II
You know I was born in Chicago and never was out of it but once until the night it happened. I don’t know anything about my father and mother except what my aunt told me. You know she raised me, and I can’t make any complaint about the way she done it. I was real small when I went to live with her. She stayed all alone down on the canal. I guess you knew me when I was livin’ with her. She worked hard, but, of course, ladies of that kind don’t get much. She used to go over to the south side to do washin’ and to clean houses, and things like that, and sometimes when I was small she took me along. They were awful nice houses where we went. That’s how I got to know so much about the way rich people live. When I got bigger, she used to send me to school. I was pretty steady in school and got clear up to the sixth grade. I know it must have been awful hard for her to send me the way she earnt her money, but she seemed to think as much of me as if I’d been her own boy. She could have got along better, but every time she got five or ten dollars laid up it seemed as if there was a funeral of some of the neighbors and she had to club in and hire a carriage, and that took her money almost as fast as she could earn it.
“You remember how we used to play around the canal in them days. It smelled pretty bad but we didn’t seem to mind it much. We used to sail boats and go in swimmin’ and catch frogs and do ‘most everything. There was quite a gang of us boys that lived there. It don’t seem as if any of ‘em ever amounted to very much. Most of ‘em are in the stock yards or switchin’ or doin’ somethin’ like that. The only ones that I can think of that growed up down there and amounted to anything is the alderman and Bull Carmody, who went to the legislature. They call both of ‘em Honor’ble, you know. I guess anybody is honor’ble who ever had an office or tried to get one. Us boys used to get arrested quite a good deal. Of course we was pretty tough, you know that. We was always in some devilment. All of us rushed the can and chewed tobacco; then we fought a good deal and used to play ‘round the cars. Some of the boys would break into ‘em; but I never stole anything in my life unless you count coal off’n the cars, and I don’t know how we could have got along in the winter without that. Anyhow I guess nobody thinks anything of stealin’ coal off’n cars.
“But I don’t s’pose there’s any use goin’ over my whole history. I don’t know as it has anything to do with it anyway, only it kind of seems to me that I never had a very good chance and as if mebbe things would’ve been different if I had.
“Well, you remember when my aunt died I had got to be about fourteen. Then I found a job out to the stock yards. I never liked that work; I used to see so much killin’. At first I felt sorry for the cattle and the hogs, and especially for the sheep and calves—they all seemed so helpless and innocent—but after I’d been there awhile I got used to seein’ their throats cut and seein’ blood around everywhere, all over the buildings and in the gutters, and I didn’t think any more about it. You know I stayed there quite a while. Then I went to work for the railroad company. First I was in the freight house unloadin’ cars. This was pretty rough, heavy work, but I didn’t mind it much; you know I was always kind of stout. Then I thought I’d like to work in the yards; it would give me more air and not be quite so confinin’. So I got a job as switchman, same as you. Well, you know all about that work. It ain’t the nicest thing in the world to be a switchman. Of course if they’d make the couplers all alike then there wouldn’t be so much danger; but you know when one of them safety couplers comes against one of the old kind that the boys call ‘man killers’ it’s pretty dangerous business. Then, of course, when a car is run down a switch and you have to couple it onto another car just as it bumps in, it’s kind of dangerous too. Of course, the rules say you must use a stick to put the link into the drawhead, but nobody ever uses a stick; you know all the boys would laugh at a feller that used a stick. There ain’t nothin’ to do but to go in between the cars and take hold of the link and put it in. If anything happens to be wrong with the bumpers and they slip past, of course you get squeezed to death; or, if you miss the link, or it gets caught or anything, your head or arm is liable to be smashed off. Then you’ve got to watch all the time, for if you stub your toe or forget for a second, you’re gone. I kind of think that the switch-yards make a feller reckless and desperate, and I don’t believe that a man that works in the switch-yards or stock yards looks at things quite the same as other people. Still you know them fellers ain’t bad. You’ve seen ‘em cry when they went home to tell a lady how her man had been run over, or tell some old woman about how her boy had got hurt, and you know we always helped the boys out and we didn’t have much money either.
“You remember we was workin’ together in the yards when the strike come on. I was in debt, just as I always have been. Somehow I never could keep out of debt; could you? The rich people say it’s because we drink so much, but I’d like to see them try to live on what we get. Why, you know we hardly ever go to the theater, and if we do we go up in the gallery. I never had a job of work done on my teeth in my life except once when I paid a quarter to get one pulled. Do you s’pose any of us would ever think we could get a gold fillin’ in our teeth? Now that suit of clothes over on the bed is the first whole suit of new clothes I ever had. The guard brought ‘em in a little while ago, and I’m to put ‘em on in the mornin’. But I guess they won’t do me much good. I’d rather they had taken the money and give it to the kid for a rockin’ horse or candy.
“But I was tellin’ about the strike. My, the way I go on! I guess it’s because this is the first time I’ve had a chance to say anything to anyone since it happened, and of course it’ll be my last. As soon as I got back my lawyer told me not to talk to anyone, but I don’t see what difference it would have made—them detectives seemed to know everything and a good deal more, they knew more about me than I ever knew about myself.
“You remember all of us went out on the strike. I guess most of the boys was in debt, but they all struck just the same. The papers abused us and said we hadn’t any right to strike; that we hadn’t any grievance, and it was worse for us to strike on that account. Now it seemed to me that it was better to strike for the Pullman people than for ourselves—it didn’t seem so selfish; but the papers and the judges didn’t look at it that way. Of course the strike was pretty hard on all of us. I got into the lock-up before it was over, though I never meant to do nothin’. I guess I did hit a scab over the head, but he was comin’ to take our job. It’s queer how everybody looks at things a different way. Now I never thought it was so awful bad to hit a scab who was takin’ another man’s job. Of course I know some of ‘em are poor and have families, but so have the strikers got families and we was strikin’ to help all the poor people. If you read the newspapers and hear what the judges say you would think hittin’ scabs was worse’n murder. I don’t s’pose it’s just right, but I don’t hardly see what else is to be done. You remember that scab, don’t you, that worked with us on the road, and you remember when he got his leg cut off, and how all the boys helped him, and the railroad fought his case and beat him, and yet they always seemed to think more of him than any of the rest of us. Now it seems to me there’s lots of things worse’n hittin’ scabs. If I was one of them packers I know I’d give a lot of meat to poor people instead of fixin’ every way I could to make ‘em pay so much, but the rich people don’t seem to think there’s anything wrong about that, but it’s awful to hit a scab or to strike.
“Well, you know after the strike was over none of us could get a job anywhere, but finally I changed my name and managed to get in again. I believe the yard master knew who I was and felt kind of sorry for me. Anyhow I got the job. Then you know the time Jimmy Carroll got run over by that limited train. I sort of lost my nerve. I wouldn’t have thought about it if all the cars hadn’t run over him; but when we had to pick up his head and his legs and his arms and his body all in different places, I somehow got scared and couldn’t switch any more. So I quit the yards. But I’ve been runnin’ along so over things that really don’t have anything to do with the case that I’ve almost forgot the things I wanted to tell you about. But just wait a minute; I hear someone comin’ down the corridor and I want to see who it is. No, it’s only one of the guards. I didn’t know but possibly my lawyer might have sent—but I guess it’s no use.