“If your wife’s daddy is so rich, why don’t you ask him to send you the money?” the lame man, a middle-aged Jew, asked.
“Him!” the young, healthy Irish-Canadian exclaimed contemptuously. “He don’t want I should come back. Both of his boys were killed by the Germans. Now he’s trying to turn my wife against me, saying I deserted her.”
“Well, didn’t you?” the lame man demanded. “You told me your child was more than a year old, and you’d never seen it. You said you had never got enough ahead to send your wife money.”
“She don’t need I should,” the slacker replied. “Her father’s richer than butter, and she’s all he’s got now.”
The lame man struggled to his feet and lifted his crutch.
“I’m a poor man,” he said, and taking his pay-envelope from his pocket he held it up, “but if I had a million dollars in this I wouldn’t give you a nickel. My father brought us from Poland when I was ten years old. When this war came my brother, the youngest of the family, was the only one able to fight. My father and I promised to care for his wife and four children.”
The lame man slipped his pay-envelope back into his pocket, then fitted the crutch under his arm. You might have heard a pin drop.
“Your brother’ll come back,” a woman addresser assured him hopefully.
The lame man straightened up and swung himself around on his crutch.
“Less than two months after he went away we got the news—he had been killed in battle.” He turned and faced the slacker. “My brother was a good husband,” he said; “he loved his children.” Clutching his hat and his little lunch-box in one hand, he stumped out.
This pay-day brought me a real surprise. Instead of counting the envelopes I learned that they reckoned by weight. My three days’ work, according to my own count, amounted to five thousand envelopes. Soon after the basket in which they had been packed was taken out, the girl with a face like a tomahawk hurried in and informed me that there were only three thousand and three hundred. Against the advice of my fellow addressers I demanded a recount—perhaps I should say a count, for they had been weighed, never counted.
After considerable bluster my work was turned over to another young girl. In the first box she found eighty-one while I found one hundred. On a second counting she also found one hundred. The difference in the second box was even greater. After that she evidently decided it was a hopeless task—trying to cheat me. According to her final count, I had addressed five thousand five hundred and fifty-seven. I was paid for five thousand.