Still Jim

e in the desert for countless ages, w

of the E

ion because once more the lift cable had parted. Big Jim Manning, Little Jim's father, was down in the pit

n the quarry. It seemed to them that Big Jim was too good for such work. Little Jim wanted to leave school and be a

running order. Little Jim slid down into the pit with h

ars old. Little Jim was fourteen; tall and lean, like his father, his face a composite of father and mother. His eyes were large and a clear gray. Even at fourteen he had the half sweet, half gay, wholly wistful

heir unmixed Anglo-Saxon ancestry. When Big Jim did talk at the noon hour, it was usually to try to educate his Italian and Polish fellow workmen to his New England viewpoint. Little Ji

ead and took an onion from one pocket and a piece of cheese from another. Big Jim and 'Masso, as he was called, working shoulder to sh

nyhow, 'Masso?" drawled Big Jim

houghtfully. "Maka da mon' quick, h

e?" urged

g Jim, "did you like our laws better'n

on' care 'bout countra if maka da

to bite like the slow g

forefathers left comfort and friends behind them and came to this country when it was full of Indians to be free. Free! Can you get th

. "I work all da time. I maka da mon. I go home

chin in palm, sat listening, turning the matter

ere, 'Masso? How'd you h

lika da talk but I lika my own Italia, see? But in olda countra many men work for steamship compana. Steamship compana, they needa da mon', to

pose you can't help it that Italians as a class are a lawless lot of cut-throats. You certainly are willing workers. But I'd like to bet that if we'd shut the doors after the Civil War and let those that was in this c

et real Americans to do this k

laborers. Our forefathers founded this government and this town. What's happened to it and to us? It's too late for us older men to d

hat had happened to Exham. Little Jim's forefathers had once held in grant from an English king the land on which the quarry lay. His grandfather had given it up. Farm labor was hard to get. The mortgage had grown heavier and

how, he could not compete. He was slow and thoroughgoing and honest. He could not compete with the new type of workman, the man bred to d

iful. Two great elms still shaded the wide portico. The great eaves still sheltered many paned windows. The delicate bal

houses, set in gardens, some of which still held dials and bricked walks; wide, deep gardens some of which still were ghostly sweet. But the majority of the mansions had been turned into Italian tenement ho

mother, taking the bucket from him, caught the look in the clear gray eyes that were like her own. She had no words for the look. Nevertheless

wick just whistled for you. H

that intangible look from Jim's f

's early today. Can I ha

t keeps all you boys from dying! And how you can stand the blood suckers and turtles up there in th

laid down his Youth's Companion. Usually when Will Endicott came there were some lively discussions on the immigration question and the tariff. Even had Little Jim wanted to talk, he

tonight. But he had no

e exclaimed. "He just came. Ni

dness! I didn't know-Why I thought tomorrow-Well, I guess I'll go right over

to have a dozen. But they cost money, these kids. I suppo

. "To hear him yell, you'd think he was twin

and sets him to work. They're growing up like Indians, lawless little devils. A fine addition to the country! I was reading the other day that by the law of averages a man has got to have four children to be pretty sure of his lin

nt. "I've been telling you that for ye

can't give a child a decent chance, we won't have 'em. And these foreig

I'm going to borrow Chadwick's scales and

ghed. "We've got to go, Jimmy. The old New Engla

like a has-been. What's made us this way?

for Mama. There's a hard day ahead in the quarry tomorrow. That break set us back on a rush order. The boss was crazy. I told him as I told

everywhere I work. Always these foreigners are willing to work in such conditions as we Americans can't stand. Everywhere twenty of 'em waiting to undercut our pay. And the big men bank on

hen he had eaten his slice of cake he said in his s

d up in her nervou

the matt

take it or leave it. That work was slacking up so he'd decided on a ten per cent.

ods of job hunting since her marriage. "Keep your job, Jim. Next week is S

ied Little Jim. "I'll get a

g, Jimmy, but that you are to have a thorough education? If anything happens to me you are to get an education if you have to sweep the streets to do it. That's the New England idea. Educate

ts of feeling, "to have you and mama working so hard and me do nothing but

y educated, Jimmy, unless you read good things? Your father and I were brought up on the Companion and you'll keep right on with it. I'll ge

new winter things, but Jimmy's got to look decent. My father would turn over in his grave if he thought I couldn't keep the last Mann

istaken," replied Mrs. Manning. "I've got a chance to send jelly and pres

him the next day, 'Masso's boy Tony was shar

ob," annou

. Boss, he giva da cut. I bringa da Tony, getta da job as t

ig Jim. "You'd ought to keep him

r what?" a

im with the feeling he had had so often of late, the sense of

iant faced little chap. "I am an Ameri

d that his fathers had held in grant from an English king. But the fields that had built Big Jim's flesh and blood were dotted with Ita

his father's face. He spoke his f

ile, Dad, and watch yo

'll keep out of the way," answered

iciently intelligent to keep demanding a new derrick. It was Big Jim who was adept in managing the decrepit machinery a

ick pit, watched his father and 'Masso tease the derrick into

y down into the pit before it was all over. The great derrick broke clean from its moorings and dropp

to the ground and managed to grip his father's hand, protruding from under the débris. B

the quarry edge. 'Masso's chest was broken. The priest got to him before

d to the limit of my strength and I shall survive for America t

aid some futile word to the priest who knelt beside him. 'Ma

ttle Jim, and tried to say something, but couldn't. Once more the sense of having his back to the wall, the pack s

for dying, he might have done the thing far more dramatically. He merely rasped out his life, a

human life that must continue, regardless of race tragedy, as long as humans crave food either for the body or the soul. He might have seen himself as symbolizing one of those races that slip over the

bout to die,

stinct told the boy when the end had come. His dry sobs changed to the abandoned tears