MIGRATORY WfJRKER
he was smashing baggage at the Railway Express and Jinny was
countergirl in a onearmed lunch. Between them they could only make
twenty dollars a week. Every week they changed their furnished room
trying to find one that wasn't filthy dirty or didn't have bedbugs.
Still Ike was happy. He'd never had a girl all to himself like that. In
bed he'd be awful careful not to hurt her; he'd never known he could
have a time with a girl night after night like that. She was awful
bashful and never let on she knew what they were doing, but she
thought the world of him. All day he'd be looking forward to evening
when they'd walk around the town a little holding hands before going
to bed. Waking up in the morning with her head all rumpled with
sleep on the pillow beside his it would give him quite
a:
turn to re-
member that here he was a married man.
Every week they put a little cash away to get something ahead so
that they could pull out and go someplace where Ike could get him a
decent job and they could have some kind of a shack' to themselves.
But when it came on to be the third month and there wasn't any more
chance that Jinny wasn't going to have a baby, Ike made up his mind
something had to be done real quick.
They sat up half one night in their little hallbedroom whispering.
They couldn't talk out loud because every time they raised their voices
some bloke next door banged on the wall. Winter was setting in early
that fall and their feet and hands were cold and they didn't have
enough covers, and they couldn't get to, sleep they were so 'Y0rried.
There wasn't a living soul they could call on for help. At last Jinny
curled up in the blanket and went to sleep like a baby with the tears
still running out from under her eyelashes. Ike sat up in the chair
looking at her and wondering what the hell he could do; he had half
a mind to walk out on her and hit the road again, but, Jesus, how
could a stiff walk out on a nice girl like that who thought the world
of him?
Next morning Ike started for work early. His eyes stung and he
felt dead tired from not getting enough sleep. The November morn-
ing was frosty and he had to step right along because he didn't have
any overcoat. Passing the damn fink employment agency on the cor-
ner opposite the freight depot he saw a new sign on the bulletin board.
HIGH PAY WIDE AWAKE MEN TO LEAVE AT ONCE FOR OILFIELDS.
He
went in and found they were paying four dollars a day for donkey-
enginemen and machinists.
Sure he could run a drill and hadn't he been engineman on that
coaster out of Seattle. Right away he felt there was something phoney
about the job and the blackjawed onearmed guy named Riley who
wasin there hiring the crew. "Kin you ship out to Oklahoma tonight?"
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