Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/152

CHAPTER 7. DOROTHY VISITS PHOENIX 139 Ludlow's articles especially. I had brought several pieces of pacifist literature along. In case there was not work I would visit with this preacher.

Coming to the fire built along the curb for the prospective workers to keep warm while waiting for a truck, which fire consisted of an old tire burning and smoking, I discussed the prospects of work with young and old, male and female, white, colored, and Mexican who were there. One burly, middle-aged man in a bright mackinaw came with his bedroll over his shoulder, a small package of clothing, and a three-cell lantern in his hand.

"Can't leave this stuff laying around. Folks will rob me. Damn working class is their own worst enemy," he muttered as we stood with our backs to the fire.

"You talk like a Wob," I said to him.

"Joined up with them during the free speech fight in Fresno in 1910. But after the war they lost that old fighting spirit. Couldn't beat them when they sang the old 'Pie in the Sky' song, but now nobody sings. Have to keep moving these days to beat all the rules and regulations the master class try to enslave a fellow with," he answered.

Joe Mueller, who had done three years in Sandstone with my friend Bill Ryan, came down from Chicago soon after Christmas and is staying with me. For the first time in eight years there has been a wet season in Arizona. I had but a day now and then chopping wood for the Old Pioneer, so when we saw an ad in the paper asking for cotton pickers we picked out a bright day in between rains and hiked ten miles north on lateral 14. We passed the Navajos in Deer Valley as they squatted in the carrot fields waiting until the carrot digger got out of the mud enough to prepare the way for their work. We saw three crews of cauliflower workers in a field but knew there was no opportunity for a day's work. The view of the mountains to the north and east was magnificent and well worth the hike. As we saw what we thought ought to be the advertised cotton ranch a couple in a very ancient car who were looking for the same work picked us up and we four came to the ranch. We were informed that the cotton was picked several weeks before and they had forgotten to take the ad out of the paper. We rode back with our friends to the bus line and on into Phoenix where we got some groceries, and books at the library.

The night after I had made the $2.22 picking cotton it rained. The field boss had said not to come to work if it rained, for then the cotton would weigh more and he might get cheated instead of cheating us. So the next day I sawed wood into appropriate lengths for our small stove and Joe split it, for although it is mild here in the winter a fire is needed on rainy days. The next day we got up early and walked down the lateral by daylight, getting the bus to Coldwater. No one was here at the corner yet so we collected some paper and wood. Just then two chunky good-natured Negro women came up with their cotton sacks and we all started the fire. As the flames leaped up a dozen or more potential cotton pickers emerged, from the nearby alleys and shacks. Trucks of Mexicans and Negroes whizzed by from Phoenix destined away beyond Buckeye it seemed, but the drivers did not glance toward us. One lanky red-faced, bleary-eyed and slobbery-mouthed individual danced around the fire and in jerky pantomime acted out this story he was telling: