Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California

When they reached the pasture where the cows were herded, Norman asked Barbara, with some misgivings:

"Honestly, did you ever milk a cow?"

"Of course I have," she promptly replied. "I spent two years on a farm once. Do you think I'd make a fool of myself trying before all these kids if I hadn't?"

"I didn't know but that you made a bluff at it to lead the others on. What can I do, for heaven's sake?"

Norman looked at her in a helpless sort of way while Barbara rolled up her sleeves. For the first time he saw her beautifully rounded bare arm to its full length. He stood with open-eyed admiration. Never had he seen anything so white and round and soft, so subtly and seductively suggestive of tenderness and love.

"For heaven's sake, what do I do?" he repeated, blankly.

"Get some meal in that bucket for my cow, and see that her calf don't get to her – I'll do the rest."

Norman hustled to the barn with the other boys, got his bucket of meal, placed it in front of the cow Barbara had selected, and stood watching with admiration the skill with which her deft little hands pressed two streams of white milk into the bucket at her feet.

"Goodness, you're a wonder," he cried, admiringly. "But where's the calf I'm supposed to be watching?"

"I think that's the one standing close to the gate in the next lot watching me with envy. The first time the gate's opened he'll jump through if he gets half a chance – so look out!"

"I'll watch him," Norman promised, without lifting his eyes from the rhythmic movement of the bare white arms.

He had scarcely spoken when a careless boy swung the gate wide open, and the lusty calf, whose soft eyes had been watching Barbara through the fence, made a break for his mother. In a swift, silent rush he planted one foot in Barbara's milk-pail, knocked her over with the other, switched his tail, and fell to work on his own account without further concern. It was all done so suddenly it took Norman's breath. He sprang to Barbara's side and helped her to her feet.

Norman grabbed the calf by the ear with one hand and by the tail with the other, and started toward the gate.

The animal suddenly ducked his head, plunged forward, jerked Norman to his knees, and dragged him ten yards before he could regain his feet. The young leader rose, tightened his grip, and started with a rush toward the gate, but the calf swerved in time to avoid it, gaining speed with each step, and started off with his escort in a mad race around the lot, galloping at a terrific speed, bellowing and snorting at every jump.

The others stopped their work to laugh and cheer as round and round the maddened little brute flew with the tall, heroic leader galloping by his side.

Norman had no time to call for help. He couldn't let go and he couldn't stop the calf.

As he made the second round of the lot, upsetting buckets, smashing milk-pails, and stampeding peaceful cows, a boy yelled through the roars of laughter:

"Twist his tail! Twist his tail an' he'll go the way you want him!"

Norman misunderstood the order, loosened the head and grabbed the tail with both hands. With a loud bellow the calf plunged into a wilder race around the lot, dragging his tormentor now with regular, graceful easy jumps. He made the rounds twice thus, single file, amid screams of laughter, suddenly turned and plunged headlong through an osage hedge, and left Norman sitting in a dusty heap on the ground among the thorns. He rose, brushed his clothes sheepishly, and looked through the hedge at the calf which had turned and stood eyeing him now with an expression of injured innocence.

Barbara came up, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes.

"I've learned something new," Norman quietly observed. "All labour may be equally honourable. It's not equally expedient. I wish you'd look at that beast eyeing me through the fence! It's positively uncanny. I believe he's possessed of the devil. I don't wonder at that belief of the ancients. I've tackled many a brute on the football field – but this is one on me!"

The brilliant young leader of the new moral world led the procession of milkmaids back to the house as the shadows of evening fell, a sadder but wiser man for the day's experience.

CHAPTER XVIII
A NEW ARISTOCRACY

Three members of the executive council, Norman, Barbara, and Tom, began at once the task of assigning work. The problems which immediately faced the council were overwhelming, but they were urgent and could admit of no delay. The absolute refusal of every member of the Brotherhood to do the dirty and disagreeable work brought at once two issues to a crisis. Either labour must be voluntary or involuntary. The people who did this work must be induced to agree to perform it or they must be forced to do it by a superior authority without their consent.

They could only be led to choose this work by inducements of an extraordinary nature – the payment of enormously high wages and the shortening of each day's work to a ridiculous minimum.

If wages were made unequal, the old problem of inequality would remain unsolved. For equal wages no man would lift his hand.

Confronted by this dilemma the executive council decided at once to fix wages on an unequal basis rather than reduce its unwilling members to a condition of involuntary labour, which is merely a long way to spell slavery.

When this decision was announced, Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, once more lifted his voice in solemn protest:

"I denounce this act in the name of every principle which has brought us together," he cried, with solemn warning. "You have established a system far more infamous than the unequal wages of the old society where the law of the survival of the fittest is the court of last resort. You have opened the door of fathomless corruption by substituting the whim of an executive council for the law of nature. It is the beginning of jealousy, strife, favouritism, jobbery, and injustice."

"Then what's a better way?" Old Tom asked, with a sneer.

"It's your business to find a better way," cried the man of visions.

Tom glared at the poet with a look of fury and Norman whispered to the old miner:

"Remember, Tom, you're sitting as a judge in the Supreme Court of State!"

"Can't help it. I never did have no use for a fool. Ef he can't tell us a better way, let 'im shet up."

Barbara pressed Tom's arm, and he subsided.

The court at once entered into the question of wages for domestic service.

It had been agreed, at the suggestion of the Wolfs, that they should spend their time in quietly investigating the qualifications of each member of the Brotherhood for the work to be assigned, and make their reports in secret to the majority of the court, which should sit continuously until all had been decided.

Neither Norman, Barbara, nor the old miner suspected for a moment the deeper motive which Wolf concealed behind this withdrawal from the decision of these cases. They found out in a very startling way later.

The chief cook demanded a hundred dollars a month.

Old Tom snorted with contempt. Norman smiled and spoke kindly:

"Remember, Louis, you only received $75 a month in San Francisco. Here the Brotherhood provides every man with his food, his clothes, and his house. Wages are merely the inducement used to satisfy each individual that labour may still be done by free contract, not by force."

"Well, it'll take a hundred a month to satisfy me," was the stolid reply. "I didn't come here to cook. I could do that in the old hell we lived in. I came here to do better and bigger things. I can do them, too – "

"But we've fixed the salary of the general manager at only seventy-five dollars a month, and you demand a hundred?"

"I do, and if the general manager prefers my job, I'll trade with you and guarantee to do your work better than it's being done."

"Yes, you will!" old Tom growled, as he leaned over Barbara and whispered to Norman.

"Make it thirty dollars a month, and if he don't go to work – leave him to me, I'll beat him till he does it."

"No, we can't manage it that way, Tom. We must try to satisfy him."

"Hit's a hold-up, I tell ye – highway robbery – the triflin' son of a gun! Don't you say so, miss?" Tom appealed earnestly to Barbara.

"We must have cooks, Tom – and we want everybody to be happy."

"Make him cook, make him – that's his business – I'd do it if I knowed how. He's got to take what we give 'im. He can't git off this island. He enlisted for five years. If he deserts, court-martial and shoot him."

In spite of old Tom's bitter protest, Norman and Barbara succeeded in persuading the chief cook to accept eighty-five dollars a month – an advance of ten dollars over the highest wages he had ever received before.

When the eighteen assistant cooks lined up for the settlement of their wages a new problem of unexpected proportions was presented. They had listened attentively to the case of the chef, and their chosen orator presented his argument in brief but emphatic words:

"We demand the exact wages you have voted the chef."

"Well, what do ye think er that?" old Tom groaned to Norman. "Hit's jist like I told ye. Hit's a hold-up."

"We must persuade them, Tom," the young leader replied.

"Let me persuade 'em!" the old miner pleaded.

"How?" Barbara asked, with a twinkle in her brown eyes.

"I'll line 'em up agin that wall and trim their hair with my six-shooter. I won't hurt 'em. But when I finish the job I'll guarantee they'll do what I tell 'em without any back talk. You folks take a walk and make me Chief Justice fer an hour, and when you come back we'll have peace and plenty. Jest try it now, and don't you butt in. Let me persuade 'em!"

Norman shook his head.

"Keep still, Tom! We must reason with them."

"Ye 're wastin' yer breath," the miner drawled in disgust.

"Don't you think, comrades," Norman began, in persuasive tones, "that your demands are rather high?"

"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "We come here to get equal rights. We don't want to cook. I'm a born actor, myself. I expected to play in Shakespeare when I joined the Brotherhood. Anybody that wants this job can have it. If we do your hot, dirty, disgusting, disagreeable work while the others play in the shade we are going to get something for it."

"Even so," the young leader responded, "is it fair that an assistant cook should receive equal wages with the chef?"

"And why not? Labour creates all value. The chef's a fakir. We do all the work. He never lifts his hand to a pot or pan. He struts and loafs through the kitchen and lords it over the men. Let him try to run the kitchen without us, and see how much you get to eat! We stand on the equal rights of man!"

"But my dear comrade – "

"Don't use them words," old Tom pleaded, "jest let me make a few remarks – "

Barbara pinched Tom's arm and he subsided.

"Can't you see," Norman went on, "that we are paying the chef for his directive ability, for his inventive genius in creating new dishes and making old ones more delicious? You but execute his orders."

"We stand square on our principles. Labour creates all values. The chef never works. We make every dish that goes to the table. If it has any value we make it. We demand our rights!"

The court agreed on fifty dollars a month, and the men refused to consider it.

"We prefer to work in the fields, the foundry, the machine-shop, the mills, the forests, anywhere you like except the kitchen. Let the chef do your work. Good day!"

They turned and marched out in a body and sat down in the sunshine.

In vain Norman argued and pleaded. They stood their ground with sullen determination.

A final clincher which the young leader could not evade always ended the argument. The spokesman came back to it with dogged persistence:

"What did you mean, then, when you've been drumming into our ears that labour creates all value? We do all the work, don't we?"

The upshot of it was the eighteen assistant cooks marched back into the hall, stood before the judges, and all were granted equal wages with the chef.

Whereupon the chef sprang to his feet and faced the court with blazing eyes.

"You grant these chumps – these idiots – wages equal to mine? Not one of them has brains enough to cook an egg if I didn't tell him how. Their wages equal to mine. I resign!"

Tom spoke vigorously:

"Now will ye leave him to me?"

Norman and Barbara looked at each other in angry and helpless amazement.

The old miner leaped to his feet, made his way down from the platform, and with two swift strides reached the chef. He leaned close and whispered something in the rebel's ear. There was a moment's hesitation and the chef turned, signalled to his assistants, and amid cheers marched to the kitchen.

Tom resumed his seat beside Barbara with a smile, quietly saying:

"That's the way to do business, ladies and gentlemen!"

"What did you say to him?" Barbara asked.

"Oh, nothin' much," was the careless answer.

"I hope you didn't threaten him, Tom?" Norman asked with some misgiving.

"Na – I didn't threaten him. I spoke quiet and peaceable."

"But what did you tell him?" the young leader persisted.

"I jest told him I'd give him two minutes ter git back ter the kitchen or I'd blow his head off!"

"I'm afraid our table will feel the effects of that remark, Tom," Barbara said, doubtfully.

Next to the question of cooks the most urgent issue to be settled was the case of the scrubbers, cleaners, and drainmen. The women who had been assigned to the tasks of scrubbing the floors, washing the windows and dishes, had watched the triumphs of the cooks with keen appreciation of their own power. It was easy to see that the more disagreeable and disgusting the character of the work, the more extravagant the demands which could be made and enforced. The scrubbers and dishwashers boldly demanded one hundred dollars a month and six hours for a working day, and refused with sullen determination to argue the question.

To Barbara's mild and gentle protest their answer was complete and stunning:

"You have assigned us this dirty job. Do you want it at any price?" asked their orator. "I'll take yours without wages and jump at the chance."

Tom lost all interest in the proceedings and drew himself up in a knot in his chair. Now and then a growl came from the depths of his throat.

Once he was heard to distinctly articulate:

"This makes me tired."

The court begged and pleaded, cajoled, argued in vain with the stubborn scrubwomen. Not an inch would they move in their demands. The floors were becoming unspeakably filthy. They had not been scrubbed since the arrival of the colony.

Norman turned to Barbara.

"Put the question solemnly to ourselves – we don't want the job at any price, do we?"

"I couldn't do it!" she admitted, frankly. "Then what's the use? We must be fair. It's worth what they ask."

The court granted the demands and the scrubwomen and dishwashers marched to the kitchen and once more the chef tore his hair and cursed the fate which brought him to such disgrace as to work with stupid subordinates at equal wages and gaze on dishwashers and scrubwomen whose wages exceeded his own.

The climax of all demands was reached when the drainman demanded a hundred and fifty dollars a month and four hours for each working day.

Norman looked at him in dumb confusion. He knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth and he had no answer.

The drainman bowed low in mock humility, but the proud wave of his hand belied his words.

"My calling was a humble one in the old world, Comrade Judges," he said. "I came here to climb mountain heights and find my way among the stars. You have sent me back to the sewers. I always felt that I had missed my true calling. I've always wanted to be a poet – "

The Bard shook his mane and groaned.

"I don't want this job at any price. But the sewers are choked. They have not been cleaned for two years. It must be done. I've named my price. I'll gladly yield to any man who envies my luck. If such a man is here let him speak – or forever hereafter hold his peace."

With a grandiloquent gesture the drainman swept the crowd with his eye, but no man responded.

The court granted his demand.

The Bard leaped once more to his feet and entered his protest. This time old Tom listened with interest. His concluding sentence rang with bitter irony:

"Against these absurd decisions I lift my voice once more in solemn protest. We came to this charmed island to abolish all class distinctions. You have destroyed the old classes based on culture, achievement, genius, wealth, and power. You have created a new aristocracy on whose shield is emblazoned – a dish-rag and scrubbing-brush encircled by a sewer pipe! I make my most humble bow to our new king – the drainman! I hail the apotheosis of the scrubwoman!"

"Say, you give me a pain – shut up" thundered Tom.

The singer collapsed with a sigh and the crowd laughed.

The foreman of the farm brought two men before the court and asked for important instructions.

"Comrade Judges," he began, "I had two men assigned to me a week ago whom I don't want and won't have at any price. I return them to the Brotherhood with thanks. You can do what you please with them."

"What's the matter?" Norman asked, with some irritation.

The foreman shoved and kicked a man in front of the judges.

"This fool – "

"You must not use such language, Mr. Foreman," Barbara interrupted.

"I beg your pardon, Comrade Judges," he apologized. "This coyote I put on a mowing-machine yesterday. He said he knew how to run it. He broke it on a smooth piece of ground the first hour. I gave him another and he wrecked it before noon. It will take the labour of five men two days to repair the damage he has done. I don't want him at any price."

"What have you to say?" Norman asked the accused.

"It wasn't my fault. The thing broke itself."

"But how did it happen twice the same day, sonny?" Tom asked.

"I dunno. Hit jist happened," was the dogged answer.

"I've another scoundrel – "

"You must not use such language," Barbara broke in.

"Again begging the pardon of Comrade Judges," the foreman continued: "This dog" – he kicked another slovenly looking lout before the judges – "tore to pieces the shoulders of two pairs of horses with careless harnessing before I found him and kicked him out of the stables. Those four horses can't work for a month. We'll have to pay at least $500 for two teams right away to take their places, or lose a crop of hay."

Tom glared at the culprit.

"What did ye ruin them horses' shoulders fer?"

"I didn't know it," was the sulking answer.

"He's a liar!" cried the foreman. "He put the same collars on their galled necks three days in succession and beat them unmercifully when they couldn't pull the load."

"What do you say, Tom?" Norman asked.

The old miner glared at the last culprit and his grim mouth tightened:

"Wall, you kin do as ye please, but any man that'll abuse a hoss will commit murder. I'd put the fust one in the cow lot to shovellin' compost. This one I'd quietly lynch – no public rumpus about it – jest take 'im down by the beach, hang 'im to one of them posts on the pier, shoot 'im full of holes, and drop 'im into the sea to be sure he don't come back to life."

Norman conferred with Barbara a moment and rendered the decision:

"Mr. Foreman, the first man is transferred from the field machinery to the compost-heap in the barnyard. The second man who disabled the horses will assist in cleaning the sewers. Their wages will remain the same as before."

A round of applause greeted this decision.

The Bard renewed his attack with unusual zeal. Standing before the court and shaking his long hair he cried:

"At last the climax of tyranny! Two comrades condemned without a jury and without defense! I congratulate you. In one day you have established an aristocracy of filth and created a penal colony without a hearing or appeal. We are making progress."

The old miner grunted, Barbara smiled tenderly at Norman, and the court adjourned.

CHAPTER XIX
SOME TROUBLES IN HEAVEN

Norman found it necessary for the executive council to sit continuously for the adjustment of disputes and the settlement of new problems which arose at every step of progress in the new moral world.

He had condemned the sins of the old world of capitalism with cocksure certainty. Now that he had been made a supreme judge with power to adjust the rights and wrongs of his fellow man, he was appalled at the magnitude of the task of substituting an ideal for the reign of natural law under which civilization had been slowly evolved.

There were two men in the Brotherhood whom he grew early to hate with cordial, thorough, murderous hatred – Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, who always denounced every decision as unjust, and a tall, hooked-nosed, stoop-shouldered, scholarly looking man named Diggs, who invariably sat near him and at every conceivable opportunity asked questions. These questions were always put in an innocent, friendly way, but when Diggs looked at him through his gleaming spectacles Norman always got the impression that an imp of the devil had suddenly popped up through the floor.

The first day after the general assignment of work Diggs rose before the council, adjusted his glasses, and drew a piece of paper from his pocket. Norman knew before he spoke that the document bristled with questions. Diggs's glasses had always fascinated him, but to-day they seemed of unusual thickness and enormous size, and their concave surfaces seemed to flash light from a thousand angles.

Diggs adjusted them on his hook-nose with deliberation and glanced carefully over his notes before speaking.

Norman turned to Barbara with a sigh.

She pressed his hand in silent sympathy.

"Don't worry!" she whispered.

Norman's breath quickened as he answered the pressure of the soft, warm fingers but he managed to move his chair and break the effects of her spell without revealing to her the effort it cost. Each hour of their association he felt the cords he dare not try to break tighten about his heart. He determined each day to put the thought from him. Over and over again with grim resolution he repeated his vow:

"I'll keep a clear head. I've got to decide this issue on its merits. I owe it to my generous friends who made it possible."

He had avoided her for the last few days. She guessed the cause intuitively and knew that he was fighting with desperation to escape the net she was slowly weaving about him. She began to watch the struggle now with a curious fascination in which cruelty and tenderness were equally mixed. The idea of surrendering her own heart had never once entered her pretty head.

Her life had been lived in a strange war with human society. Man had always appeared to her imagination as an enemy. She had never trusted one – least of all Wolf, the big, impassive animal who had dominated the life of her foster-mother.

With deliberate and cruel art she had set out to master the heart of the man who sat by her side. The task was accepted as part of her work. She had enlisted as a soldier in the Cause. She had received the orders from headquarters. When the deed was done she would turn to a greater task. She had expected to be bored by his idiotic love making. Now her curiosity was beginning to be piqued by his silence. She began vaguely to wonder each moment what kind of pictures she was making in his mind. Her brown eyes searched the depths of his soul in a dumb way that sent the blood rushing to Norman's heart, but each time he had eluded her.

He sat in moody silence now, giving no response to her words of cheer. She roused him from his reverie with a plaintive protest.

"What's the matter? Have I, too, offended?"

He turned quickly and crushed her hand in his strong grasp:

"For heaven's sake don't you get into the habit of asking me questions! How could you offend? Your face is my lighthouse set on the cliffs, calm, serene, joyful. I couldn't get through a day without you."

A smiling answer was just trembling on her lips when Diggs began to speak.

"Now for the human interrogation point," Barbara laughed.

"Comrade Judges," Diggs began, with guileless good humour, "while we are shaping the form of our ideal State for its permanent organization I wish to submit some questions which may help us in our search for truth."

"Questions," Norman whispered, "which any fool can ask, but the angels of God can't answer."

"But we will answer them!" she flashed, with defiant courage.

"We agree," Diggs went on, "that society must be governed in some way. There must be rulers, but how shall we choose our rulers, and with what powers shall we clothe them? We can begin to see that the head of our social system must at times exercise the full powers of the State. Into whose hands can this enormous power be entrusted, and how shall he be called to account?"

Diggs paused, and Norman flushed at this question, for he took it as a personal thrust. He had occasion to change his mind later.

"How can we," the questioner went on, "retain our democratic liberties as law makers as we grow in numbers? Now we can all meet in general assembly. When the State numbers even five thousand this will not be possible. Will not our politics become even more corrupt than the old system, seeing how enormous the power over the smallest details of life which these legislators possess?

"As our society grows – and thousands are now clamouring for admission – how is wealth to be distributed? Who shall determine, in this larger society, who shall be common labourers, who poets, artists, musicians, preachers, managers? Who shall appoint editors? And who shall call them to account if they publish treason against the State? What shall be done with the ever-increasing number of the lazy, dishonest, and criminal members of the community?

"Who shall determine how much mental work is equivalent to so much manual labour, seeing how vast is the difference in the value of one man's brain product over another's? How can men who are not artists, poets, or musicians determine the value of such work? Or how can one poet be just to his rival if he be made the judge? When our theatre is opened, who shall select the actors? Who shall decide whether they are incompetent? Who shall decide on the selection of the star? What shall be done with an actor, for example, who should spit in the face of a judge deciding adversely? Suppose a man offends the judge? Shall he be punished? If so, who shall do it?

"How can we prevent a man from losing his wages playing poker with his neighbour if he does so joyfully?

"What shall be done with a man who works outside regular hours and accumulates a vast private fortune?"

"Say, ain't you worked your jaw overtime now?" old Tom broke in rudely. "We'll take them things up when we come to 'em. We got somethin' else to do now – set down!"

"These are only friendly suggestions for thought as we develop our ideal," Diggs answered, with smiling good nature, as he resumed his seat.

"What makes me want to kill that man," Norman muttered to Barbara, "is the unfailing politeness and unction with which he asks those questions."

"Patience! patience!" was the low, musical reply. "These little things will all adjust themselves."

Methodist John pressed to the front and poured out to the judges a story of wrong and asked for justice.

"Miss Barbara," he began, in plaintive tones, "you was always good to me in the other world, but since we've got here even you don't seem the same. Everybody's hard and cold. They hain't got no sympathy here for a poor man. In the other world I missed my callin' – I was born for the ministry. I come here to serve the Lord. And now they make me work so hard I ain't even got time to pray. I ask for a licence to preach the gospel. Just give me a chance. They've put me to feedin' hogs and tendin' ter calves. I ain't fit for such work. I want to call sinners to repentance, not swine to their swill. I tell ye I've been buncoed. It ain't a square deal. I left the poorhouse to come with you to heaven and, by gum, I've landed in the workhouse – "

"And ef yer don't shet up and git back ter yer work," Tom thundered, "you'll land in the hospital – you hear me!"

"I ain't er talkin' to you, you cussin, swearin', ungodly son of the devil," the old man answered.

"Come, come, John," Norman interrupted, as he held Tom back. "We can't grant your request. We are not ready to undertake religious work yet."

"Well, God knows ye need it!" John muttered, as the crowd pushed him away.

At the door Catherine greeted him as he passed out, whispered encouraging words, and sent him back to his tasks more cheerful. She had taken her stand thus each day; and, while Wolf was busy quietly mingling with the men outside getting the facts as to the progress of each department, the tall graceful woman of soft voice and madonna face was fast becoming the friend and sympathizer of each discontented worker. She had now assumed the task of peacemaker after each harsh decision had been rendered, and did her work with rare skill – a skill which promised big results in the dawning State of Ventura.

Uncle Bob Worth, an old Negro, bowed low before the judges. He had been a slave of Norman's grandfather in North Carolina and had joined the colony out of admiration for the young leader.

"Marse Norman," he solemnly began.

"Don't call me 'master,' Bob," Norman interrupted. "Remember that we are all comrades here."

"Yassah! Yassah! Marse Norman, I try to 'member dat sah, but 'pears ter me dey's somefin' wrong bout dis whole 'comrade' business, sah! I'se er 'comrade' now but I'se wuss off dan I eber wuz. 'Fo' I come here I wuz er butler, and I wuz er gemmen – yas-sah, ef I do hat ter say it myself – and I allus live wid gemmens an' sociate wid gemmens. I come out here wid you ter be a white man an' er equal. Dat's what dey all say. I be er equal 'comrade.' I make up my mind dat I jine de minstrel band, pick de banjer, an' sing de balance er my life. Bress God, what happen. Dey make me a hod-carrier and make me 'sociate wid low-down po' white trash. I ain't come here ter be no 'comrade' wid dem kin' er folks. Dey ain't my equal, sah, an' I can't 'ford to 'sociate wid 'em. What's fuddermo, sah, carryin' a hod ain't my business – hit don't suit my health an' brick-dust ain't good fur my complexion, sah!"