CHAPTER XV
At four o’clock that afternoon, since it was Saturday, the men were paid off for the week. No pay day will ever be satisfactory to the recipients until that happy state of affairs is reached when each man himself decides on the amount which is due him. Even then there will be some who will leave the pay-window with the discontented feeling that they have cheated themselves.
The bookkeeper, from his grated window, gave out the pay checks to the line of Mexican laborers who, displaying their brass number tags, passed before him. He kept up a running fire of argument. Over and over he was obliged to explain the amounts of the checks.
“The mess bill comes out of you.”
“You had twenty dollars’ worth of coupons at the store.”
“No, you only worked five days this week.”
“Hospital fee is twenty-five cents.”
These were fair samples of the innumerable arguments which he was compelled to go through with every week. And in spite of all explanations, the poor miners would walk away from the window, looking with dejected, unbelieving eyes at the small figures of their checks. Men of this class can never realize that if out of wages of ninety dollars a month they spend seventy-five for food and store coupons, the balance due to them is not ninety dollars, but fifteen.
As usual on pay day afternoon, in the road before the office, little groups of men were arguing excitedly among themselves, discussing the manner in which they were “cheated.” The dejected droop of their shoulders was accentuated by the quick, jerky movements of their arms as they gesticulated.