Jennie talked about this plan quite openly; she would put a red
ribbon in her hair, and pin a red badge on her bosom, and go into
meeting-places and sell little pamphlets with red covers. So, of
course, it would be Peter’s duty to report her to the head of the
secret service of the Traction Trust. Peter regretted this, and was
ashamed of having to do it; she was a nice little girl, and pretty,
too, and a fellow might have had some fun with her if she had not
been in such a hysterical state. He would sit and look at her, as
she sat bent over her typewriter. She had soft, fluffy hair, the
color of twilight, and even white teeth, and a faint flush that came
and went in her cheeks--yes, she would not be bad looking at all, if
only she would straighten up, and spend a little time on her looks,
as other girls did.
But no, she was always in a tension, and the devil of it was, she
was trying to get Peter into the same state. She was absolutely
determined that Peter must get wrought up over the wrongs of the
working classes. She took it for granted that he would, when he was
instructed. She would tell him harrowing stories, and it was his
duty to be duly harrowed; he must be continually acting an emotional
part. She would give him some of her “literature” to read, and then
she would pin him down and make sure that he had read it. He knew
how to read--Pericles Priam had seen to that, because he wanted him
to attend to the printing of his circulars and his advertisements in
the country newspapers where he was traveling. So now Peter was
penned in a corner and compelled to fix his attention upon “The A.
B. C. of Socialism,” or “Capital and Proletariat,” or “The Path to
Power.”
Peter told himself that it was part of his job to acquire this
information. He was going to be a “Red,” and he must learn their
lingo; but he found it awfully tiresome, full of long technical
words which he had never heard before. Why couldn’t these fellows at
least talk American? He had known that there were Socialists, and
also “Arnychists,” as he called them, and he thought they were all
alike. But now he learned, not merely about Socialists and
“Arnychists,” but about State Socialists and Communist Anarchists,
and Communist Syndicalists and Syndicalist Anarchists and Socialist
Syndicalists, and Reformist Socialists and Guild Socialists, to say
nothing about Single Taxers and Liberals and Progressives and
numerous other varieties, whom he had to meet and classify and
listen to respectfully and sympathetically. Each particular group
insisted upon the distinctions which made it different, and each
insisted that it had the really, truly truth; and Peter became
desperately bored with their everlasting talk--how much more simple
to lump them all together, as did Guffey and McGivney, calling them
all “Reds!”
Peter had got it clearly fixed in his mind that what these “Reds”
wanted was to divide up the property of the rich. Everyone he had
questioned about them had said this. But now he learned that this
wasn’t it exactly. What they wanted was to have the State take over
the industries, or to have the labor unions do it, or to have the
working people in general do it. They pointed to the post office and
the army and the navy, as examples of how the State could run
things. Wasn’t that all right? demanded Jennie. And Peter said Yes,
that was all right; but hidden back in Peter’s soul all the time was
a whisper that it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. There was
a sucker born every minute, and you might be sure that no matter how
they fixed it up, there would always be some that would find it easy
to live off the rest. This poor kid, for example, who was ready to
throw herself away for any fool notion, or for anybody that came
along and told her a hard-luck story--would there ever be a state of
society in which she wouldn’t be a juicy morsel to be gobbled up by
some fellow with a normal appetite?
She was alone in the house all day with Peter, and she got to seem
more and more pretty as he got to know her better. Also it was
evident that she liked Peter more and more as Peter played his game.
Peter revealed himself as deeply sympathetic, and a quick convert to
the cause; he saw everything that Jennie explained to him, he was
horrified at the horrible stories, he was ready to help her end the
European war by starting a revolution among the working people of
American City. Also, he told her about himself, and awakened her
sympathy for his harsh life, his twenty years of privation and
servitude; and when she wept over this, Peter liked it. It was fine,
somehow, to have her so sorry for him; it helped to compensate him
for the boredom of hearing her be sorry for the whole working class.
Peter didn’t know whether Jennie had learned about his bad record,
but he took no chances--he told her everything, and thus took the
sting out of it. Yes, he had been trapped into evil ways, but it
wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t known any better, he had been a pitiful
victim of circumstances. He told how he had been starved and driven
about and beaten by “Old Man” Drubb, and the tears glistened in
Jennie’s grey eyes and stole down her cheeks. He told about
loneliness and heartsickness and misery in the orphan asylum. And
how could he, poor lad, realize that it was wrong to help Pericles
Priam sell his Peerless Pain Paralyzer? How could he know whether
the medicine was any good or not--he didn’t even know now, as a
matter of fact. As for the Temple of Jimjambo, all that Peter had
done was to wash dishes and work as a kitchen slave, as in any hotel
or restaurant.
It was a story easy to fix up, and especially easy because the first
article in the creed of Socialist Jennie was that economic
circumstances were to blame for human frailties. That opened the
door for all varieties of grafters, and made the child such an easy
mark that Peter would have been ashamed to make a victim of her, had
it not been that she happened to stand in the path of his higher
purposes--and also that she happened to be young, only seventeen,
with tender grey eyes, and tempting, sweet lips, alone there in the
house all day.