The Nine-Tenths Part 18

The labor on that first number was a joy to him. He would jump up in the middle of the night, rush into the office, light the gas, and get to work in his nightgown. He was at it at all hours. And it proved to be an enormous task. Eight pages eight by twelve do not read like a lot, but they write like a very great deal. There was an editorial, "Greetings to You," in which Joe set forth in plain words the ideas and ideals of the paper, and in which he made clear the meaning of the phrase "nine-tenths." Then he found that there were two great strikes in progress in the city. This amazed him, as there was no visible sign of such a condition. The newspapers said nothing of it, and peace seemed to brood over the city's millions. Yet there were thousands of cloak-makers out, and over in Brooklyn the toilers in the sugar refineries were having little pitched battles with strike-breakers in the streets. Three men had been killed and a score wounded.

Joe dug into these strikes, called at the union headquarters, spoke with the men, even called on some of the cloak-makers' bosses and learned their grievances. Then he wrote accounts of the strike without taking sides, merely reporting the facts as fairly as he could.

In this way, and with the aid of clippings, and by printing that poem by Lowell which was his mother's favorite, wherein was the couplet already quoted,

"They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three,"

he made up a hodge-podge of a magazine.

Up in the corner of the editorial page he ran the following, subject to change:

THE NINE-TENTHS

A WEEKLY WORD ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN

MY MOTTO

I ACCEPT LIFE LARGELY, BUT NOT IN DETAILS

SOME OF THE DETAILS NOT ACCEPTED ARE

Anything that prevents a child from being well born and from fulfilling its possibilities.

Anything that prevents a woman or man from using every good side of her or his nature.

ABOUT THESE DETAILS NO DOUBT:

DISEASE EXCESS WANT OVERWORK CHILD LABOR

And let's avoid jealousy, quarrels, ridicule, meanness, and the rest of the mosquito things.

Otherwise: what a glorious world.

This didn't please him altogether, but he wanted to be definite and simple, and he wanted to show that he wasn't a narrow partisan.

Thus the first number came to be. As he turned it out, Billy rushed it in batches to the compositors, and when finally it all came back in strips of type, it was hurried down to the idlers in the bas.e.m.e.nt. At ten-thirty that chilly, dust-blowing morning, when the sun-stricken air glittered with eddies of motes, Joe, sitting at his desk, had the exquisite rapture of feeling the building tremble.

He rushed to his mother, and exulted.

"Can't you feel the press going? Listen!"

Truly the new life had begun--the vision was beginning to crystallize in daily living.

"We're in the fight now, mother!" he cried. "There's something doing!"

And later, when Joe stood at the back of the press and that first complete sheet came through, he picked it up as if it were a new-born child, as indeed it was, wet, drippy, forlorn, and weird, and yet a wonder and a miracle. Joe looked on his own creation--the little sheets--the big, black _The Nine-Tenths_--the clear, good type. He was awed and reduced almost to tears.

He mailed a copy to Myra with a brief note:

DEAR MYRA,--Here's the answer to your question.

I'm doing the inclosed, and doing it in West Tenth Street. Do you know the neighborhood? Old Greenwich Village, red, shabby, shoddy, common, and vulgar.

Mother and I are as happy as children. How are you?

Your letter is splendid. I am sure you will come to understand. When are you returning to New York?

As ever,

JOE BLAINE.

And he thought, "Now I have something to show Sally Heffer!"

III

OTHERS: AND SALLY HEFFER

Joe filled a stiff cloth portfolio with a batch of 9/10s (abbreviation for home use), pulled his gray hat over his bushy hair, and went over and tapped the collapsible Slate on the shoulder.

"Yes, Mr. Joe."

"Nathan," cried Joe, excitedly, "if there's a rush of subscribers while I'm gone, make 'em stand in line, and each wait his turn. But don't let them block the car tracks--string 'em around the corner."

Nathan gazed at Joe like a lost soul.

"But I think, Mr. Joe," he said, slowly, "you place your hopes too high.

I don't like to be too gloomy, Mr. Joe, but I have my doubts about a rush."

"Slate," cried Joe, slapping the tragic bookkeeper a whack, "you're inspiring!"

And he swung out to the street in the brilliant morning sunshine, ready to begin his canva.s.s.

"Next door," he mused, "is the place to start."

There was a woman sitting on the stoop, a two-year-old girl in her arms. Joe paused and looked at the baby.

"h.e.l.lo, you."

The baby looked at him a little doubtfully, and then laughed.

"Girl or boy?" asked Joe of the mother.

"Girl."