Free The Iron Heel by Jack London Page A

same lodge and the same club. They live in the same neighborhood—one I can’t afford. And their wives are always in and out of each other’s houses. They’re always having whist parties and such things back and forth.”
    â€œAnd yet you think Jackson had the right of it?” I asked, pausing for the moment on the threshold.
    â€œI don’t think; I know it,” was his answer. “And at first I thought he had some show, too. But I didn’t tell my wife. I didn’t want to disappoint her. She had her heart set on a trip to the country hard enough as it was.”
    â€œWhy did you not call attention to the fact that Jackson was trying to save the machinery from being injured?” I asked Peter Donnelly, one of the foremen who had testified at the trial.
    He pondered a long time before replying. Then he cast an anxious look about him and said:
    â€œBecause I’ve a good wife an’ three of the sweetest children ye ever laid eyes on, that’s why.”
    â€œI do not understand,” I said.
    â€œIn other words, because it wouldn’t a-ben healthy,” he answered.
    â€œYou mean—” I began.
    But he interrupted passionately.
    â€œI mean what I said. It’s long years I’ve worked in the mills. I began as a little lad on the spindles. I worked up ever since. It’s by hard work I got to my present exalted position. I’m a foreman, if you please. An’ I doubt me if there’s a man in the mills that’d put out a hand to drag me from drownin’. I used to belong to the union. But I’ve stayed by the company through two strikes. They called me ‘scab.’ There’s not a man among ’em to-day to take a drink with me if I asked him. D’ye see the scars on me head where I was struck with flying bricks? There ain’t a child at the spindles but what would curse me name. Me only friend is the company. It’s not me duty, but me bread an’ butter an’ the life of me children to stand by the mills. That’s why.”
    â€œWas Jackson to blame?” I asked.
    â€œHe should a-got the damages. He was a good worker an’ never made trouble.”
    â€œThen you were not at liberty to tell the whole truth, as you had sworn to do?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œThe truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” I said solemnly.
    Again his face became impassioned, and he lifted it, not to me, but to heaven.
    â€œI’d let me soul an’ body burn in everlastin’ hell for them children of mine,” was his answer.
    Henry Dallas, the superintendent, was a vulpine-faced creature who regarded me insolently and refused to talk. Not a word could I get from him concerning the trial and his testimony. But with the other foreman I had better luck. James Smith was a hard-faced man, and my heart sank as I encountered him. He, too, gave me the impression that he was not a free agent, and as we talked I began to see that he was mentally superior to the average of his kind. He agreed with Peter Donnelly that Jackson should have got damages, and he went farther and called the action heartless and cold-blooded that had turned the worker adrift after he had been made helpless by the accident. Also, he explained that there were many accidents in the mills, and that the company’s policy was to fight to the bitter end all consequent damage suits.
    â€œIt means hundreds of thousands a year to the stockholders,” he said; and as he spoke I remembered the last dividend that had been paid my father, and the pretty gown for me and the books for him that had been bought out of that dividend. I remembered Ernest’s charge that my gown was stained with blood, and my flesh began to crawl underneath my garments.
    â€œWhen you testified at the trial, you didn’t point out that Jackson received his accident through trying to save the machinery from damage?” I said.
    â€œNo, I