One Way Out

DLE CLA

I could hardly catch my breath as I followed him. I didn't realize until then how big a load I had been carrying. As a drowning man is said to see visions of his whole past life, I saw visions of my whole future. I saw Ruth's eager face lifted to mine as I told her the good news; I s

ut looking at me. He was a small fellow. I don't suppose a beefy man ever quite gets over a

e got to cut down your sal

in the face. I don

can double up on your work and offers

ake. While watching the man ahead of me I had neglected to watch the man behind me. E

" said

vered

can't live on any less

sign?" he as

is pigmy by the throat. I wanted to shake h

l give you an order for t

my hand. I saw Evans at his desk. I guess I must have looked que

e said, "what

ou know,"

ren't

his. I tried to

said, "I'

im I wanted to get married and needed more money. He asked me if I thought I could do your work. I said yes. I'd

is right to love as I was fighting for mine. I don't know that I should have been as gen

first thing you know you'll be doi

ered. "But what are

er job," I

hings gently to her. She always took a blow standing up, like a man. So now I boarded my train and went straight to the house and

an't be helped, can it? So goo

es I felt that I had exaggerated my misfortune. Thirty-eight is not old and I was able-bodied. I might land s

o wonder just where I was bound. What sort of a job was I going to apply for? Wh

was not a bookkeeper. I knew no more about keeping a full set of books than my boy. I had handled only strings of United Woollen figures; those meant nothing outside that particular off

I was willing to work, had a record of honesty and faithfulness, and was intelligent as men go. I didn't care what I

lf of the positions demanded technical training; a fourth of them demanded special experience; the rest asked for young men.

s of my great-grandfather no Carleton had ever quit the game more than even

Josh, and were familiar with one another's physical ailments when any of us had any. If any of the children had whooping cough or the measles every man and woman in the neighborhood watched at the bedside, in a sense, until the youngster was well, again. We knew to a

whom I felt free to go and ask their help to interest their own firms to secure another position for me. Their respect for me depended upon my ability to maintain my social position. They were like ste

allow me to ask even for a letter of introduction without feeling like a beggar. I felt there was something wrong when they made me feel not

tackled the problem in the only way I could think of and that was to visit the houses with whom I had learned the United Woollen did business. I remembered the names of about a doze

honest man offering to do a fair return of work for pay, so much as I did a beggar. This may have been my fault; but after you've sat around in offices and corridors and been scowled at as

h with the years ahead that I had already sold. Wherever I stumbled by chance upon a vacant position I found waiting there half a dozen stalwart youngsters. They looked as I had looked when I joined the United Woollen Company. I offered to do the same work at the same wages as the youngsters, but the managers didn't want me. They didn't want a man around with wrinkles in his face. Moreover, they were looking to the future. They

had no credit whatever. Even at the end of the third week I knew that the grocery man and butcher were beginning to fidget. The neighbors had by

ptimism. She was not blind to the seriousness of our present position, but she exhibited a confidence in me that did not admit of doubt or fear. There was

e's work for shou

e feel li

was concerned I would have taken it. That sum would at least buy bread, and though it may sound incredible the problem of getting enough to eat was fast becoming acute. The provision men became daily more suspicious. We cut down on everything, but I knew it was only a question

eared some twenty-five dollars a week. I couldn't mow my neighbors' front lawns or deliver milk at their doors, though there was food in it. That was honest work-clean work; but if I attempted it would they play golf with me? Personally I didn't care. I would have taken a job that day. But there were the wife and boy. They were held in ransom. It's all very well to talk about scorning the conventions, to philosophize about the dignity of honest work, to quote "a man's a man for a' that"; but associates of their own kind mean

elt like going into the Northwest and preempting a homestead. That was a saner idea, but it took capital and I didn't have enough.

plied with meat. My shoes were worn out at the bottom and my clothes were getting decidedly seedy. The men with whom I was in the habit of riding to town in the morning gave me as

me reluctantly, but with h

te. But the worst of the middle-class hell is that there is nothing to fight back at. There you are. I cou

n town to-d

. I looked at the other trim little houses around me. Was it actually possible that a man could starve in such a community? It seemed like a satanic joke. Why, every year this coun

modest protest that the neighbors might see. The word neighbors goaded me. I shook my fis

neighbors!

tled. I don't

bout you?" she asked sudd

But they hold you in ransom l

they,

k without taking it ou

cond at mention of the bo

" she gasped. "Let's go wh

you?" I

he earth with you, Billy

ldn't help but smile as I

o the ends of the earth, Ruth. It wi

have?" s

what she and I had. They could take our belong

s I had lived with them, played with them, been an integral part of their lives, and now they were worse than useless to me. There wasn'

ftly. Within fifteen minutes I had solved my pro