CHAPTER I. THE HOME-MADE SUIT OF CLOTHES

A fight in the first chapter made a book interesting to me when I was a

boy. I said to myself, “The man who writes several chapters before the

fighting begins is like the man who sells peanuts in which a lot of the

shells haven't any goodies.” I made up my mind then that if I ever wrote

a book I would have a fight in the first chapter.

So I will tell right here how I whipped the town bully in Sharon,

Pennsylvania. I'll call him Babe Durgon. I've forgotten his real name,

and it might be better not to mention it anyhow. For though I whipped

him thirty years ago, he might come back now in a return match and

reverse the verdict, so that my first chapter would serve better as my

last one. Babe was older than I, and had pestered me from the time I was

ten. Now I was eighteen and a man. I was a master puddler in the mill

and a musician in the town band (I always went with men older than

myself). Two stove molders from a neighboring factory were visiting me

that day, and, as it was dry and hot, I offered to treat them to a cool

drink. There were no soda fountains in those days and the only place to

take a friend was to the tavern. We went in and my companions ordered

beer. Babe, the bully, was standing by the bar. He had just come of age,

and wanted to bulldoze me with that fact.

“Don't serve Jimmy Davis a beer,” Babe commanded. “He's a minor. He

can't buy beer.”

“I didn't want a beer,” I said. “I was going to order a soft drink.”

“Yes, you was. Like hell you was,” Babe taunted. “You came in here to

get a beer like them fellers. You think you're a man, but I know you

ain't. And I'm here to see that nobody sells liquor to a child.”

I was humiliated. The bully knew that I wanted to be a man, and his shot

stung me. My friends looked at me as if to ask: “Are you going to take

that?” And so the fight was arranged, although I had no skill at boxing,

and was too short-legged, like most Welshmen, for a fast foot race. Babe

had me up against a real problem.

“Come on over the line,” he said.

Sharon was near the Ohio border and it was customary to go across the

state line to fight, so that on returning the local peace officers would

have no jurisdiction. We started for the battle ground. Babe had never

been whipped; he always chose younger opponents. He was a good gouger,

and had marked up most of the boys on the “flats” as we called the

lowlands where the poorer working people lived. A gouger is one who

stabs with his thumb. When he gets his sharp thumb-nail into the

victim's eye, the fight is over. Biting and kicking were his second

lines of attack.

As we walked along I was depressed by the thought that I was badly

outclassed. There was only one thing in my favor. I hated Babe Durgon

with a bitter loathing that I had been suppressing for years. It all

went back to the summer of 1884 when I was eleven years old. Times were

hard, and the mill was “down.” Father had gone to Pittsburgh to look

for work. I was scouring the town of Sharon to pick up any odd job that

would earn me a nickel. There were no telephones and I used to carry

notes between sweethearts, pass show bills for the “opry,” and ring a

hand-bell for auctions. An organized charity had opened headquarters on

Main Street to collect clothing and money for the destitute families of

the workers. I went up there to see if they needed an errand boy. A

Miss Foraker--now Mrs. F. H. Buhl--was in charge. She was a sweet and

gracious young woman and she explained that they had no pay-roll.

“Everybody works for nothing here,” she said. “I get no pay, and the

landlord gives us the use of the rooms free. This is a public charity

and everybody contributes his services free.”

I saw a blue serge boy's suit among the piles of garments. It was about

my size and had seen little wear. I thought it was the prettiest suit I

had ever seen. I asked Miss Foraker how much money it would take to buy

the suit. She said nothing was for sale. She wrapped up the suit and

placed the package in my arms, saying, “That's for you, Jimmy.”

I raced home and climbed into the attic of our little

four-dollar-a-month cottage, and in the stifling heat under the low roof

I changed my clothes. Then I proudly climbed down to show my blue

suit to my mother. “Where did you get those clothes, James?” she asked

gravely.

I told her about Miss Foraker.

“Did you work for them?”

“No; everything is free,” I said.

Mother told me to take the suit off. I went to the attic, blinking a

tear out of my eyes, and changed into my old rags again. Then mother

took the blue suit, wrapped it up carefully and putting it in my hands

told me to take it back to Miss Foraker.

“You don't understand, James,” she said. “But these clothes are not for

people like us. These are to be given to the poor.”

I have often smiled as I looked back on it. I'll bet there wasn't a dime

in the house. The patches on my best pants were three deep and if laid

side by side would have covered more territory than the new blue suit.

To take those clothes back was the bitterest sacrifice my heart has ever

known.

A few days later there was a fire sale by one of the merchants, and

I got the job of ringing the auction bell. Late in the afternoon the

auctioneer held up a brown overcoat. “Here is a fine piece of goods,

only slightly damaged,” he said. He showed the back of the coat where a

hole was burned in it. “How much am I offered?”

I knew that I would get fifty cents for my day's work, so I bid ten

cents--all that I could spare.

“Sold,” said the auctioneer, “for ten cents to the kid who rang the bell

all day.”

I took the garment home and told my mother how I had bought it for cash

in open competition with all the world. My mother and my aunt set to

work with shears and needles and built me a suit of clothes out of the

brown overcoat. It took a lot of ingenuity to make the pieces come out

right. The trousers were neither long nor short. They dwindled down and

stopped at my calves, half-way above my ankles. What I hated most was

that the seams were not in the right places. It was a patchwork, and

there were seams down the front of the legs where the crease ought to

be. I didn't want to wear the suit, but mother said it looked fine on

me, and if she said so I knew it must be true. I wore it all fall and

half the winter.

The first time I went to Sunday-school, I met Babe Durgon. He set up the

cry:

“Little boy, little boy,

Does your mother know you're out;

With your breeches put on backward,

And the seams all inside out!”

This was the first time that my spirit had been hurt. His words were

a torment that left a scar upon my very soul. Even to this day when

I awake from some bad dream, it is a dream that I am wearing crazy

breeches and all the world is jeering at me. It has made me tender

toward poor children who have to wear hand-me-downs.

To-day psychologists talk much of the “inferiority complex” which spurs

a man forward to outdo himself. But Babe Durgon and I didn't go into

these matters as we trudged along through the dark on our way to do

battle “over the line.” At the foot of the hill, Babe exclaimed:

“What's the use of going any farther? Let's fight here.” It was in front

of a new building--a church-school half completed. We took off our coats

and made belts of our suspenders. Then we squared off and the fight

began. Babe rushed me like a wild boar and tried to thrust his deadly

thumb into my eye. I threw up my head and his thumb gashed my lips and

went into my mouth. The impact almost knocked me over, but my teeth

had closed on his thumb and when he jerked back he put me on my balance

again. I clouted him on the jaw and knocked him down. He landed in the

lime box. The school had not yet been plastered, and the quicklime was

in an open pit. I started in after the bully, but stopped to save my

pants from the lime. There was a hose near by, and I turned the water on

Babe in the lime bath. The lime completely covered him. He was whipped

and in fear of his life. Choking and weeping he hollered, “Nuff.” We got

him out, too weak to stand, and gently leaned him up in a corner of the

school building. There we left the crushed bully and returned to town.

But before I went I gave him this parting shot:

“Do you know why I licked you, Babe? It wasn't what you said in the

tavern that made me mad. I didn't want a glass of beer, and you were

right in saying I was a minor. Where you made your mistake was when you

made fun of my breeches, seven years ago. And do you remember that blue

suit you had on at the time? I know where you got that blue suit of

clothes, and I know who had it before you got it. If you still think

that a bully in charity clothes can make fun of a boy in clothes that he

earned with his own labor, just say so, and I'll give you another clout

that will finish you.”

All bullies, whether nations, parties or individuals, get licked in

the same way. They outrage some one's self-respect, and then the old

primordial cyclone hits them.