saw that it was the girl who had spoken to
him. She did not wait for him to announce himself, but cried
impulsively, “Mr. Gudge! Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come!” She added,
“Comrade!”--just as if Peter were a well-known friend. And then,
“But _are_ you a comrade?”
“How do you mean?” asked Peter.
“You’re not a Socialist? Well, we’ll make one of you.” She brought
him in and showed him to a chair, saying, “I know what they did to
you; and you stood out against them! Oh, you were wonderful!
Wonderful!”
Peter was at a loss what to say. There was in this girl’s voice a
note of affection, as well as of admiration; and Peter in his hard
life had had little experience with emotions of this sort. Peter had
watched the gushings and excitements of girls who were seeking
flirtations; but this girl’s attitude he felt at once was not
flirtatious. Her voice tho soft, was just a trifle too solemn for a
young girl; her deep-set, wistful grey eyes rested on Peter with the
solicitude of a mother whose child has just escaped a danger.
She called: “Sadie, here’s Mr. Gudge.” And there entered another
girl, older, taller, but thin and pale like her sister. Jennie and
Sadie Todd were their names, Peter learned; the older was a
stenographer, and supported the family. The two girls were in a
state of intense concern. They started to question Peter about his
experiences, but he had only talked for a minute or two before the
elder went to the telephone. There were various people who must see
Peter at once, important people who were to be notified as soon as
he turned up. She spent some time at the phone, and the people she
talked with must have phoned to others, because for the next hour or
two there was a constant stream of visitors coming in, and Peter had
to tell his story over and over again.
The first to come was a giant of a man with tight-set mouth and so
powerful a voice that it frightened Peter. He was not surprised to
learn that this man was the leader of one of the most radical of the
city’s big labor unions, the seamen’s. Yes, he was a “Red,” all
right; he corresponded to Peter’s imaginings--a grim, dangerous man,
to be pictured like Samson, seizing the pillars of society and
pulling them down upon his head. “They’ve got you scared, my boy,”
he said, noting Peter’s hesitating answers to his questions. “Well,
they’ve had me scared for forty-five years, but I’ve never let them
know it yet.” Then, in order to cheer Peter up and strengthen his
nerves, he told how he, a runaway seaman, had been hunted thru the
Everglades of Florida with bloodhounds, and tied to a tree and
beaten into insensibility.
Then came David Andrews, whom Peter had heard of as one of the
lawyers in the Goober case, a tall, distinguished-looking man with
keen, alert features. What was such a man doing among these
outcasts? Peter decided that he must be one of the shrewd ones who
made money out of inciting the discontented. Then came a young girl,
frail and sensitive, slightly crippled. As she crossed the room to
shake his hand tears rolled down her cheeks, and Peter stood
embarrassed, wondering if she had just lost a near relative, and
what was he to say about it. From her first words he gathered, to
his great consternation, that she had been moved to tears by the
story of what he himself had endured.
Ada Ruth was a poet, and this was a new type for Peter; after much
groping in his mind he set her down for one of the dupes of the
movement--a poor little sentimental child, with no idea of the
wickedness by which she was surrounded. With her came a Quaker boy
with pale, ascetic face and black locks which he had to shake back
from his eyes every now and then; he wore a Windsor tie, and a black
felt hat, and other marks of eccentricity and from his speeches
Peter gathered that he was ready to blow up all the governments of
the world in the interests of Pacificism. The same was true of
McCormick, an I. W. W. leader who had just served sixty days in
jail, a silent young Irishman with drawn lips and restless black
eyes, who made Peter uneasy by watching him closely and saying
scarcely a word.