Chapter XXV

by Jack London

　　After the laundry my sister and her husband grubstaked me into theKlondike. It was the first gold rush into that region, the earlyfall rush of 1897. I was twenty-one years old, and in splendidphysical condition. I remember, at the end of the twenty-eight-mile portage across Chilcoot from Dyea Beach to Lake Linderman, Iwas packing up with the Indians and out-packing many an Indian.The last pack into Linderman was three miles. I back-tripped itfour times a day, and on each forward trip carried one hundred andfifty pounds. This means that over the worst trails I dailytravelled twenty-four miles, twelve of which were under a burdenof one hundred and fifty pounds.

　　Yes, I had let career go hang, and was on the adventure-path againin quest of fortune. And of course, on the adventure-path, I metJohn Barleycorn. Here were the chesty men again, rovers andadventurers, and while they didn't mind a grub famine, whisky theycould not do without. Whisky went over the trail, while the flourlay cached and untouched by the trail-side.

　　As good fortune would have it, the three men in my party were notdrinkers. Therefore I didn't drink save on rare occasions anddisgracefully when with other men. In my personal medicine chestwas a quart of whisky. I never drew the cork till six monthsafterward, in a lonely camp, where, without anaesthetics, a doctorwas compelled to operate on a man. The doctor and the patientemptied my bottle between them and then proceeded to theoperation.

　　Back in California a year later, recovering from scurvy, I foundthat my father was dead and that I was the head and the solebread-winner of a household. When I state that I had passed coalon a steamship from Behring Sea to British Columbia, and travelledin the steerage from there to San Francisco, it will be understoodthat I brought nothing back from the Klondike but my scurvy.

　　Times were hard. Work of any sort was difficult to get. And workof any sort was what I had to take, for I was still an unskilledlabourer. I had no thought of career. That was over and donewith. I had to find food for two mouths beside my own and keep aroof over our heads--yes, and buy a winter suit, my one suit beingdecidedly summery. I had to get some sort of work immediately.After that, when I had caught my breath, I might think about myfuture.

　　Unskilled labour is the first to feel the slackness of hard times,and I had no trades save those of sailor and laundryman. With mynew responsibilities I didn't dare go to sea, and I failed to finda job at laundrying. I failed to find a job at anything. I hadmy name down in five employment bureaux. I advertised in threenewspapers. I sought out the few friends I knew who might be ableto get me work; but they were either uninterested or unable tofind anything for me.

　　The situation was desperate. I pawned my watch, my bicycle, and amackintosh of which my father had been very proud and which he hadleft to me. It was and is my sole legacy in this world. It hadcost fifteen dollars, and the pawnbroker let me have two dollarson it. And--oh, yes--a water-front comrade of earlier yearsdrifted along one day with a dress suit wrapped in newspapers. Hecould give no adequate explanation of how he had come to possessit, nor did I press for an explanation. I wanted the suit myself.No; not to wear. I traded him a lot of rubbish which, beingunpawnable, was useless to me. He peddled the rubbish for severaldollars, while I pledged the dress-suit with my pawnbroker forfive dollars. And for all I know the pawnbroker still has thesuit. I had never intended to redeem it.

　　But I couldn't get any work. Yet I was a bargain in the labourmarket. I was twenty-two years old, weighed one hundred andsixty-five pounds stripped, every pound of which was excellent fortoil; and the last traces of my scurvy were vanishing before atreatment of potatoes chewed raw. I tackled every opening foremployment. I tried to become a studio model, but there were toomany fine-bodied young fellows out of jobs. I answeredadvertisements of elderly invalids in need of companions. And Ialmost became a sewing machine agent, on commission, withoutsalary. But poor people don't buy sewing machines in hard times,so I was forced to forgo that employment.

　　Of course, it must be remembered that along with such frivolousoccupations I was trying to get work as wop, lumper, androustabout. But winter was coming on, and the surplus labour armywas pouring into the cities. Also I, who had romped alongcarelessly through the countries of the world and the kingdom ofthe mind, was not a member of any union.

　　I sought odd jobs. I worked days, and half-days, at anything Icould get. I mowed lawns, trimmed hedges, took up carpets, beatthem, and laid them again. Further, I took the civil serviceexaminations for mail carrier and passed first. But alas! therewas no vacancy, and I must wait. And while I waited, and inbetween the odd jobs I managed to procure, I started to earn tendollars by writing a newspaper account of a voyage I had made, inan open boat down the Yukon, of nineteen hundred miles in nineteendays. I didn't know the first thing about the newspaper game, butI was confident I'd get ten dollars for my article.

　　But I didn't. The first San Francisco newspaper to which I mailedit never acknowledged receipt of the manuscript, but held on toit. The longer it held on to it the more certain I was that thething was accepted.

　　And here is the funny thing. Some are born to fortune, and somehave fortune thrust upon them. But in my case I was clubbed intofortune, and bitter necessity wielded the club. I had long sinceabandoned all thought of writing as a career. My honest intentionin writing that article was to earn ten dollars. And that was thelimit of my intention. It would help to tide me along until I gotsteady employment. Had a vacancy occurred in the post office atthat time, I should have jumped at it.

　　But the vacancy did not occur, nor did a steady job; and Iemployed the time between odd jobs with writing a twenty-one-thousand-word serial for the "Youth's Companion." I turned it outand typed it in seven days. I fancy that was what was the matterwith it, for it came back.

　　It took some time for it to go and come, and in the meantime Itried my hand at short stories. I sold one to the "OverlandMonthly " for five dollars. The "Black Cat" gave me forty dollarsfor another. The "Overland Monthly " offered me seven dollars anda half, pay on publication, for all the stories I should deliver.I got my bicycle, my watch, and my father's mackintosh out of pawnand rented a typewriter. Also, I paid up the bills I owed to theseveral groceries that allowed me a small credit. I recall thePortuguese groceryman who never permitted my bill to go beyondfour dollars. Hopkins, another grocer, could not be budged beyondfive dollars.

　　And just then came the call from the post office to go to work.It placed me in a most trying predicament. The sixty-five dollarsI could earn regularly every month was a terrible temptation. Icouldn't decide what to do. And I'll never be able to forgive thepostmaster of Oakland. I answered the call, and I talked to himlike a man. I frankly told him the situation. It looked as if Imight win out at writing. The chance was good, but not certain.Now, if he would pass me by and select the next man on theeligible list and give me a call at the next vacancy--

　　But he shut me off with: "Then you don't want the position?"

　　"But I do," I protested. "Don't you see, if you will pass me overthis time--"

　　"If you want it you will take it," he said coldly.

　　Happily for me, the cursed brutality of the man made me angry.

　　"Very well," I said. "I won't take it."