To Make My Bread (53 page)

“They did lay off more than a thousand, not long ago,” John said.

“But they kept some of you. And only hard times made them dismiss those others.”

“Hit was the machines, not hard times.”

“They had to spend large sums of money on the machines. And it made them get behind.”

“You mean they were hard up?”

“Yes, hard up.”

“How hard up were they?” John asked.

“Why . . . hard up as anyone could be,” Mr. Warmsley used John's phrase, and smiled at him, as if he said, “We understand each other's language, you and I.”

“The reason I ask,” John said slowly, “is this. Maybe they were hard up, but they went on living in big houses. Maybe they were hard up, but their children never died for want of food, or a doctor's care—maybe of other things, but not of that. For the last five years—and that is as far as I'll go, for it's as far as I remember well, I know from the testimony of my own eyes, that Mr. Wentworth has had his cars, and his big house, and others have, too. Hit don't seem t' fit, Mr. Warmsley, t' say they have kept the mill going at a loss.”

“They paid bigger wages during the war.”

“Yes, sir, they did. And why? Because other mills paid bigger wages t' get the best hands. They did hit for that reason and no other—because most of the best young men had gone t' the war.”

“They are sincere, honest men, John.”

“Yes, sir, maybe they are. But sincere and honest to their own kind, and not t' me and mine.”

“And they think so much of you,” Mr. Warmsley said, very sadly. “They tell me that you and the other strike leaders are some of their best workers. And because you are they will take you back, on certain conditions.”

“Is that what they said?”

Mr. Warmsley reached into his inner pocket. “I have it here in writing,” he said.

John took the paper and held it where he could read. He heard Mr. Warmsley speaking. “I have felt for so long that you were people after my own heart. And I have praised you to everyone—your dignity and fineness in poverty. And now you have disappointed me so keenly. I hear that some of the women even hurl unmentionable words at the deputies. The day will come, John, when the rich will give up everything they own, and each will share in the wealth. But we must be brothers first, living in harmony, before there can be any equal and just distribution of wealth.

“And these wealthy people really admire you. In the past I have pointed you out to them, you and your people, and they have agreed with me about your goodness, and your spiritual dignity. They have said to me, ‘Our villages are the bright spots in this torn country. In other places there are unions and strikes. Here we are peaceful communities living together in brotherly love.' And they have known it is because of you. Will you not come back and live in peace again ?”

“You mean, and give up the union?” John asked.

“That is one of the conditions. You read it on the agreement, didn't you?”

“I might think you're right, Mr. Warmsley. If hit was for me only, I might give hit up and go back. But there are many others, and there are children that cry for food. You say you want peace and harmony. While my people cry for a better life and the young are held down to slavery and nothing ahead but that, there can't be any peace.”

“And you're making a hopeless fight, John. I wish to warn you. Do you realize how strong they are?”

“Yes, Mr. Warmsley. But I know a place where the rich were even stronger, and the poor got the best of the fight.”

“Do you mean that country? Don't let them fool you with lies about it, John. They tell you that it is a paradise, but I know better. There is no freedom there.”

“Hit may be there is no freedom for people like you, Mr. Warmsley. But to us, hit means freedom and joy.”

“Then you would make of people like me outcasts, and starve our children?”

Mr. Warmsley's face was red. His generous mouth twisted into a smile that had no amusement in it.

“No, sir,” John said. “For just as soon as you got ready to work alongside us in understanding, we'd give you a living. Hit would be according to how much you understood.”

“You won't need that paper,” Mr. Warmsley spoke sharply and reached out his hand.

“If you don't mind, I'd like to hold it, and show it to the others. I can't decide for them.”

It was almost dark. Mr. Warmsley walked away from John. A few feet up the slope he turned and came slowly back. John could not see his face, but he could hear his voice, and it was no longer irritated.

“I almost went away in anger,” Mr. Warmsley said. “And I don't want to do that.” He held out his hand.

“I have no hard feelings,” John told him and shook hands.

The union hall was lit up. Everyone had gone inside or wandered down to the tents. A woman came from the house on the left. John saw her white dress waving back as she walked. She was like a ghost coming so quietly over the grass toward him.

“John,” the woman whispered.” It's Minnie, Minnie Hawkins,”

“What are you doing round here, Minnie?”

“Never mind. I want to tell you something. I'm your friend, John. And I tell you you'd better give up this union. Or something bad will happen.”

“What could happen, Minnie?” He spoke evenly, but her frightened voice in the dark communicated fear to him.

“Nothing, I reckon. Only I beg of you before it's too late—to give in.”

“Can't you tell me something?”

“No. Only I ask you, for Kirk's sake, and Emma's, who are dead, to give in.”

She went swiftly across the grass and entered the house without a sound that he could hear. It was as if a ghost had spoken to him words of warning. He was glad to go into the union hall where the lights were on. Yet he did not feel afraid. For he had spoken to Tom Moore and they had decided that the time had come for them to use guns in their defense. With a gun in his hand he was afraid of nothing.

That night a fiery cross was burned on the slope above the tents. The next day John returned the paper to Mr. Warmsley saying that the strikers had voted not to give up the union. If they might keep the union, they were ready to talk with the mill.

At the same meeting everyone had voted to place guards around the tent colony, guards who were armed. The guns were not to be used on the picket line, only at the tent colony, and in defense.

At the same time they drafted a letter and sent it by special delivery to the Governor, telling him that they had not broken a single law, but that the law had been broken constantly by the other side. And they warned him that they were preparing to defend their homes with guns.

F
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that time the men who were striking guarded the union hall which was on the slope, and the tents which were at the bottom of the hollow under the trees.

For several days nothing unusual happened. It had become a usual thing for people to be beaten on the daily picket line and arrested.

Then the tent colony began to have visitors from the village at night. These were those strikers who had gone back to work when they were threatened with eviction. They had been timid. Now they were dissatisfied, for they were getting no more money than before, and were forced to work long hours overtime to make up for the absent ones. They visited the tent colony in the night and laid their complaints before John and Tom Moore.

At Tom Moore's suggestion they sounded out the others in the mill and found that they, too, were ready to come out, if something was done so that they could all leave the mill together.

Friday evening was the time appointed for this to happen. All had voted to have a picket line on Friday after the evening meeting, but the fact that some in the mill had been appointed to lead the others out was kept a secret.

There was a general feeling that something decisive was to be done, and people in the tents began to whisper to each other, “We're going t' bring the others out. Then the strike will be won.”

The mill had its own ears that listened to the whispers. Mrs. Sevier had sent the young man, Jackson, away from her home. But there were others who were listening.

On one side of the union hall Minnie Hawkins was living with the Coxeys and on the other side Lessie Hampton was boarding. She was not backward about mixing with those who often stood outside the hall waiting for the evening meeting to begin. Fred Tate had brought his wife and child to live in the tents. They were suspected of being in the pay of the mill, but it wasalmost impossible to refuse them food and shelter when they asked for it.

On Friday morning word came that John Stevens was arrested and jailed in Sandersville. Tom Moore sent John over in the car and remained himself to carry out the plans they had made.

That morning Jesse McDonald and two others were building a rough platform against the back wall of the unpainted union office in preparation for the large meeting that evening. They saw Sam McEachern talking to Minnie Hawkins at the back of the Coxeys' house. Sam McEachern was head of the deputy sheriffs, and led the raids on the picket lines. He had become a very important person, for the town papers had made him a sort of hero. His election had come about through Minnie, really. For when he renewed his friendship with her, he had met others in the town who possessed the influence necessary to make him important.

Occasionally Sam McEachern, standing beside Minnie Hawkins, would look up at Jesse and the other two. Then Jesse would stop hammering and look back at him.

“Hit bodes no good to us,” he said to the others, “that they're over there talking together.”

“I wish John was here,” one of them said.

Statesrights Mulkey came around the corner of the Coxeys' house and spoke to Sam McEachern. They went away together, and Minnie walked up the steps, with her head down, into the Coxeys' back door.

That day Lessie Hampton stayed away from the mill. She came to the union hall and talked in a friendly way with all who came in. At dinner time she walked down the slope with Sally McDonald, and whispered that it was her monthly that had kept her at home. She was not sick enough to stay in bed.

“Did she ask ye anything?” Ora spoke to Sally when she came down to the tents.

“She asked, did we expect to bring out a crowd to-night from the mill? And I told her, we always expect.”

“And nothing more?”

“Nothing more. Not to her.”

As night came on all except the children and two women who were left to care for them, and the three guards appointed for that night to protect the tents, came up the slope to the open ground back of the union hall for the meeting.

From the village came those strikers who were secretly living with friends there. And with them came several who had been working in the mill. They had left the mill of their own accord to join the strike again.

They gathered with the others on the open space. With their coming an excitement went through the crowd. Men and women came forward to greet them and once again there was an upsurge of gayety and hope—a sense of power—because they were together again.

The two guards who had been appointed for the union hall that night were standing by the platform, one on each side. Their guns were visible, held upright at their sides.

One of the women relief workers climbed to the platform. The people listened silently, and with eager attention. This was the message they welcomed: that other people were thinking of them; that the fight was not theirs only, but for all like them. They had been drawn and twisted in the struggle as Tom Moore had said they would be. But had not others gone through the same experience? And because they had were now sending help and words of sympathy.

The relief worker finished, and Tom Moore took her place on the platform. He looked out over the people, and into their faces. Now he knew them all, not casually as a person knows those he has seen in the same town for many years. He knew them through sharing an experience that had been full of danger to all of them. It was still full of danger. He knew that he was leading them into danger that night. How could he help but understand this? It was useless to believe that the owners did not know of their plans. There would be some sort of reprisal, some attempt to check them. For it was certain that if they could bring out the rest of the workers that night, the strike would be won.

He had meant to explain the significance of the picket line they were to go on in a little while. But he had not spoken many sentences when he saw that two cars had come from the road into the open space on the other side of the Coxeys' house. The sun had gone down, and the daylight was getting very dim, so he could not see who occupied the cars. But as he talked, he thought that one of the guards must be sent over to investigate.

If he spoke of the picket line too soon, then those in the cars could drive away and warn the sheriffs that they were coming. So he put this off, and he could tell by the restlessness and the murmuring when he stopped that people were disappointed that he had not spoken of it.

As soon as the meeting was over he would suddenly call out to them, “Form in twos,” and they would go toward the mill. One thing was certain. They must reach the factory before the last whistle blew. Those inside the mill would be ready at ten minutes before closing hour to say, “The picket line is outside, fellow workers. Let us go and join them.” Or words something like these.

Tom Moore looked anxiously at his watch. Then he spoke to Henry Sanders, who left him to go towards the cars which had stayed like large vague shadows on the edge of the gathering of men and women.

Bonnie was on the platform speaking. He thought, “I will give her ten minutes more,” and kept his watch in his hand. He heard Bonnie's voice. It seemed clearer than usual. That was perhaps because he was standing close to her near the platform. The evening was quiet and except for Bonnie's high voice there was no sound. He thought he heard the pines in the grove across the open ground moaning a little as they did when a breeze came up. But there was very little breeze. The summer evening was as quiet as the people who were listening to Bonnie's words. He thought, “If it was all accomplished and we could enjoy, just enjoy what is before us—the quiet evening, and songs, and the people who are our friends.”