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The Valley of the Moon Jack London

Jack London




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  The Valley of the Moon

  by Jack London

  September, 1998 [Etext #1449]

  [Date last updated: September 12, 2003]

  Project Gutenberg Etext of The Valley of the Moon by Jack London

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  THE VALLEY OF THE MOON by Jack London

  BOOK I

  CHAPTER 1

  "You hear me, Saxon? Come on along. What if it is the

  Bricklayers? I'll have gentlemen friends there, and so'll you.

  The Al Vista band'll be along, an' you know it plays heavenly.

  An' you just love dancin'---"

  Twenty feet away, a stout, elderly woman interrupted the girl's

  persuasions. The elderly woman's back was turned, and the

  back-loose, bulging, and misshapen--began a convulsive heaving.

  "Gawd!" she cried out. "O Gawd!"

  She flung wild glances, like those of an entrapped animal, up and

  down the big whitewashed room that panted with heat and that was

  thickly humid with the steam that sizzled from the damp cloth

  under the irons of the many ironers. From the girls and women

  near her, all swinging irons steadily but at high pace, came

  quick glances, and labor efficiency suffered to the extent of a

  score of suspended or inadequate movements. The elderly woman's

  cry had caused a tremor of money-loss to pass among the

  piece-work ironers of fancy starch.

  She gripped herself and her iron with a visible effort, and

  dabbed futilely at the frail, frilled garment on the board under

  her hand.

  "I thought she'd got'em again--didn't you?" the girl said.

  "It's a shame, a women of her age, and . . . condition," Saxon

  answered, as she frilled a lace ruffle with a hot fluting-iron.

  Her movements were delicate, safe, and swift, and though her face

  was wan with fatigue and exhausting heat, there was no slackening

  in her pace.

  "An' her with seven, an' two of 'em in reform school," the girl

  at the next board sniffed sympathetic agreement. "But you just

  got to come to Weasel Park to-morrow, Saxon. The Bricklayers' is

  always lively--tugs-of-war, fat-man races, real Irish jiggin',

  an' . . . an' everything. An' The floor of the pavilion's swell."

  But the elderly woman brought another interruption. She dropped

  her iron on the shirtwaist, clutched at the board, fumbled it,

  caved in at the knees and hips, and like a half-empty sack

  collapsed on the floor, her l
ong shriek rising in the pent room

  to the acrid smell of scorching cloth. The women at the boards

  near to her scrambled, first, to the hot iron to save the cloth,

  and then to her, while the forewoman hurried belligerently down

  the aisle. The women farther away continued unsteadily at their

  work, losing movements to the extent of a minute's set-back to

  the totality of the efficiency of the fancy-starch room.

  "Enough to kill a dog," the girl muttered, thumping her iron down

  on its rest with reckless determination. "Workin' girls' life

  ain't what it's cracked up. Me to quit--that's what I'm comin'

  to."

  "Mary!" Saxon uttered the other's name with a reproach so

  profound that she was compelled to rest her own iron for emphasis

  and so lose a dozen movements.

  Mary flashed a half-frightened look across.

  "I didn't mean it, Saxon," she whimpered. "Honest, I didn't. I

  wouldn't never go that way. But I leave it to you, if a day like

  this don't get on anybody's nerves. Listen to that!"

  The stricken woman, on her back, drumming her heels on the floor,

  was shrieking persistently and monotonously, like a mechanical

  siren. Two women, clutching her under the arms, were dragging her

  down the aisle. She drummed and shrieked the length of it. The

  door opened, and a vast, muffled roar of machinery burst in; and

  in the roar of it the drumming and the shrieking were drowned ere

  the door swung shut. Remained of the episode only the scorch of

  cloth drifting ominously through the air.

  "It's sickenin'," said Mary.

  And thereafter, for a long time, the many irons rose and fell,

  the pace of the room in no wise diminished; while the forewoman

  strode the aisles with a threatening eye for incipient breakdown

  and hysteria. Occasionally an ironer lost the stride for an

  instant, gasped or sighed, then caught it up again with weary

  determination. The long summer day waned, but not the heat, and

  under the raw flare of electric light the work went on.

  By nine o'clock the first women began to go home. The mountain of

  fancy starch had been demolished--all save the few remnants, here

  and there, on the boards, where the ironers still labored.

  Saxon finished ahead of Mary, at whose board she paused on the

  way out.

  "Saturday night an' another week gone," Mary said mournfully, her

  young cheeks pallid and hollowed, her black eyes blue-shadowed

  and tired. "What d'you think you've made, Saxon?"

  "Twelve and a quarter," was the answer, just touched with pride

  "And I'd a-made more if it wasn't for that fake bunch of

  starchers."

  "My! I got to pass it to you," Mary congratulated. "You're a sure

  fierce hustler--just eat it up. Me--I've only ten an' a half, an'

  for a hard week . . . See you on the nine-forty. Sure now. We can

  just fool around until the dancin' begins. A lot of my gentlemen

  friends'll be there in the afternoon."

  Two blocks from the laundry, where an arc-light showed a gang of

  toughs on the corner, Saxon quickened her pace. Unconsciously her

  face set and hardened as she passed. She did not catch the words

  of the muttered comment, but the rough laughter it raised made

  her guess and warmed her checks with resentful blood. Three

  blocks more, turning once to left and once to right, she walked

  on through the night that was already growing cool. On either

  side were workingmen's houses, of weathered wood, the ancient

  paint grimed with the dust of years, conspicuous only for

  cheapness and ugliness.

  Dark it was, but she made no mistake, the familiar sag and

  screeching reproach of the front gate welcome under her hand. She

  went along the narrow walk to the rear, avoided the missing step

  without thinking about it, and entered the kitchen, where a

  solitary gas-jet flickered. She turned it up to the best of its

  flame. It was a small room, not disorderly, because of lack of