The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-02-16

a dry, breaking cough. For a min
ute, for two, he coughed, and the
crowd waited eagerly, many, many
sympathetic faces CLEANED before
him, and he coughed on, twisted
himself with coughing, and all saw
1t, were silent, and only took
breath, first one and then another.
The little town under the I'M
changing sky slept as it were with
a heavy after-dinner sleep. In
every house geraniums shone in the
windows, and on their beggarly but
pretentious leaves lay flowers like
purple and red flies. Oh, how many
of these ash-colored wooden boxes,
street upon street of them, how
stuffy and close in each one of
them! Many grim ikons in the
high corner and on little tables,
covered with crocheted table-cloths,
albums bound in velvet. Dirt in
the kitchens, black-beetles running
on the walls, and flies dismally buzz
zing on the window-panes.
The life of the people who live in
these crowded houses is like a grey
September day, when a drizzle of
rain sounds monotonously on the
window, and thru the panes,
lined with the running drops, you
can see grey railing and a red
calf wandering in the mud. So,
year after year, this life goes on.
Every day early in the morning
elderly women milk cows, go to the
market with baskets, and then in
the kitchen after dinner wash the
greasy dishes. And bald-headed
men with dull eyes, in old patched
breeches and mended boots, go to
their work, buy and sell something
or other, and work at some indus
try, each one alone in a dark room.
On Sundays the women smooth
their hair tightly down, put on pur-
pie, yellow or blue dresses, take the
children to church, and in the even
ing gather together to drink tea
while the men get drunk with
vodka or beer and bump their fore
heads on the table.
All of them, at that hour when,
dismally dropping it's wings, the
sound of the bell calling to the
Saturday evening services floated
mournfully over the town, all of
them hid dislike for those who were
meeting in the Circus, and this
timorous dislike united the whole
town in single black cloud invis-
IDLE by men. =.
At this hour Raphael Antonovitch
Senator went for a walk, Raphael
Antonovitch who lived in the two
stored stone house on the ground
floor of which was a chemists
shop.
They had requisitioned the chem
lists shop. They had taken
down the black board with its af-
fectionately inviting gold letters,
"The Rozhdestvensky Drug Store,
K. A. Senator" And now, instead
OF that, insolently, from a red
board, black letters were shouting,
Health Department, Communal
Drug Store, No. l."
Raphael Antonovitch stood on the
sandy hillock, drank in all the hid
den dumb dislike that poured out
of the little houses, dissolved in it
his own bitter resentment and ha-
tired, and silently sent it all in the
direction of the Circus where that
incomprehensibly hostile life was
going on. A little stout manun a
grey coat and a worn hat Zone of
those hats nicknamed "Good Day
and Goodbye") he stood for a long
time on the hillock. Little mali
cious eyes glittered under the brim
OF his hat, and Wien he turned
round and went slowly off a bit of
fat red neck showed and on it a lot
Of snort black and grey hairs.
He helped his wife in the house.
work, automatically cut wood, took
the hoswash to the cow, and while
his VIE was milking it silently
watched the white stream running
from under her fingers into dark
milky froth. And the regular
sound Of milking, the peaceful
grunting of the pigs behind the
railing, the perfume of the cosy,
twilit cowshed, all this comforted
him and he told his wife:
=, tsNsN bNNH w llt hHdIlLniHSt
Their brother has come from lula.
He says that the end is soon COM
ing. The people are revolving
against the Bolsheviks, the Poles
are wanting 10 fight again, and
even the workmen in Moscow. !"
God in His mercy grant IT,"
murmured his wife, and Raphael
Antonovitch walked up and down
the yard with his hands behind his
back, counting, as his custom was,
the logs left over from the build.
ing Of the house, for fear lest some
should have been stolen.
But, when the grey cloudy day.
hiding the joy Of Spring SO deeply
that it was as II It did not exist,
ended in a scarlet sunset, and the
sun, melting the clouds, gave the
earth the last gold Of its slanting
evening rays, and went off some