The Apostate

by Jack London

"If you don't git up, Johnny, I won't give you a bite to eat!"The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep,fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy'shands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows atthe air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayedpractised familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by theshoulder."Lemme 'lone!"It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftlyrushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that diedaway and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as ofa soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she hadgrown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She gota grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy, ceasinghis punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle, at the foot of thebed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding to thefloor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the superiorweight, and the boy and bedding gave, the former instinctively followingthe latter in order to shelter against the chill of the room that bit intohis body.As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-firstto the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted himselfand for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on hisfeet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook him.Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness. Atthe same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake."All right," he mumbled.She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness."You'll be docked," she warned back to him.He did not mind the darkness. When he had got into his clothes, he wentout into the kitchen. His tread was very heavy for so thin and light aboy. His legs dragged with their own weight, which seemed unreasonablebecause they were such skinny legs. He drew a broken-bottomed chair to thetable."Johnny," his mother called sharply.He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word, went to the sink.It was a greasy, filthy sink. A smell came up from the outlet. He took nonotice of it. That a sink should smell was to him part of the naturalorder, just as it was a part of the natural order that the soap should begrimy with dish-water and hard to lather. Nor did he try very hard to makeit lather. Several splashes of the cold water from the running faucetcompleted the function. He did not wash his teeth. For that matter he hadnever seen a toothbrush, nor did he know that there existed beings in theworld who were guilty of so great a foolishness as tooth washing."You might wash yourself wunst a day without bein' told," his mothercomplained.She was holding a broken lid on the pot as she poured two cups of coffee.He made no remark, for this was a standing quarrel between them, and theone thing upon which his mother was hard as adamant. "Wunst" a day it wascompulsory that he should wash his face. He dried himself on a greasytowel, damp and dirty and ragged, that left his face covered with shreds oflint."I wish we didn't live so far away," she said, as he sat down. "I try todo the best I can. You know that. But a dollar on the rent is such asavin', an' we've more room here. You know that."He scarcely followed her. He had heard it all before, many times. Therange of her thought was limited, and she was ever harking back to thehardship worked upon them by living so far from the mills."A dollar means more grub," he remarked sententiously. "I'd sooner do thewalkin' an' git the grub."He ate hurriedly, half chewing the bread and washing the unmasticatedchunks down with coffee. The hot and muddy liquid went by the name ofcoffee. Johnny thought it was coffee--and excellent coffee. That was oneof the few of life's illusions that remained to him. He had never drunkreal coffee in his life.In addition to the bread, there was a small piece of cold pork. His motherrefilled his cup with coffee. As he was finishing the bread, he began towatch if more was forthcoming. She intercepted his questioning glance."Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny," was her comment. "You've had your share.Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you."He did not answer the rebuke. He was not much of a talker. Also, heceased his hungry glancing for more. He was uncomplaining, with a patiencethat was as terrible as the school in which it had been learned. Hefinished his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and startedto rise."Wait a second," she said hastily. "I guess the loaf kin stand you anotherslice--a thin un."There was legerdemain in her actions. With all the seeming of cutting aslice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice back in the bread boxand conveyed to him one of her own two slices. She believed she haddeceived him, but he had noted her sleight-of-hand. Nevertheless, he tookthe bread shamelessly. He had a philosophy that his mother, because of herchronic sickliness, was not much of an eater anyway.She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached over and emptied hercoffee cup into his."Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning," she explained.A distant whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of them to theirfeet. She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf. The hands stood athalf-past five. The rest of the factory world was just arousing fromsleep. She drew a shawl about her shoulders, and on her head put a dingyhat, shapeless and ancient."We've got to run," she said, turning the wick of the lamp and blowing downthe chimney.They groped their way out and down the stairs. It was clear and cold, andJohnny shivered at the first contact with the outside air. The stars hadnot yet begun to pale in the sky, and the city lay in blackness. BothJohnny and his mother shuffled their feet as they walked. There was noambition in the leg muscles to swing the feet clear of the ground.After fifteen silent minutes, his mother turned off to the right."Don't be late," was her final warning from out of the dark that wasswallowing her up.He made no response, steadily keeping on his way. In the factory quarter,doors were opening everywhere, and he was soon one of a multitude thatpressed onward through the dark. As he entered the factory gate thewhistle blew again. He glanced at the east. Across a ragged sky-line ofhousetops a pale light was beginning to creep. This much he saw of the dayas he turned his back upon it and joined his work gang.He took his place in one of many long rows of machines. Before him, abovea bin filled with small bobbins, were large bobbins revolving rapidly.Upon these he wound the jute-twine of the small bobbins. The work wassimple. All that was required was celerity. The small bobbins wereemptied so rapidly, and there were so many large bobbins that did theemptying, that there were no idle moments.He worked mechanically. When a small bobbin ran out, he used his left handfor a brake, stopping the large bobbin and at the same time, with thumb andforefinger, catching the flying end of twine. Also, at the same time, withhis right hand, he caught up the loose twine-end of a small bobbin. Thesevarious acts with both hands were performed simultaneously and swiftly.Then there would come a flash of his hands as he looped the weaver's knotand released the bobbin. There was nothing difficult about weaver's knots.He once boasted he could tie them in his sleep. And for that matter, hesometimes did, toiling centuries long in a single night at tying an endlesssuccession of weaver's knots.Some of the boys shirked, wasting time and machinery by not replacing thesmall bobbins when they ran out. And there was an overseer to preventthis. He caught Johnny's neighbour at the trick, and boxed his ears."Look at Johnny there--why ain't you like him?" the overseer wrathfullydemanded.Johnny's bobbins were running full blast, but he did not thrill at theindirect praise. There had been a time . . . but that was long ago, verylong ago. His apathetic face was expressionless as he listened to himselfbeing held up as a shining example. He was the perfect worker. He knewthat. He had been told so, often. It was a commonplace, and besides itdidn't seem to mean anything to him any more. From the perfect worker hehad evolved into the perfect machine. When his work went wrong, it waswith him as with the machine, due to faulty material. It would have beenas possible for a perfect nail-die to cut imperfect nails as for him tomake a mistake.And small wonder. There had never been a time when he had not been inintimate relationship with machines. Machinery had almost been bred intohim, and at any rate he had been brought up on it. Twelve years before,there had been a small flutter of excitement in the loom room of this verymill. Johnny's mother had fainted. They stretched her out on the floor inthe midst of the shrieking machines. A couple of elderly women were calledfrom their looms. The foreman assisted. And in a few minutes there wasone more soul in the loom room than had entered by the doors. It wasJohnny, born with the pounding, crashing roar of the looms in his ears,drawing with his first breath the warm, moist air that was thick withflying lint. He had coughed that first day in order to rid his lungs ofthe lint; and for the same reason he had coughed ever since.The boy alongside of Johnny whimpered and sniffed. The boy's face wasconvulsed with hatred for the overseer who kept a threatening eye on himfrom a distance; but every bobbin was running full. The boy yelledterrible oaths into the whirling bobbins before him; but the sound did notcarry half a dozen feet, the roaring of the room holding it in andcontaining it like a wall.Of all this Johnny took no notice. He had a way of accepting things.Besides, things grow monotonous by repetition, and this particularhappening he had witnessed many times. It seemed to him as useless tooppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine. Machines were madeto go in certain ways and to perform certain tasks. It was the same withthe overseer.But at eleven o'clock there was excitement in the room. In an apparentlyoccult way the excitement instantly permeated everywhere. The one-leggedboy who worked on the other side of Johnny bobbed swiftly across the floorto a bin truck that stood empty. Into this he dived out of sight, crutchand all. The superintendent of the mill was coming along, accompanied by ayoung man. He was well dressed and wore a starched shirt--a gentleman, inJohnny's classification of men, and also, "the Inspector."He looked sharply at the boys as he passed along. Sometimes he stopped andasked questions. When he did so, he was compelled to shout at the top ofhis lungs, at which moments his face was ludicrously contorted with thestrain of making himself heard. His quick eye noted the empty machinealongside of Johnny's, but he said nothing. Johnny also caught his eye,and he stopped abruptly. He caught Johnny by the arm to draw him back astep from the machine; but with an exclamation of surprise he released thearm."Pretty skinny," the superintendent laughed anxiously."Pipe stems," was the answer. "Look at those legs. The boy's got therickets--incipient, but he's got them. If epilepsy doesn't get him in theend, it will be because tuberculosis gets him first."Johnny listened, but did not understand. Furthermore he was not interestedin future ills. There was an immediate and more serious ill thatthreatened him in the form of the inspector."Now, my boy, I want you to tell me the truth," the inspector said, orshouted, bending close to the boy's ear to make him hear. "How old areyou?""Fourteen," Johnny lied, and he lied with the full force of his lungs. Soloudly did he lie that it started him off in a dry, hacking cough thatlifted the lint which had been settling in his lungs all morning."Looks sixteen at least," said the superintendent."Or sixty," snapped the inspector."He's always looked that way.""How long?" asked the inspector, quickly."For years. Never gets a bit older.""Or younger, I dare say. I suppose he's worked here all those years?""Off and on--but that was before the new law was passed," thesuperintendent hastened to add."Machine idle?" the inspector asked, pointing at the unoccupied machinebeside Johnny's, in which the part-filled bobbins were flying like mad."Looks that way." The superintendent motioned the overseer to him andshouted in his ear and pointed at the machine. "Machine's idle," hereported back to the inspector.They passed on, and Johnny returned to his work, relieved in that the illhad been averted. But the one-legged boy was not so fortunate. The sharp-eyed inspector haled him out at arms length from the bin truck. His lipswere quivering, and his face had all the expression of one upon whom wasfallen profound and irremediable disaster. The overseer looked astounded,as though for the first time he had laid eyes on the boy, while thesuperintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure."I know him," the inspector said. "He's twelve years old. I've had himdischarged from three factories inside the year. This makes the fourth."He turned to the one-legged boy. "You promised me, word and honour, thatyou'd go to school."The one-legged boy burst into tears. "Please, Mr. Inspector, two babiesdied on us, and we're awful poor.""What makes you cough that way?" the inspector demanded, as though charginghim with crime.And as in denial of guilt, the one-legged boy replied: "It ain't nothin'.I jes' caught a cold last week, Mr. Inspector, that's all."In the end the one-legged boy went out of the room with the inspector, thelatter accompanied by the anxious and protesting superintendent. Afterthat monotony settled down again. The long morning and the longerafternoon wore away and the whistle blew for quitting time. Darkness hadalready fallen when Johnny passed out through the factory gate. In theinterval the sun had made a golden ladder of the sky, flooded the worldwith its gracious warmth, and dropped down and disappeared in the westbehind a ragged sky-line of housetops.Supper was the family meal of the day--the one meal at which Johnnyencountered his younger brothers and sisters. It partook of the nature ofan encounter, to him, for he was very old, while they were distressinglyyoung. He had no patience with their excessive and amazing juvenility. Hedid not understand it. His own childhood was too far behind him. He waslike an old and irritable man, annoyed by the turbulence of their youngspirits that was to him arrant silliness. He glowered silently over hisfood, finding compensation in the thought that they would soon have to goto work. That would take the edge off of them and make them sedate anddignified--like him. Thus it was, after the fashion of the human, thatJohnny made of himself a yardstick with which to measure the universe.During the meal, his mother explained in various ways and with infiniterepetition that she was trying to do the best she could; so that it waswith relief, the scant meal ended, that Johnny shoved back his chair andarose. He debated for a moment between bed and the front door, and finallywent out the latter. He did not go far. He sat down on the stoop, hisknees drawn up and his narrow shoulders drooping forward, his elbows on hisknees and the palms of his hands supporting his chin.As he sat there, he did no thinking. He was just resting. So far as hismind was concerned, it was asleep. His brothers and sisters came out, andwith other children played noisily about him. An electric globe at thecorner lighted their frolics. He was peevish and irritable, that theyknew; but the spirit of adventure lured them into teasing him. They joinedhands before him, and, keeping time with their bodies, chanted in his faceweird and uncomplimentary doggerel. At first he snarled curses at them--curses he had learned from the lips of various foremen. Finding thisfutile, and remembering his dignity, he relapsed into dogged silence.His brother Will, next to him in age, having just passed his tenthbirthday, was the ringleader. Johnny did not possess particularly kindlyfeelings toward him. His life had early been embittered by continualgiving over and giving way to Will. He had a definite feeling that Willwas greatly in his debt and was ungrateful about it. In his own playtime,far back in the dim past, he had been robbed of a large part of thatplaytime by being compelled to take care of Will. Will was a baby then,and then, as now, their mother had spent her days in the mills. To Johnnyhad fallen the part of little father and little mother as well.Will seemed to show the benefit of the giving over and the giving way. Hewas well-built, fairly rugged, as tall as his elder brother and evenheavier. It was as though the life-blood of the one had been diverted intothe other's veins. And in spirits it was the same. Johnny was jaded, wornout, without resilience, while his younger brother seemed bursting andspilling over with exuberance.The mocking chant rose louder and louder. Will leaned closer as he danced,thrusting out his tongue. Johnny's left arm shot out and caught the otheraround the neck. At the same time he rapped his bony fist to the other'snose. It was a pathetically bony fist, but that it was sharp to hurt wasevidenced by the squeal of pain it produced. The other children wereuttering frightened cries, while Johnny's sister, Jennie, had dashed intothe house.He thrust Will from him, kicked him savagely on the shins, then reached forhim and slammed him face downward in the dirt. Nor did he release him tillthe face had been rubbed into the dirt several times. Then the motherarrived, an anaemic whirlwind of solicitude and maternal wrath."Why can't he leave me alone?" was Johnny's reply to her upbraiding."Can't he see I'm tired?""I'm as big as you," Will raged in her arms, his face a mass of tears,dirt, and blood. "I'm as big as you now, an' I'm goin' to git bigger.Then I'll lick you--see if I don't.""You ought to be to work, seein' how big you are," Johnny snarled. "That'swhat's the matter with you. You ought to be to work. An' it's up to yourma to put you to work.""But he's too young," she protested. "He's only a little boy.""I was younger'n him when I started to work."Johnny's mouth was open, further to express the sense of unfairness that hefelt, but the mouth closed with a snap. He turned gloomily on his heel andstalked into the house and to bed. The door of his room was open to let inwarmth from the kitchen. As he undressed in the semi-darkness he couldhear his mother talking with a neighbour woman who had dropped in. Hismother was crying, and her speech was punctuated with spiritless sniffles."I can't make out what's gittin' into Johnny," he could hear her say. "Hedidn't used to be this way. He was a patient little angel."An' he is a good boy," she hastened to defend. "He's worked faithful, an'he did go to work too young. But it wasn't my fault. I do the best I can,I'm sure."Prolonged sniffling from the kitchen, and Johnny murmured to himself as hiseyelids closed down, "You betcher life I've worked faithful."The next morning he was torn bodily by his mother from the grip of sleep.Then came the meagre breakfast, the tramp through the dark, and the paleglimpse of day across the housetops as he turned his back on it and went inthrough the factory gate. It was another day, of all the days, and all thedays were alike.And yet there had been variety in his life--at the times he changed fromone job to another, or was taken sick. When he was six, he was littlemother and father to Will and the other children still younger. At sevenhe went into the mills--winding bobbins. When he was eight, he got work inanother mill. His new job was marvellously easy. All he had to do was tosit down with a little stick in his hand and guide a stream of cloth thatflowed past him. This stream of cloth came out of the maw of a machine,passed over a hot roller, and went on its way elsewhere. But he sat alwaysin one place, beyond the reach of daylight, a gas-jet flaring over him,himself part of the mechanism.He was very happy at that job, in spite of the moist heat, for he was stillyoung and in possession of dreams and illusions. And wonderful dreams hedreamed as he watched the steaming cloth streaming endlessly by. But therewas no exercise about the work, no call upon his mind, and he dreamed lessand less, while his mind grew torpid and drowsy. Nevertheless, he earnedtwo dollars a week, and two dollars represented the difference betweenacute starvation and chronic underfeeding.But when he was nine, he lost his job. Measles was the cause of it. Afterhe recovered, he got work in a glass factory. The pay was better, and thework demanded skill. It was piecework, and the more skilful he was, thebigger wages he earned. Here was incentive. And under this incentive hedeveloped into a remarkable worker.It was simple work, the tying of glass stoppers into small bottles. At hiswaist he carried a bundle of twine. He held the bottles between his kneesso that he might work with both hands. Thus, in a sitting position andbending over his own knees, his narrow shoulders grew humped and his chestwas contracted for ten hours each day. This was not good for the lungs,but he tied three hundred dozen bottles a day.The superintendent was very proud of him, and brought visitors to look athim. In ten hours three hundred dozen bottles passed through his hands.This meant that he had attained machine-like perfection. All wastemovements were eliminated. Every motion of his thin arms, every movementof a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate. He worked at hightension, and the result was that he grew nervous. At night his musclestwitched in his sleep, and in the daytime he could not relax and rest. Heremained keyed up and his muscles continued to twitch. Also he grew sallowand his lint-cough grew worse. Then pneumonia laid hold of the feeblelungs within the contracted chest, and he lost his job in the glass-works.Now he had returned to the jute mills where he had first begun with windingbobbins. But promotion was waiting for him. He was a good worker. Hewould next go on the starcher, and later he would go into the loom room.There was nothing after that except increased efficiency.The machinery ran faster than when he had first gone to work, and his mindran slower. He no longer dreamed at all, though his earlier years had beenfull of dreaming. Once he had been in love. It was when he first beganguiding the cloth over the hot roller, and it was with the daughter of thesuperintendent. She was much older than he, a young woman, and he had seenher at a distance only a paltry half-dozen times. But that made nodifference. On the surface of the cloth stream that poured past him, hepictured radiant futures wherein he performed prodigies of toil, inventedmiraculous machines, won to the mastership of the mills, and in the endtook her in his arms and kissed her soberly on the brow.But that was all in the long ago, before he had grown too old and tired tolove. Also, she had married and gone away, and his mind had gone to sleep.Yet it had been a wonderful experience, and he used often to look back uponit as other men and women look back upon the time they believed in fairies.He had never believed in fairies nor Santa Claus; but he had believedimplicitly in the smiling future his imagination had wrought into thesteaming cloth stream.He had become a man very early in life. At seven, when he drew his firstwages, began his adolescence. A certain feeling of independence crept upin him, and the relationship between him and his mother changed. Somehow,as an earner and breadwinner, doing his own work in the world, he was morelike an equal with her. Manhood, full-blown manhood, had come when he waseleven, at which time he had gone to work on the night shift for sixmonths. No child works on the night shift and remains a child.There had been several great events in his life. One of these had beenwhen his mother bought some California prunes. Two others had been the twotimes when she cooked custard. Those had been events. He remembered themkindly. And at that time his mother had told him of a blissful dish shewould sometime make--"floating island," she had called it, "better thancustard." For years he had looked forward to the day when he would sitdown to the table with floating island before him, until at last he hadrelegated the idea of it to the limbo of unattainable ideals.Once he found a silver quarter lying on the sidewalk. That, also, was agreat event in his life, withal a tragic one. He knew his duty on theinstant the silver flashed on his eyes, before even he had picked it up.At home, as usual, there was not enough to eat, and home he should havetaken it as he did his wages every Saturday night. Right conduct in thiscase was obvious; but he never had any spending of his money, and he wassuffering from candy hunger. He was ravenous for the sweets that only onred-letter days he had ever tasted in his life.He did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew it was sin, anddeliberately he sinned when he went on a fifteen-cent candy debauch. Tencents he saved for a future orgy; but not being accustomed to the carryingof money, he lost the ten cents. This occurred at the time when he wassuffering all the torments of conscience, and it was to him an act ofdivine retribution. He had a frightened sense of the closeness of an awfuland wrathful God. God had seen, and God had been swift to punish, denyinghim even the full wages of sin.In memory he always looked back upon that as the one great criminal deed ofhis life, and at the recollection his conscience always awoke and gave himanother twinge. It was the one skeleton in his closet. Also, being somade, and circumstanced, he looked back upon the deed with regret. He wasdissatisfied with the manner in which he had spent the quarter. He couldhave invested it better, and, out of his later knowledge of the quicknessof God, he would have beaten God out by spending the whole quarter at onefell swoop. In retrospect he spent the quarter a thousand times, and eachtime to better advantage.There was one other memory of the past, dim and faded, but stamped into hissoul everlasting by the savage feet of his father. It was more like anightmare than a remembered vision of a concrete thing--more like the race-memory of man that makes him fall in his sleep and that goes back to hisarboreal ancestry.This particular memory never came to Johnny in broad daylight when he waswide awake. It came at night, in bed, at the moment that his consciousnesswas sinking down and losing itself in sleep. It always aroused him tofrightened wakefulness, and for the moment, in the first sickening start,it seemed to him that he lay crosswise on the foot of the bed. In the bedwere the vague forms of his father and mother. He never saw what hisfather looked like. He had but one impression of his father, and that wasthat he had savage and pitiless feet.His earlier memories lingered with him, but he had no late memories. Alldays were alike. Yesterday or last year were the same as a thousand years--or a minute. Nothing ever happened. There were no events to mark themarch of time. Time did not march. It stood always still. It was onlythe whirling machines that moved, and they moved nowhere--in spite of thefact that they moved faster.When he was fourteen, he went to work on the starcher. It was a colossalevent. Something had at last happened that could be remembered beyond anight's sleep or a week's pay-day. It marked an era. It was a machineOlympiad, a thing to date from. "When I went to work on the starcher," or,"after," or "before I went to work on the starcher," were sentences oftenon his lips.He celebrated his sixteenth birthday by going into the loom room and takinga loom. Here was an incentive again, for it was piece-work. And heexcelled, because the clay of him had been moulded by the mills into theperfect machine. At the end of three months he was running two looms, and,later, three and four.At the end of his second year at the looms he was turning out more yardsthan any other weaver, and more than twice as much as some of the lessskilful ones. And at home things began to prosper as he approached thefull stature of his earning power. Not, however, that his increasedearnings were in excess of need. The children were growing up. They atemore. And they were going to school, and school-books cost money. Andsomehow, the faster he worked, the faster climbed the prices of things.Even the rent went up, though the house had fallen from bad to worsedisrepair.He had grown taller; but with his increased height he seemed leaner thanever. Also, he was more nervous. With the nervousness increased hispeevishness and irritability. The children had learned by many bitterlessons to fight shy of him. His mother respected him for his earningpower, but somehow her respect was tinctured with fear.There was no joyousness in life for him. The procession of the days henever saw. The nights he slept away in twitching unconsciousness. Therest of the time he worked, and his consciousness was machineconsciousness. Outside this his mind was a blank. He had no ideals, andbut one illusion; namely, that he drank excellent coffee. He was a work-beast. He had no mental life whatever; yet deep down in the crypts of hismind, unknown to him, were being weighed and sifted every hour of his toil,every movement of his hands, every twitch of his muscles, and preparationswere making for a future course of action that would amaze him and all hislittle world.It was in the late spring that he came home from work one night aware ofunusual tiredness. There was a keen expectancy in the air as he sat downto the table, but he did not notice. He went through the meal in moodysilence, mechanically eating what was before him. The children um'd andah'd and made smacking noises with their mouths. But he was deaf to them."D'ye know what you're eatin'?" his mother demanded at last, desperately.He looked vacantly at the dish before him, and vacantly at her."Floatin' island," she announced triumphantly."Oh," he said."Floating island!" the children chorussed loudly."Oh," he said. And after two or three mouthfuls, he added, "I guess Iain't hungry to-night."He dropped the spoon, shoved back his chair, and arose wearily from thetable."An' I guess I'll go to bed."His feet dragged more heavily than usual as he crossed the kitchen floor.Undressing was a Titan's task, a monstrous futility, and he wept weakly ashe crawled into bed, one shoe still on. He was aware of a rising, swellingsomething inside his head that made his brain thick and fuzzy. His leanfingers felt as big as his wrist, while in the ends of them was aremoteness of sensation vague and fuzzy like his brain. The small of hisback ached intolerably. All his bones ached. He ached everywhere. And inhis head began the shrieking, pounding, crashing, roaring of a millionlooms. All space was filled with flying shuttles. They darted in and out,intricately, amongst the stars. He worked a thousand looms himself, andever they speeded up, faster and faster, and his brain unwound, faster andfaster, and became the thread that fed the thousand flying shuttles.He did not go to work next morning. He was too busy weaving colossally onthe thousand looms that ran inside his head. His mother went to work, butfirst she sent for the doctor. It was a severe attack of la grippe, hesaid. Jennie served as nurse and carried out his instructions.It was a very severe attack, and it was a week before Johnny dressed andtottered feebly across the floor. Another week, the doctor said, and hewould be fit to return to work. The foreman of the loom room visited himon Sunday afternoon, the first day of his convalescence. The best weaverin the room, the foreman told his mother. His job would be held for him.He could come back to work a week from Monday."Why don't you thank 'im, Johnny?" his mother asked anxiously."He's ben that sick he ain't himself yet," she explained apologetically tothe visitor.Johnny sat hunched up and gazing steadfastly at the floor. He sat in thesame position long after the foreman had gone. It was warm outdoors, andhe sat on the stoop in the afternoon. Sometimes his lips moved. He seemedlost in endless calculations.Next morning, after the day grew warm, he took his seat on the stoop. Hehad pencil and paper this time with which to continue his calculations, andhe calculated painfully and amazingly."What comes after millions?" he asked at noon, when Will came home fromschool. "An' how d'ye work 'em?"That afternoon finished his task. Each day, but without paper and pencil,he returned to the stoop. He was greatly absorbed in the one tree thatgrew across the street. He studied it for hours at a time, and wasunusually interested when the wind swayed its branches and fluttered itsleaves. Throughout the week he seemed lost in a great communion withhimself. On Sunday, sitting on the stoop, he laughed aloud, several times,to the perturbation of his mother, who had not heard him laugh for years.Next morning, in the early darkness, she came to his bed to rouse him. Hehad had his fill of sleep all the week, and awoke easily. He made nostruggle, nor did he attempt to hold on to the bedding when she stripped itfrom him. He lay quietly, and spoke quietly."It ain't no use, ma.""You'll be late," she said, under the impression that he was still stupidwith sleep."I'm awake, ma, an' I tell you it ain't no use. You might as well lemmealone. I ain't goin' to git up.""But you'll lose your job!" she cried."I ain't goin' to git up," he repeated in a strange, passionless voice.She did not go to work herself that morning. This was sickness beyond anysickness she had ever known. Fever and delirium she could understand; butthis was insanity. She pulled the bedding up over him and sent Jennie forthe doctor.When that person arrived, Johnny was sleeping gently, and gently he awokeand allowed his pulse to be taken."Nothing the matter with him," the doctor reported. "Badly debilitated,that's all. Not much meat on his bones.""He's always been that way," his mother volunteered."Now go 'way, ma, an' let me finish my snooze."Johnny spoke sweetly and placidly, and sweetly and placidly he rolled overon his side and went to sleep.At ten o'clock he awoke and dressed himself. He walked out into thekitchen, where he found his mother with a frightened expression on herface."I'm goin' away, ma," he announced, "an' I jes' want to say good-bye."She threw her apron over her head and sat down suddenly and wept. Hewaited patiently."I might a-known it," she was sobbing."Where?" she finally asked, removing the apron from her head and gazing upat him with a stricken face in which there was little curiosity."I don't know--anywhere."As he spoke, the tree across the street appeared with dazzling brightnesson his inner vision. It seemed to lurk just under his eyelids, and hecould see it whenever he wished."An' your job?" she quavered."I ain't never goin' to work again.""My God, Johnny!" she wailed, "don't say that!"What he had said was blasphemy to her. As a mother who hears her childdeny God, was Johnny's mother shocked by his words."What's got into you, anyway?" she demanded, with a lame attempt atimperativeness."Figures," he answered. "Jes' figures. I've ben doin' a lot of figurin'this week, an' it's most surprisin'.""I don't see what that's got to do with it," she sniffled.Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother was aware of a distinct shock atthe persistent absence of his peevishness and irritability."I'll show you," he said. "I'm plum' tired out. What makes me tired?Moves. I've ben movin' ever since I was born. I'm tired of movin', an' Iain't goin' to move any more. Remember when I worked in the glass-house?I used to do three hundred dozen a day. Now I reckon I made about tendifferent moves to each bottle. That's thirty-six thousan' moves a day.Ten days, three hundred an' sixty thousan' moves. One month, one millionan' eighty thousan' moves. Chuck out the eighty thousan'"--he spoke withthe complacent beneficence of a philanthropist--"chuck out the eightythousan', that leaves a million moves a month--twelve million moves a year."At the looms I'm movin' twic'st as much. That makes twenty-five millionmoves a year, an' it seems to me I've ben a movin' that way 'most a millionyears."Now this week I ain't moved at all. I ain't made one move in hours an'hours. I tell you it was swell, jes' settin' there, hours an' hours, an'doin' nothin'. I ain't never ben happy before. I never had any time.I've ben movin' all the time. That ain't no way to be happy. An' I ain'tgoing to do it any more. I'm jes' goin' to set, an' set, an' rest, an'rest, and then rest some more.""But what's goin' to come of Will an' the children?" she askeddespairingly."That's it, 'Will an' the children,'" he repeated.But there was no bitterness in his voice. He had long known his mother'sambition for the younger boy, but the thought of it no longer rankled.Nothing mattered any more. Not even that."I know, ma, what you've ben plannin' for Will--keepin' him in school tomake a book-keeper out of him. But it ain't no use, I've quit. He's gotto go to work.""An' after I have brung you up the way I have," she wept, starting to coverher head with the apron and changing her mind."You never brung me up," he answered with sad kindliness. "I brung myselfup, ma, an' I brung up Will. He's bigger'n me, an' heavier, an' taller.When I was a kid, I reckon I didn't git enough to eat. When he come alongan' was a kid, I was workin' an' earnin' grub for him too. But that's donewith. Will can go to work, same as me, or he can go to hell, I don't carewhich. I'm tired. I'm goin' now. Ain't you goin' to say goodbye?"She made no reply. The apron had gone over her head again, and she wascrying. He paused a moment in the doorway."I'm sure I done the best I knew how," she was sobbing.He passed out of the house and down the street. A wan delight came intohis face at the sight of the lone tree. "Jes' ain't goin' to do nothin',"he said to himself, half aloud, in a crooning tone. He glanced wistfullyup at the sky, but the bright sun dazzled and blinded him.It was a long walk he took, and he did not walk fast. It took him past thejute-mill. The muffled roar of the loom room came to his ears, and hesmiled. It was a gentle, placid smile. He hated no one, not even thepounding, shrieking machines. There was no bitterness in him, nothing butan inordinate hunger for rest.The houses and factories thinned out and the open spaces increased as heapproached the country. At last the city was behind him, and he waswalking down a leafy lane beside the railroad track. He did not walk likea man. He did not look like a man. He was a travesty of the human. Itwas a twisted and stunted and nameless piece of life that shambled like asickly ape, arms loose-hanging, stoop-shouldered, narrow-chested, grotesqueand terrible.He passed by a small railroad station and lay down in the grass under atree. All afternoon he lay there. Sometimes he dozed, with muscles thattwitched in his sleep. When awake, he lay without movement, watching thebirds or looking up at the sky through the branches of the tree above him.Once or twice he laughed aloud, but without relevance to anything he hadseen or felt.After twilight had gone, in the first darkness of the night, a freighttrain rumbled into the station. When the engine was switching cars on tothe side-track, Johnny crept along the side of the train. He pulled openthe side-door of an empty box-car and awkwardly and laboriously climbed in.He closed the door. The engine whistled. Johnny was lying down, and inthe darkness he smiled.

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