THE NEW HOUSEKEEPER
69
son while the old hand was out on probation after having
"raped" a
I
5-year old girl. Johnson had hired him because he
could use this probation as a club over the old man's head. The
day after the farmers' victory over Johnson the hired man had
been framed up on charges of having attacked Johnson's servant
girl. The farmers charged that Al was arrested not because of
the servant girl but because he had helped them fight Johnson.
The farmers charged that Johnson used flycatcher servant girls
to keep hired men working for shoestring wages. They pointed
out that Johnson, the local bankers, the rich storekeepers were
the real criminals because with their mortgages they were chok–
ing thousands of farmers off the land, breaking up homes, forc–
ing the women to hit the streets, shutting down schools and pay–
ing school teachers with warrants worth less than last years
cornshucks. The farmers said that if hired men like Al Robert–
son had been given land and a chance to have their own homes
they would never have blundered for their comfort to know–
nothing young girls. The farmers said there would be hunger,
diseases, and such problems so long as the farmers were unor–
ganized and did not run the whole shooting match to suit them–
selves.
Murf guffawed until tears came to his eyes. "There you
are. 'Join the Gun Hill United Farmers League'."
Elsa grabbed the paper.
Mule pawed the earth to bury his spittle. "Never heard
of farmers fighting to help a hired man."
.Murf said. "How in hell can you do it? This guy John–
son is a crablouse. But they're going to be so long as the world
is ballocksed up. · He'll die like us, and'll be buried a long time,
damn him." And he jammed his fist down as if turning a switch.
Elsa muttered, "That makes us sing. He's doing the harm
alive."
The boss had come up slowly, leaned against the porch pil–
lar. "It's fellows like me's worse off. Worked since I was
hubhigh and made something, and now they're tearing it to
pieces. I'm caught in a corner between two stonewalls, capital
and labGr. The fellows working in the cider mill bleeding me
white. They're after the farm too. Got a notice from the feed
company feed's gone up $3 a ton, the Blue Eagle jacked up the
men's pay. Go to the bank for a loan, and they're dry as apple–
drunk cows, · had a hell of a time splattering over the whole
world. Looks to me we'll have to haul our horns in. Looks to
