CHAPTER XVII ON THE DEAD END
"He tramped through the colourless winter land or swined in the scorching heat,
The dry skin hacked on his sapless hands or blistering on his feet;
He wallowed in mire, unseen, unknown where your houses of pleasure rise,
And hapless hungry and chilled to the bone he builded the edifice."
—From A Song of the Dead End.
In this true story, as in real life, men and women crop up for a moment, do something or say something, then go away and probably never reappear again. In my story there is no train of events or sequence of incidents leading up to a desired end. When I started writing of my life I knew not how I would end my story; and even yet, seeing that one thing follows another so closely, I hardly know when to lay down my pen and say that the tale is told. Sometimes I say, "I'll write my life up to this day and no further," but suddenly it comes to me that to-morrow may furnish a more fitting climax, and so on my story runs. In fiction you settle upon the final chapter before you begin the first, and every event is described and placed in the fabric of the story to suit an end already in view. A story of real life, like real life itself, has no beginning, no end. Something happens before and after; the first chapter succeeds another and another follows the last. The threads of a made-up story are like the ribs of an open umbrella, far apart at one end and joined together at the other. You close the umbrella and it becomes straight; you draw the threads of the story together at the end and the plot is made clear. Emanating as it does from the mind of a man or woman, the plot is worked up so that it arouses interest and compels attention. Such an incident is unnecessary; then dispense with it. Such a character is undesirable; then away with him. Such a conversation is unfitting; then substitute one more suitable. But I, writing a true story, cannot substitute imaginary talk for real, nor false characters for true, if I am faithful to myself and the task imposed upon me when I took to writing the story of my life. No doubt I shall have some readers weak enough to be shocked by my disclosures; men and women, who like ascetic hermits, fight temptation by running from it, and avoid sin by shutting their eyes to it. But these need not be taken into account, their weakness is not worthy of attention. I merely tell the truth, speak of things as I have seen them, of people as I have known them, and of incidents as one who has taken part in them. Truth needs no apologies, frankness does not deserve reproof. I write of the ills which society inflicts on individuals like myself, and when possible I lay every wound open to the eyes of the world. I believe that there is an Influence for Good working through the ages, and it is only by laying our wounds open that we can hope to benefit by the Influence. Who doctors the wounds which we hide from everybody's eyes?
It was beautiful weather and the last day of May, 1906, when I left Braxey Farm and took to the road again. I obtained work, before night fell, on an estate in the vicinity. The factor, a pompous man with a large stomach, gave me the job; and I got lodgings with a labourer who worked on the estate. My pay was eighteen shillings a week, and I stopped a fortnight. At the end of that period I got sacked. This was how it happened.
Two men, a fat man and a fatter, came to the spot where I was working on the estate grounds. The fat man was the factor.