Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/50

CHAPTER 3. MARRIAGE—TRAVEL IN 48 STATES 37 fully delivered. So even Deputy Girardeau had a conscience. We had a visit for an hour with the DA who had dismissed my case, Hooper Alexander, and he was exceedingly cordial.

Through reading Harry Franck's books on travel we got the idea of going to South America and obtaining a passport. All I had to say was that I had not been convicted of a felony within the past five years. It had been six years since I had been sentenced. We left Atlanta in the spring, climbed Mt. Mitchell in the Carolina's, went across Texas and up to Milwaukee in time for the state Socialist picnic in the late summer. We visited our folks leisurely, spent a few days with Haldeman-Julius at Girard, Kansas, where both of them wanted us to link our names as they had. Selma had retained her full maiden name, Selma Melms. Somehow we did not like the idea. Julius insisted that we should visit his friend Charles J. Finger of Fayetteville, Arkansas. When we arrived at his farm he discovered that I was the conscientious objector whom he had planned to see in Delaware, Ohio jail in 1919, but he had to leave the town before doing so. He was a wealthy operator of railroads, junking them or making a success for a syndicate. Somehow he felt that this was a useless life so the whole family sold their houses and cars and bought a farm in Arkansas. Here he wrote books about his early days as a castaway on a cannibal island and other tales of derring do. It was a standing joke in his family that when his sons wanted to roam the world, saying "you did it, Dad, when you were 17," he always advanced the age to 18 or 20. He read chapters from Dickens before the huge fireplace each night. Next we saw "Coin Harvey," who had become wealthy and famous writing about free coinage of silver in 1896 and had started to build a castle at Monte Ne, Arkansas, from which he would direct the World Revolt. A strike of masons interrupted it and it was never finished. Now he was building a pyramid there to contain records of this civilization. He figured Arkansas would be about the last place a conqueror would invade or erosion would destroy.

Very early one morning as we were hiking on a dirt road in Arkansas we chatted for a minute with a farmer going to market with a wagon load of tomatoes. We bought some, Selma liking to eat them like apples, with salt. Haldeman-Julius had given us a score of his Little Blue Books, so, as we finished one we gave them away. Giving one to the tomato merchant-farmer he looked at us closely and said: "Be you all Socialist?"

"Something like that. I was a conscientious objector in jail in Atlanta in 1917–19 and my wife's father used to be Socialist sheriff in Milwaukee," I answered.

"Let me shake your paw," said the farmer, wiping the tears from his eyes, "I haven't seen a Socialist for years. Not since I used to give medicine snake shows over Texas and then end it up with a Socialist speech. You must stop at my house and visit tonight. It's 18 miles down the road; turn off there by the red filling station." We promised to see him that night. His wife was friendly when we arrived, after refusing a ride to Little Rock from a man who had picked us up. We picked blackberries that afternoon and I had my introduction to "chiggers;" that "thang," as they say that gets under your arms and knees and itches and itches and you can't see them at all. After supper our host said we should walk a mile down the draw and say hello to Will who had done time in Leavenworth.