The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-03-20
A Story In Two Parts.
PART ONE.

you want DEM wires cut.
'Rusten, what do you mean by this? Are
you foreman of this gang, or ann 1? Damn
you, if we wasn't out here hundred miles
from nowhere, I'd fire you this minute. Get
down that hole, there, and cut those wires"
Two or three men edged few inches to-
ward the cave-in beside the concrete forms
Then, observing no movement on the part of
their companions, they turned instinctively to
Rusten. German and Jewish, Irish, Russian,
and what-not, the group of workmen awaited
the word of Swede.
But, you ask, what kind of a Swede?
Not one of that gigantic breed which Off
cered the windjammers before the era of tur-
bines andGoil; nor one of that Morse physique
which scatters monstrous logs among the for
ests of the west and playfulIy pushes them
down the rivers to the screech of the saws.
No. Quite the contrary was Rusten-the
underdog.
He was thin in form and feature. His
shoulders sloped like a girls; and he walked
as If his head were pulling up his legs-a slid
ing, shuffling gait-bending his body at
sharp angle at the waist because of an ex-
reme injury to his back. Pale blue eyes look
ed unblinkingly thru thick shel-rimmed glass
es, and peculiar smile-half derisive, half
plaintive- seemed stamped upon his counten-
ance.
The underdog business was not late phase
OF the life of Ted Rusten. He had never been
very different sort of canine. AS the un-
washed, ragged brother of nineteen peasant
children, he had been underpup The tale of
why Ted RuSten developed into an underdog
and remained such should not be compressed
within the limits of a short story It shofld.
be told as are the photo-dramas, with frequent
close-ups and many throw-backs. To con-
dense tWenty-fOur years of mans existence
not lfe-iDtO five Or civ nd
words requires verbal economy almost
amounting to muteness
At eleven Ted had decided that home was
crowded, and ran away to sea. He enjoyed
the salt breeze, and the absence of his father
and mother. But if you had looked close you
would have seen occasionally double wrinkle
between Ted's eyeS-a wrinkle that had nc
business there in adolescence After an ex-
Taord1nary round of abuse from some Older
seaman, heavy feeling would smother him,
nameless ache would clutch at his breast
until his eyes had been washed clear by night
OF weeping. People in heathendom may have
no word corresponding to "love'; Ted had
no way OF experiencing the emotion represent
ed by it.
AT twenty he had sailed all over the world.
FED upon scrofulous food, bunked in smelly
Vermln-infested hammOcks, abused by his
equals, flogged by his superiors. he had hid
his sensibilities in fog of reckless cynicisfn.
Wei, what the hell now?" was his attitude.
Only at infrequent intervals, in the quiet dark
ness OF the night, would ray of light pierce
that mental mist and trace on his weathered
face the rudiments of plaintive SMILE Then,
as full consciousness returned, he would re-
fleet that in nine years no message had ever
come from his people; and the damp fog again
would envelop him.
The age at which most men assume the
duties of citizenship found Ted in New York
with an unshaved neck and with his toes out
of his shoes. And at an hour when almost all
other young men turned over ON comfortable
mattresses for another hour of repose and
dreams of last nights companion, Ted was
1auled by the collar from his park bench and
directed to that haven of so many-'cMove
On His breakfast paper, so famous in do
mesticity, he rescued from the gutter; and.
ElightinP the quotations nR afnolrr ard ke-.da