The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 18, 1926, Page 12

} —By Rose Pastor Stokes. oer @ rank and filer.” oM “Have you ever seen such a “Come here, Jennie; let me intro- duce you to .. .” That’s how we met. Afterward we got acquainted. Girls have a way of telting you things, if you’re lucky. I was. That's how I happen to know about Jennie. And if the story I tell doesn’t read the way I would normally tell it, it is because, somehow, it must be told the way Jennie would tell it. If it reads too quietly for you, get the point nev- ertheless, and don’t quarrel with me. VER Qi) ver ® s 2. NIE was going to write him. Not that she couldn’t “happen” to meet him, maybe near his place of work, and try to say it to him. Only, in her excitement, she might say the wrong thing. Or say the right thing badly. Jennie knew her deficiences. Also she knew Sam’s weaknesses. She mustn’t bungle. Better write him. She’d write on Sunday—the day on Long Island, with Yetta. Yetta had asked her out for the day. There she’é have time and quiet to write him a long letter—say all that should be said, clear away the misanderstanding. Sam ‘would forgive her and again her sun would shine. Jennie and Sam had quarreled. Over a senseless thing, a foolish trifle. They had seen Pola Negri in a picture and fell to quarreling over -her quality ag an actress. A stupid thing to quar- rel over. If it had been over the labor movement ... But over Pola! Queer! and she'd always been so patient with him. Sam wasn’t yet a left-winger—just on the way. So they’d argued a lot about those ques- tions. But always without quarreling. And here, over a trifle, over a thing that didn’t matter, she had to go and fly off the handle, call names, Jennie was sure it never would have happened but for the day. A spring day. Something about a day like that always gets you. Guessed it was the kind of life you’ve got to live. If she and Sam had been married she thought it would have been different. Just the same she shouldn’t have let that day get her, and over a thing like that. Or she should have apologized, right away. Instead of letting him go the way she did—him saying if that’s the way she felt about it he guesses she didn’t care to see him again. So won't trouble her any more. She would have written him that very night. But she was tired. You know how. A show, Saturday night, on top of a hard week's work. Tired? She was that tired, thoughts of Sam couldn’t keep her awake. Dropped right off. Slept like a log, that’s how tired she was. Next day Jennie didn’t wake till eleven, By the time she’d made the bed, swept, dusted, took a bath, got breakfast, it was one, Then there were the things to wash, Some of them to iron, You know how it is JENNIE with a Sunday. All the week’s work to be done, If you don’t do them things you have to let them wait till next Sunday, and next Sunday it might rain, Of course, if you’ve got plenty of things to wear, it don’t matter. She? Well, she couldn’t get along unless she washed. There was no other time. Monday? Monday night, fraction night. Tuesday night, union meeting. Wednesday night, that course economics, Thursday night, shop com- mittee, Friday night, that course again. Saturday night, if there wasn’t mass meeting, was the only night for a movie or a lecture, a show Or a con- cert. You had to draw breath one night in the week. No, Sunday was the only washday, clean-up day, day for chores—darning, mending; making the lean pay enve- lope look like it did a fat lot more for you than it really did. For Jennie Sunday had become a little less drudge day because Sam called. Nearly a year of Sundays brought him, He never failed. But this Sunday Jennie was nervous, excit- ed. Wili he come? Jennie’s married sister, with whom she lived, had gone off for the afternoon, taking her two children with her and leaving Jennie alone. Guess her sister understood. Jennie hustled. Doubting, hoping, pushing the hours. She dropped things, did things wrong, undid, and did things over again. Thinking, did he mean it? Wasn't he really coming any more? Sam must have meant it, for he didn’t come. Then Jennie sat down and cried. Like a baby. Just as if she’d never been steeled in struggle. All evening, thru tears, she hoped. Maybe he’ll come yet. Then she fell away and slept. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. A week to drain you. She tried to write during lunch time. Made several starts. It didn’t work. She was too fagged to think. How her back ached!.. Jennie wondered why she stuck in the industry anyway. Once she left it. Took a job ag an Italian girl—served Chianti in an Italian restaurant, It was a nice job, too. But you were so much by your- self. Cut off. You know how it is: Where a lot of workers work together in ome place you don’t feel lonely. You get organized. You feel alive. The world’s full of workers—men, women, boys, girls. Just the same, Jennie now wished that she’d kept on being an Italian girl, serving Chianti in an Italian res- taurant, She’d have had time to write Sam. Well, she must wait till Sunday. Out there on Long Island, with Yetta, she'll have the whole afternoon, Free —in a quiet, restful place. RAZY to have jumped all over him and him so good. He didn’t see all she saw, but he was good as gold, And she’d been so different with him in everything else. Mother, sweetheart, teacher—so patient! She had misgiv- ings—letting such a long time go by, making him think maybe she didn’t care. But, never mind, he'll under- stand. He might have taken to younger, prettier faces, more carefree girls. He wasn't yet thirty; she weil past. But he never let her remember it, because he had a serious mind. Had she been sweet and twenty, not in the thoughtful thirties, maybe he wouldn’t have cared at all for her. Years don’t matter between two who belong together. And they belonged. | whe: And didn’t Sam see it first. She was go? crazy to have called names! So mean, over nothing! + ° s ° . HHURSDAY, then another workday, then a half-day, when you work like a steam engine till you get out of the shop. It’s more than half a day, only the boss don’t see it. Then you rush around looking for this, that and the other little thing you need—cheap! In the Five-and-Ten mostly, Darning cotton and such, maybe. Jennie got a fresh writing tablet and hurried home. To be free on Sunday. She had Sun-| J: day’s chores to do, She didn’t got thru till ninethirty, Took a bath and ee ey hee & By ROSE PASTOR STOKES dropped off to sleep the moment her head touched the pillow, ° * . . s ETTA met Jennie at the little Long Island station, and a twenty-minute walk brought them to the “camp” a mile away. “Camp” was a small stretch of fleld and a clump of four biggish trees, with a few scraggly sumachs at the far end. To this Yetta had added a table, a bench, an oil stove and a few cook- ing utensils. Just the same, it was heaven to a tired working girl. It took only a few minutes to look the whole place over. Py r ® ° * ENNIEB had thought that once she got “into the country” she’d sing, shout! She never opened her mouth. She was just too tired somehow. She and Yetta got the lunch, They put- tered over the oil stove, one of them humming. But it wasn’t Jennie. After the few dishes were cleared away Yetta looked at Jennie for quite a while. Then, sticking a cush- ion into Jennie’s arms, she said: “Here, kid, you go lie out there in the sunshine—or the shade. Anyhow, scoot. If I neéd ye, I'll call ye.” Jennie blessed Yetta in her heart, took the cushion and her writing tab- let, went as far as the field went, dropped the cushion close to a sumach tree and sank down in the long grass. At last, the hour for writing Sam! Let’s see, how should she begin? Her eyes stared up thru the sumach tree to the blue sky. She'll tell him first what was really the matter with her—why she had flown off the handle. No, she couldn't do that! Maybe first she should say how sorry she is. She owes him that. Then she'll say . . . She had thonght it all out during the week. Now she couldn't remem- ber. She gazed at the far clouds. They moved slowly. As if they, too, were tired. White, soft clouds .. . Heaps of dainty muslin waiting to be tTade up into nice underthings ... Funny! thinking of underthings, the few things she did up last night had taken all the tuck out of her... Such a feeling . . . all in! The lunch, too. So logey! afte eating she could sink. Shouldn’t have taken it before writing that letter. © + @ . s IOUS air .. + First she'll tell him .,. Air like wine... The shop, stifling. And such a din. Here, so still, so m! sumach tree ..» Like those in ‘the Bronx, on the empty lot across the street ... She might rest on her elbow, sit up, like this, No. You're not so tired if you lie back, Better lie back. Dear Sam: You know I love you. You know I didn’t mean a word of what I said. Forgive me. I... No, she must do better than that, Begin again... Air, shade, sunlight. , 4 Hard te think, Arms like lead , » « Funny! 2 e ° * e + NCE, twice, Yetta called across the field. No answer. Supper time. Jennie still slept. When Jennie opened her eyes there stood Yetta before her. Yetta was saying. Damn it all, a work- ing girl’s ideal Sunday! You'll catch that train if you're in luck! & s & * & S it turned out Jennie never wrote that letter. It happened that Sam left town that week—hitch-hiked it out to Pittsburgh, she’d heard. Jennie worked hard and spent her evenings much as she'd always done. But Jennie wasn’t the same Jennie any more. When the strike was called Jennie threw herself into it like an army. She led the pickets, she harried the strikebreakers, she mocked the police- man’s club, she lashed the strike-shirk- ers with her tongue till they fell into line. She was always on the dot when strikers were called together. In the hall, outside. She said things to a judge, she went to jail for some days. She came out smiling. She in- spired thousands. She learned to make speeches. No, she just spoke and put it across. She was in the strike like an army. A rise in wages? Good. Better working conditions? Good, But two rest days in the week—Jennie went fighting mad for that! No wonder they called her the Red Striker. ® Py * * 7 ‘AS the strike won? Yes, Which industry? No fair telling. If you knew maybe you'd recognize Jennie. Better not. And, by the way, her name isn’t Jennie, “Five-six-seven-eight! Whom do we appreciate? Jennie!” Funny, how I find myself sticking that in. Guess it’s because I heard the crowd sing-songing it when I came into the strike meeting that day Jennie was in- troduced to me. No rumor yet of Sam’s return. But here’s hoping. THE TINY WORKER A Weekly. Edited by Dorothy Red, Minneapolis. Johnny Red, Assistant. Vol. 1. Saturday, September 18, 1926 No. 17 HEY, YOU FEL- Lows! Nobody sent in any “Bunk in His- tory” that the believe George H Of Bort ‘Washington never - tien te weaned ware pSkOTHY RED ver sent » es $e nm: was all Mina, THE BOSS wars? Well, what —_—— _ do you think? Leo's father was a Rabbi in Rus- A boss I know Ghee, we got all | sia, a peddler in this country. Leo He’s round and kinds of letters and was the smallest of five children. His fat poems and stories | oldest brother was a tailor and a good | His pants hang low os Ge py ena nm them but where oh Leo went to school and was the 2 re. the | brightest in the class but the teacher | ‘The boss grows fat Bunk in History s gave bad marks because And fatter each he would not believe some of the day —_—_— things she said. She said that Wash- His men at work Little Jack Horner to the poor work- Get thin on their Sat in a corner ing man than Lincoln and that every pay. Eating a hunk of the same chance to become 3 pie. ent or a millionaire like Ford of 7 = ee hunk the . hat un! was stale Day the children {| Some day and kick pe and | were told not to forget to bring an The boss where ~—Because he was A Leo came neatly he sat. 6, Voeheo. | The teach ME Oh my, oh moy, fic’ 6 er, pone, my, DMs brought a red fing, instead of an| now what do , American flag. Leo answered: “This |] think of ‘s Barnard Mazarov | red flag was the first American fresh little ? oh Ms gare omelet ihe oar ng iat locked | Gomme senin res : 0 of a eauee ~ yellow, black or co aed i ee ie sald to ie cos baie NEXT WEDPK immy: ‘ Leo was sent home for punishment and helps all the wi | Eg u hed home leg and ers and even the like a little American hero with his G Satur- Passaic strikers.” red flag. ‘8 lesue.