In a flash Tom understood. The Swede held him accountable for the incident of the morning, and was determined to force another job from him. Was the man crazy? At any rate "twould be wiser to parley than to bring on a conflict with one possessed of such strength as those hands betokened. So he made no attempt to break loose.
"I can"t give you a job, I say."
"You take it avay!" the Swede said, with fierce persistence. "You make me leave!"
"It"s your own fault. If you want to work, why don"t you get into the union?"
Tom felt a convulsive shiver run through the man"s big frame. "De union?
Ah, de union! Ev"ryvare I ask for yob. Ev"ryvare! "You b"long to union?"
de boss say. "No," I say. De boss give me no yob. De union let me not vork! De union----!" His hands gripped tighter in his impotent bitterness.
"Of course the union won"t let you work."
"Vy? I am strong!--yes. I know de vork."
Tom felt that no explanation of unionism, however lucid, would quiet this simple-minded excitement. So he said nothing.
"Vy should I not vork? Dare be yobs. I know how to vork. But no! De union! I mak dis mont" two days. I mak seven dollar. Seven dollar!" He fairly shook Tom, and a half sob broke from his lips. "How de union tank I live? My family?--me? Seven dollar?"
Tom recognized with a thrill that which he was hearing. It was the man"s soul crying out in resentment and despair.
"But you can"t blame the union," he said weakly, feeling that his answer did not answer.
"You tank not?" Petersen cried fiercely. "You tank not?" He was silent a brief s.p.a.ce, and his breath surged in and out as though he had just paused from running. Suddenly he freed Tom"s wrists and set his right hand into Tom"s left arm. "Come! I show you vot de union done."
He started away. Those iron fingers locked about the prisoner"s arm were a needless fetter. The Swede"s despairing soul, glimpsed for a moment, had thrown a spell upon Tom, and he would have followed willingly.
Their long strides matched, and their heel-clicks coincided. Both were silent. At the end of ten minutes they were in a narrow street, clifted on its either side with tenements that reached up darkly. Presently the Swede turned down a stairway, sentineled by garbage cans. Tom thought they were entering a bas.e.m.e.nt. But Petersen walked on, and in the solid blackness Tom was glad of the hand locked on his arm. They mounted a flight of stone steps, and came into a little stone-paved court. Far above there was a roof-framed square of stars. Petersen led the way across the court and into the doorway of a rear tenement. The air was rotting. They went up two flights of stairs, so old that the wood shivered under foot. Petersen opened a door. A coal oil lamp burned on an otherwise barren table, and beside the table sat a slight woman with a quilt drawn closely about her.
She rose, the quilt fell from her shoulders, and she stood forth in a faded calico wrapper. "Oh, Nels! You"ve come at last!" she said. Then she saw Tom, and drew back a step.
"Yah," said Petersen. He dragged Tom after him into the room and swept his left arm about. "See!--De union!"
The room was almost bare. The table, three wooden chairs, a few dishes, a cooking-stove without fire,--this was the furniture. Half the plastering was gone from the ceiling, the blue kalsomine was scaling leprously from the walls, in places the floor was worn almost through.
In another room he saw a child asleep on a bed.
There was just one picture on the walls, a brown-framed photograph of a man in the dress and pose of a prize fighter--a big, tall, angular man, with a drooping mustache. Tom gave a quick glance at Petersen.
"See!--De union!" Petersen repeated fiercely.
The little woman came quickly forward and laid her hand on Petersen"s arm. "Nels, Nels," she said gently.
"Yah, Anna. But he is de man vot drove me from ma yob."
"We must forgive them that despitefully use us, the Lord says."
Petersen quieted under her touch and dropped Tom"s arm.
She turned her blue eyes upon Tom in gentle accusation. "How could you?
Oh, how could you?"
Tom could only answer helplessly: "But why don"t he join the union?"
"How can he?"
The words echoed within Tom. How could he? Everything Tom saw had not the value of half the union"s initiation fee.
There was an awkward silence. "Won"t you sit down, brother." Mrs.
Petersen offered Tom one of the wooden chairs, and all three sat down.
He noted that the resentment was pa.s.sing from Petersen"s eyes, and that, fastened on his wife, they were filling with submissive adoration.
"Nels has tried very hard," the little woman said. They had been in the West for three years, she went on; Nels had worked with a non-union crew on a bridge over the Missouri. When that job was finished they had spent their savings coming to New York, hearing there was plenty of work there. "We had but twenty dollars when we got here. How could Nels join the union? We had to live. An" since he couldn"t join the union, the union wouldn"t let him work. Brother, is that just? Is that the sort o"
treatment you"d like to get?"
Tom was helpless against her charges. The union was right in principle, but what was mere correctness of principle in the presence of such a situation?
"Would you be willing to join the union?" he asked abruptly of Petersen.
It was Petersen"s wife who answered. "O" course he would."
"Well, don"t you worry any more then. He won"t have any trouble getting a job."
"How?" asked the little woman.
"I"m going to get him in the union."
"But that costs twenty-five dollars."
"Yes."
"But, brother, we haven"t got _one_!"
"I"ll advance it. He can pay it back easy enough afterwards."
The little woman rose and stood before Tom. Her thin white face was touched up faintly with color, and tears glistened in her eyes. She took Tom"s big red hand in her two frail ones.
"Brother, if you ain"t a Christian, you"ve got a Christian heart!" she cried out, and the thin hands tightened fervently. She turned to her husband. "Nels, what did I say! The Lord would not forget them that remembered him."
Tom saw Petersen stand up, nothing in his eyes now but adoration, and open his arms. He turned his head.
For the second time Tom took note of the brown-framed photograph, with "The Swedish Terror" in black letters at its bottom, and rose and stood staring at it. Presently, Mrs. Petersen drew to his side.
"We keep it before us to remind us what wonders the Lord can work, bless His holy name!" she explained. "Nels was a terrible fightin" man before we was married an" I left the Salvation Army. A terrible fightin" man!"
Even in her awe of Petersen"s one-time wickedness Tom could detect a lurking admiration of his prowess. "The Lord has saved him from all that. But he has a terrible temper. It flares up at times, an" the old carnal desire to fight gets hold o" him again. That"s his great weakness. But we pray that G.o.d will keep him from fightin", an" G.o.d does!"
Tom looked at the little woman, a bundle of religious ardor, looked at Petersen with his big shoulders, thought of the incident of the morning.
He blinked his eyes.
Tom stepped to the table and laid down a five-dollar bill. "You can pay that back later." He moved quickly to the door. "Good-night," he said, and tried to escape.