The Cotton-Pickers
Page 18
“For goodness’ sake, Mr. Pratt, you’re not thinking of divorce?”
“Divorce? Me? Whatever for? Because of a trifle like that?”
He gave me an odd smile. If only I knew what it meant. “No. Why should I get a divorce? Are you afraid I might?”
“Yes,” I confessed.
“But why?”
“Because your wife said she’d marry me.”
“Oh. Yes, I remember her saying that, and if she says she’s going to do a thing, she does it. But why are you squirming like that? Scared? Don’t you like my wife? I thought that—”
I didn’t let him finish that one. “I like your wife very much,” I confessed rapidly. “But — please don’t get a divorce! If I did marry her, it wouldn’t be a bad thing, perhaps, but I really don’t know what I’d do with a wife, I beg your pardon, what I should do with your wife.”
“What you’d do with any woman! Give her what she likes.”
“That’s not the point. It’s something else. I don’t know how I’d get on as a married man.” I tried hard to make it clear to him. “Understand, I’m only a vagabond. I’m incapable of
staying put on my rear. I couldn’t drag my wife along on my travels; nor could I stay put, and sit at a proper table with a proper breakfast and a proper dinner every day. No! My stomach wouldn’t stand it, either. Now, if you’d like to do me a favor—”
“Anything you like. Granted,” he said good-naturedly.
“Don’t divorce your wife. She’s such a good wife, such a beautiful, clever, brave wife! You’d never get another like her, Mr. Pratt.”
“I know that. That’s why I wouldn’t get a divorce. I never thought of such a thing. I don’t know how you got such nonsense into your head! Come off that, now, and we’ll go celebrate the end of your cattle contract.”
And off we went.
Mr. Pratt abruptly stopped drinking. Now what is he going to do to me? I thought to myself. Shoot or what?
“Yes, Mr. Pratt,” I stammered, “what’s up now?”
“What do you think happened while you were away with the cattle?”
“What? Mr. Pratt, I’m all ears.” I felt so confused that I had to search for words.
“La Aurora Bakery,” he said, dryly.
“Yes, yes, come on, what happened to the good old Aurora?” “The bakers are on strike, and apparently no end of it in sight.”
“On strike, the bakers of La Aurora?”
“Yes, but not only of La Aurora. All the bakeries of the port are on strike. Not a bite of bread can be bought, not even a stale roll. They’re all eating tortillas. I’ve never seen so many women selling tortillas.”
“Too bad,” I said.
“And do you know what the Douxs are telling the whole world?”
“No, what?”
“That you started that bakers’ strike.”
“I? Me? So help me, how could I do such a thing? Me, driving a herd of cattle cross country? The bakers out on strike and I so many miles away? So here you can see clearly what sort of rotten slanderers the Douxs are — unjust through and through. I know nothing whatsoever about this bakers’ strike.”
“Listen. The Douxs are saying that since the time you came to work there, the bakehouse men have been dissatisfied with everything — with the food, sleeping quarters, wages, and with the long hours. You’d hardly left the place when things got going. Then, strike! One day it was La Aurora, next day all the bakeries were struck. The men now want two pesos a day, better food and better sleeping quarters, and an eight-hour day.”
“Well, now I’ll tell you the honest truth, Mr. Pratt. Honestly, I had nothing to do with that strike. I told you this the first time we met, when you told me what Shine had said about me, that — by pure chance! — a strike always broke out where I was working or where I had been working, even if I’d hardly had time to look around me. Well, I can’t help that. It’s not my fault if men get dissatisfied and want something better. I never say anything to such men. I keep mum, and let others do the talking. So it beats me, everywhere I go people say I’m a Wobbly, a troublemaker, and I assure you, Mr. Pratt, that this is—”
“The whole and unadulterated truth,” Mr. Pratt finished the sentence that I’d intended to finish quite differently.
That’s how it goes, if people take the words out of your mouth and twist them around. Really, it’s no wonder that people get the wrong impression about all matters and things.
People should let a fellow have his say. But no, they must always interfere in another person’s affairs. No wonder it doesn’t make sense.