ST. LOUIS IDYLL
47
paper, torn to resemble bonbons, still fluttered down from upperstory
windows. And it began to drizzle. Frankie turned up his coat-collar
and walked slowly down the street. He began at last to run, going
faster and faster.
Handbills whitened the wet street and he stooped in flight, taking
one without knowing. On the corner, men seemed to be fightmg. He
became aware of shouts, police-whistles shrilling. Mechanically, he pushed
through fleshmasses, through faces suddenly hurtling. He staggered as
a man fell against him and slid to the ground.
A
hand caught his shoulder.
spinning him like a wheel. He saw a face red as copper, a lifted club.
Suddenly aware, he began to strike out.
"Quit it, you bastard," the heavens shrieked.
"I'll kill you," he moaned, "I'll kill you!"
They were dragging him, they were tearing at his armpits. They
we re lift ing, they were pounding! 'mauling! stomping! pulling him toward,
up to, in through the patrolwagon door. He kicked and screamed, sprint–
ing in air, but he was in at last. Half-reeling, half-walking, falling over,
under, between bodies, he found himself somehow seated. The steel door,
crisscrossed with iron bars, clanged shut.
"How you making out, comrade?" a voice asked.
'Tm all right," Frankie said.
The wagon started.
A
boy's voice sobbed softly.
"Scared, kid?"
"It's my first time, Steve," the boy said. "I wonder what my ma
will think when I don't come home tonight."
"We'll soon be out, kid," Steve said, "we'll soon-"
"That's all right," the boy said.
Steve grinned, throwing back his head. He began to sing:
"Uhrize
I
ye prizners of starva-shun !"
He sang as though in pain, as though in joy. One by one, lifting
battered heads, his companions joined in.
"Uhrize! ye wret-ched of the earth!"
The desperate strange words rose through the gray thin air, through
the swishing rain running like ratfeet down the street. Pedestrians,
hiding from the storm coming up, turned to listen.
Frankie listened.
