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Updated: August 13, 2024
Jimmie doesn't know anything about the Russian Jew, Kalenkin, any more; he could not tell the secret if he wanted to, so they have given up testing his conscience, and they treat him kindly, and have succeeded in persuading him that he is out of the trap. Therefore he is a good beast he crawls about on all fours, and eats his food out of a tin platter without using his gnawed-off fingers.
So Jimmie suggested that they "cut it", and they went out, and Jimmie played his little game a third time, and again was asked to leave the leaflet he had picked out of the gutter. So on for two days until Jimmie had got rid of the last of the manifestoes which Kalenkin had entrusted to him.
However, he realized how naive that would sound. So he waited, while Kalenkin went on: "You show it only to men you can trust. You hide de copies, you take vun and make it dirty, so you say, 'I find it in de street. See, iss it so de Bolsheviki fight de Kaiser? If it iss so, vy do we need to fight dem? So you give dese; and some day I come vit someting new."
"I've been through it all," said Jimmie. "What can we do?" "Propaganda!" cried Kalenkin. "For de first time we have plenty money for propaganda all de money in Russia for propaganda! Ever'vere in de vorld we reach de vorkers everyvere we cry to dem: Rise! Rise and break your chains! You tink dey vill not hear us, tovarish!
"But you can't tell things like that to the doughboys." "My God!" said Kalenkin. "Don't I know! I vas in America! Dey tink dey are de people vat de good God made! Dey know everyting you cannot teach dem. Dey are democracy; dey have no classes; vage-slaves dat iss just foreign vat you call it scum, hey? Dey vill shoot us I have seen how dey beat de vorkers ven dey strike on Grand Street."
He patted him reassuringly on the back, and said: "You trust me, comrade; I'll hand them out, and they'll bring results, too, I'll bet." "You don't tell about me!" exclaimed Kalenkin with fierce intensity. To which Jimmie answered. "Not if they boil me alive." Jimmie went to supper in the mess-hall; but the piles of steaming hot food choked him he was thinking of the half-starved little Jew.
"Vat you tink of it?" cried Kalenkin, eagerly. "Fine!" cried Jimmie. "The very thing they need! Nobody can object to that. It's a fact, it's what the Bolsheviki are doing." The other smiled grimly. "Tovarish, if dey find you vit dat paper, dey shoot you like a dog! Dey shoot us all!" "But why?" "Because it is Bolshevik." Jimmie wanted to say. "But it's true!"
Maybe they would not torture Kalenkin as they had Jimmie, because he was not a soldier; they might just put him in jail and keep him there, and others would do the work. Maybe And so on. But the feeble voice whispered in the soul of Jimmie Higgins: You are the revolution. You are social justice, struggling for life in this world.
But he stilled the voice of his weakness, and after a while he said: "Tell me what to do, comrade." Kalenkin asked, "You have made propaganda in America?" "Sure," said Jimmie. "I went to jail once for makin' a speech on the street." And the other went to a corner of the cabin, and dug under half a dozen cabbages, and brought out a packet.
Jimmie took off his sheepskin-lined overcoat, and unbuttoned his sweater underneath, and from an inside pocket of his jacket took out the precious card with the due-stamps initialled by the secretaries of Local Leesville and Local Hopeland and Local Ironton. The stranger studied it, then nodded. "Good! I trust you." As he handed back the card he remarked, "My name is Kalenkin. I am Bolshevik."
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