Chapter XX

by Jack London

　　The jute mills failed of its agreement to increase my pay to adollar and a quarter a day, and I, a free-born American boy whosedirect ancestors had fought in all the wars from the old pre-Revolutionary Indian wars down, exercised my sovereign right offree contract by quitting the job.

　　I was still resolved to settle down, and I looked about me. Onething was clear. Unskilled labour didn't pay. I must learn atrade, and I decided on electricity. The need for electricianswas constantly growing. But how to become an electrician? Ihadn't the money to go to a technical school or university;besides, I didn't think much of schools. I was a practical man ina practical world. Also, I still believed in the old myths whichwere the heritage of the American boy when I was a boy.

　　A canal boy could become a President. Any boy who took employmentwith any firm could, by thrift, energy, and sobriety, learn thebusiness and rise from position to position until he was taken inas a junior partner. After that the senior partnership was only amatter of time. Very often--so ran the myth--the boy, by reasonof his steadiness and application, married his employ's daughter.By this time I had been encouraged to such faith in myself in thematter of girls that I was quite certain I would marry myemployer's daughter. There wasn't a doubt of it. All the littleboys in the myths did it as soon as they were old enough.

　　So I bade farewell for ever to the adventure-path, and went out tothe power plant of one of our Oakland street railways. I saw thesuperintendent himself, in a private office so fine that it almoststunned me. But I talked straight up. I told him I wanted tobecome a practical electrician, that I was unafraid of work, thatI was used to hard work, and that all he had to do was look at meto see I was fit and strong. I told him that I wanted to beginright at the bottom and work up, that I wanted to devote my lifeto this one occupation and this one employment.

　　The superintendent beamed as he listened. He told me that I wasthe right stuff for success, and that he believed in encouragingAmerican youth that wanted to rise. Why, employers were always onthe lookout for young fellows like me, and alas, they found themall too rarely. My ambition was fine and worthy, and he would seeto it that I got my chance. (And as I listened with swellingheart, I wondered if it was his daughter I was to marry.)

　　"Before you can go out on the road and learn the more complicatedand higher details of the profession," he said, "you will, ofcourse, have to work in the car-house with the men who install andrepair the motors. (By this time I was sure that it was hisdaughter, and I was wondering how much stock he might own in thecompany.)

　　"But," he said, "as you yourself so plainly see, you couldn'texpect to begin as a helper to the car-house electricians. Thatwill come when you have worked up to it. You will really begin atthe bottom. In the car-house your first employment will besweeping up, washing the windows, keeping things clean. And afteryou have shown yourself satisfactory at that, then you may becomea helper to the car-house electricians."

　　I didn't see how sweeping and scrubbing a building was anypreparation for the trade of electrician; but I did know that inthe books all the boys started with the most menial tasks and bymaking good ultimately won to the ownership of the whole concern.

　　"When shall I come to work?" I asked, eager to launch on thisdazzling career.

　　"But," said the superintendent, "as you and I have already agreed,you must begin at the bottom. Not immediately can you in anycapacity enter the car-house. Before that you must pass throughthe engine-room as an oiler."

　　My heart went down slightly and for the moment as I saw the roadlengthen between his daughter and me; then it rose again. I wouldbe a better electrician with knowledge of steam engines. As anoiler in the great engine-room I was confident that few thingsconcerning steam would escape me. Heavens! My career shone moredazzling than ever.

　　"When shall I come to work?" I asked gratefully.

　　"But," said the superintendent, "you could not expect to enterimmediately into the engine-room. There must be preparation forthat. And through the fire-room, of course. Come, you see thematter clearly, I know. And you will see that even the merehandling of coal is a scientific matter and not to be sneered at.Do you know that we weigh every pound of coal we burn? Thus, welearn the value of the coal we buy; we know to a tee the lastpenny of cost of every item of production, and we learn whichfiremen are the most wasteful, which firemen, out of stupidity orcarelessness, get the least out of the coal they fire." Thesuperintendent beamed again. "You see how very important thelittle matter of coal is, and by as much as you learn of thislittle matter you will become that much better a workman--morevaluable to us, more valuable to yourself. Now, are you preparedto begin?"

　　"Any time," I said valiantly. "The sooner the better."

　　"Very well," he answered. "You will come to-morrow morning atseven o'clock."

　　I was taken out and shown my duties. Also, I was told the termsof my employment--a ten-hour day, every day in the month includingSundays and holidays, with one day off each month, with a salaryof thirty dollars a month. It wasn't exciting. Years before, atthe cannery, I had earned a dollar a day for a ten-hour day. Iconsoled myself with the thought that the reason my earningcapacity had not increased with my years and strength was becauseI had remained an unskilled labourer. But it was different now.I was beginning to work for skill, for a trade, for career andfortune, and the superintendent's daughter.

　　And I was beginning in the right way--right at the beginning.That was the thing. I was passing coal to the firemen, whoshovelled it into the furnaces, where its energy was transformedinto steam, which, in the engine-room, was transformed into theelectricity with which the electricians worked. This passing coalwas surely the very beginning-unless the superintendent shouldtake it into his head to send me to work in the mines from whichthe coal came in order to get a completer understanding of thegenesis of electricity for street railways.

　　Work! I, who had worked with men, found that I didn't know thefirst thing about real work. A ten-hour day! I had to pass coalfor the day and night shifts, and, despite working through thenoon-hour, I never finished my task before eight at night. I wasworking a twelve-to thirteen-hour day, and I wasn't being paidovertime as in the cannery.

　　I might as well give the secret away right here. I was doing thework of two men. Before me, one mature able-bodied labourer haddone the day shift and another equally mature able-bodied labourerhad done the night-shift. They had received forty dollars a montheach. The superintendent, bent on an economical administration,had persuaded me to do the work of both men for thirty dollars amonth. I thought he was making an electrician of me. In truthand fact, he was saving fifty dollars a month operating expensesto the company.

　　But I didn't know I was displacing two men. Nobody told me. Onthe contrary, the superintendent warned everybody not to tell me.How valiantly I went at it that first day. I worked at top speed,filling the iron wheelbarrow with coal, running it on the scalesand weighing the load, then trundling it into the fire-room anddumping it on the plates before the fires.

　　Work! I did more than the two men whom I had displaced. They hadmerely wheeled in the coal and dumped it on the plates. But whileI did this for the day coal, the night coal I had to pile againstthe wall of the fire-room. Now the fire-room was small. It hadbeen planned for a night coal-passer. So I had to pile the nightcoal higher and higher, buttressing up the heap with stout planks.Toward the top of the heap I had to handle the coal a second time,tossing it up with a shovel.

　　I dripped with sweat, but I never ceased from my stride, though Icould feel exhaustion coming on. By ten o'clock in the morning,so much of my body's energy had I consumed, I felt hungry andsnatched a thick double-slice of bread and butter from my dinnerpail. This I devoured, standing, grimed with coal-dust, my kneestrembling under me. By eleven o'clock, in this fashion I hadconsumed my whole lunch. But what of it? I realised that it wouldenable me to continue working through the noon hour. And I workedall the afternoon. Darkness came on, and I worked under theelectric lights. The day fireman went off and the night firemancame on. I plugged away.

　　At half-past eight, famished, tottering, I washed up, changed myclothes, and dragged my weary body to the car. It was three milesto where I lived, and I had received a pass with the stipulationthat I could sit down as long as there were no paying passengersin need of a seat. As I sank into a corner outside seat I prayedthat no passenger might require my seat. But the car filled up,and, half-way in, a woman came on board, and there was no seat forher. I started to get up, and to my astonishment found that Icould not. With the chill wind blowing on me, my spent body hadstiffened into the seat. It took me the rest of the run in tounkink my complaining joints and muscles and get into a standingposition on the lower step. And when the car stopped at my cornerI nearly fell to the ground when I stepped off.

　　I hobbled two blocks to the house and limped into the kitchen.While my mother started to cook, I plunged into bread and butter;but before my appetite was appeased, or the steak fried, I wassound asleep. In vain my mother strove to shake me awake enoughto eat the meat. Failing in this, with the assistance of myfather she managed to get me to my room, where I collapsed deadasleep on the bed. They undressed me and covered me up. In themorning came the agony of being awakened. I was terribly sore,and, worst of all, my wrists were swelling. But I made up for mylost supper, eating an enormous breakfast, and when I hobbled tocatch my car I carried a lunch twice as big as the one the daybefore.

　　Work! Let any youth just turned eighteen try to out-shovel twoman-grown coal-shovellers. Work! Long before midday I had eatenthe last scrap of my huge lunch. But I was resolved to show themwhat a husky young fellow determined to rise could do. The worstof it was that my wrists were swelling and going back on me.There are few who do not know the pain of walking on a sprainedankle. Then imagine the pain of shovelling coal and trundling aloaded wheelbarrow with two sprained wrists.

　　Work! More than once I sank down on the coal where no one couldsee me, and cried with rage, and mortification, and exhaustion,and despair. That second day was my hardest, and all that enabledme to survive it and get in the last of the night coal at the endof thirteen hours was the day fireman, who bound both my wristswith broad leather straps. So tightly were they buckled that theywere like slightly flexible plaster casts. They took the stressesand pressures which hitherto had been borne by my wrists, and theywere so tight that there was no room for the inflammation to risein the sprains.

　　And in this fashion I continued to learn to be an electrician.Night after night I limped home, fell asleep before I could eat mysupper, and was helped into bed and undressed. Morning aftermorning, always with huger lunches in my dinner pail, I limped outof the house on my way to work.

　　I no longer read my library books. I made no dates with thegirls. I was a proper work beast. I worked, and ate, and slept,while my mind slept all the time. The whole thing was anightmare. I worked every day, including Sunday, and I looked farahead to my one day off at the end of a month, resolved to lieabed all that day and just sleep and rest up.

　　The strangest part of this experience was that I never took adrink nor thought of taking a drink. Yet I knew that men underhard pressure almost invariably drank. I had seen them do it, andin the past had often done it myself. But so sheerly non-alcoholic was I that it never entered my mind that a drink mightbe good for me. I instance this to show how entirely lacking frommy make-up was any predisposition toward alcohol. And the pointof this instance is that later on, after more years had passed,contact with John Barleycorn at last did induce in me thealcoholic desire.

　　I had often noticed the day fireman staring at me in a curiousway. At last, one day, he spoke. He began by swearing me tosecrecy. He had been warned by the superintendent not to tell me,and in telling me he was risking his job. He told me of the daycoal-passer and the night coal-passer, and of the wages they hadreceived. I was doing for thirty dollars a month what they hadreceived eighty dollars for doing. He would have told me sooner,the fireman said, had he not been so certain that I would breakdown under the work and quit. As it was, I was killing myself,and all to no good purpose. I was merely cheapening the price oflabour, he argued, and keeping two men out of a job.

　　Being an American boy, and a proud American boy, I did notimmediately quit. This was foolish of me, I know; but I resolvedto continue the work long enough to prove to the superintendentthat I could do it without breaking down. Then I would quit, andhe would realise what a fine young fellow he had lost.

　　All of which I faithfully and foolishly did. I worked on untilthe time came when I got in the last of the night coal by sixo'clock. Then I quit the job of learning electricity by doingmore than two men's work for a boy's wages, went home, andproceeded to sleep the clock around.

　　Fortunately, I had not stayed by the job long enough to injuremyself--though I was compelled to wear straps on my wrists for ayear afterward. But the effect of this work orgy in which I hadindulged was to sicken me with work. I just wouldn't work. Thethought of work was repulsive. I didn't care if I never settleddown. Learning a trade could go hang. It was a whole lot betterto royster and frolic over the world in the way I had previouslydone. So I headed out on the adventure-path again, starting totramp East by beating my way on the railroads.