of the ~indow where the back walls of other buildings strike
the eye, the open windows directly across, with girls at sew-
ing machines.
"Some nice heads there," laughed an Italian boy, working
next to him. They stood there for seconds, whistling to the
girls who waved back on the hot afternoons ..
"O-o-o-hh, Marreyootch
I"
shouted the Italian boy.
Then someone might hear, Willie, the heavy foot of Wil-
lie Kohler, the big, puffy-faced German foreman who tried
to be hard and didn't know how. They dived behind the
toilet onto the seats, and they heard Willie's voice roar:
"Come on out, you guys, have ye all got diarrhea?" Silence
over the washroom.
"Numbers six and four, I've stopped
your machines, you guys; the spools are all out." He shut the
door and went off. He hated to catch them in the washroom,
that was why he stopped so heavily outside the door; and
when he did catch someone he ordered the boy out with
watery eyes turned slightly away.
A science, the business of cutting up your spools to get
away from the machine; and Hesh bettered his instructor,
horrifying Joe Pinelli by clipping a dozen spools and setting
up new ones, and getting into the toilet for an hour, with
an occasional peep out to see if Willie was around. He work-
ed it out coolly, it started him reading more than he had
ever read before; he got the
News
on the way downtown
every morning and then he added the
World,
and he took
one and the other into the toilet and read them from cover
to cover; it was the simplest thing you could do to get away
from that racket and the monotony of stalking around those
machines. You couldn't sit down while working, even though
a box over the belt could serve for a seat. Not allowed.
So into the washroom, the stinking library, reading, get-
ting
hot!
over the picture of the winner of the Bathing
Beauty contest at Atlantic City, getting absorbed in the
obituary notices, the new shows, the illness of General
Wood, Governor-General
of the Phillipines; and he finally
got down to the editorial pages, his mind working ideas out
of them with a certain shyness. The
World
lamming Tam-
many Hall,
Rollin Kirby's cartoons of bluenoses-good,
laughing over them, heh heh; Heywood Broun funny fellow.
Better get back now.
A science, boy, got it down to a science. He drank more
water too than he ever did before in his life, a dozen times
a day over to the oasis, the water-cooler.
Save a second by
letting it run, then drink, drink slowly, then get down to the
machine, and to hell with Willie, sit down on the box in
back, the strap wheeling underneath tickles the rear end.
Sit there; and sitting there he learned that a little breeze
came.off the propellers. He soaked his handkerchief in water
and wet his face to feel the coolness of the breath of wind
off the propellers.
He got to know the machine well-when it needed oil,
and he even could tell when the spools were running out, by
just glancing at the cording after it was finished. Not enough
red, needs more red silk .•..
Even a little feeling for the
machine, a feeling very small, like the breath of wind off the
propellers, at the smoothness of it, how it purred after the
Friday afternoon oiling, throwing oil on your face; putting
your hand on it, along the steel rod holding the silk bobbins,
PARTISAN
REVIEW AND ANVIL
feeling the mighty thrum in the fingers. Listen to her, what
a big baby,
whooooooh.
Just right now
I
Oil again next·
Friday at five o'clock .•••
He shuts off the power. The blurring propellers slow
down, take shape as slender steel rods. Then he gets the oil-
can and squirts into little oil-holes here and there, and he
starts the machine again and listens to it, and he shoots oil
again. Warm weather, about five-fifteen now; he wants to
get it finished by five-thirty and make the line for the pay-
checks at five-thirty.
Get it finished now. Over the floor
there are single roars. A machine going on for a second, to
see how she runs, off again. On and off. Clop-clop, holiday
in the air, no work until Monday morning. Sunlight strole-.
ing the green machines.
Perfect,
whooooooh.
Perfect. He hunts around for a rag.
Never a rag around here to rub off that surface oil. He runs
around the /loor hunting for rags and finds a big wad of
paper with greasy finger stains over it, and goes back to his
machine. Twenty after five, he rubs the paper over it, not so
hot for wiping oil off but what the hell. Twenty-five after.
Minutes drag on Friday as you wait for that time-clock to
hit five-thirty.
He takes the oil-soaked paper into the stinking library and
sits himself down on the bowl for a smoke, also he rolls out
the paper and inside it is still readable and also useful after-
ward since they are careful here not to supply much paper
for the library. So he reads a letter, torn across, on the
Sacco- Vanzetti case and on the other side is the funny fellow
-two of them as a matter of fact, Frank Sullivan and this
other fellow, Broun.
Broun is writing on Sacco and Vanzetti.
At places, the
boy pauses.
By now there has been a long and careful sifting of the evid-
ence in the case. It is ridiculous to say that Sacco and Vanzetti
are being railroaded to the chair. The situation is much worse
than that. This is a thing done cold-bloodedly and with
deliberation. But care and deliberation do not guarantee justice.
Even if every college president in the country tottered forward
to say guilty they could not alter the facts.
He stops reading for a second, pursing his mouth a little
and rubbing his oily hands along the old shirt. Outside a
solitary clopping sound, one machine still tuning up.
Ping/
Pay!
He goes out of the washroom, throws his jacket on, gets
on the payline. Out on the street and free for the weekend.
Free! He runs along through the streets of the iron desert,
turning into Fifth Avenue and going south to Union Square
and going across the Park they are talking about Sacco and
Vanzetti,
big and little clusters of men talking and listen-
ing, and he stops to listen, the dark-faced kid, his brows
crinkling. Listening .•.•
And overhead another sound all of a sudden, and all the
heads lift for a second into the fading sunlight winging
over the big town; over the nevI skyscrapers,
the old
skyscrapers, the changing skyline a plane wings, drones, the
late afternoon sun catching the silver wing.
He plunges down, down below the city in the enormous
crowd to the Lexington Avenue subway platform at Union
Square, into the electric train, where the sweating crowd
stands quietly, trying to read the evening news.
