The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nine-Tenths, by James Oppenheim

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Title: The Nine-Tenths

Author: James Oppenheim

Release Date: February 29, 2004 [EBook #11372]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE NINE-TENTHS

BY JAMES OPPENHEIM
1911

TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER

CONTENTS

PART I--THE DREAM

I. THE PRINTERY

II. THE EAST EIGHTY-FIRST STREET FIRE

III. THE GOOD PEOPLE

IV. GOLDEN OCTOBER

V. MYRA AND JOE

VI. MARTY BRIGGS

VII. LAST OF JOE BLAINE AND HIS MEN

VIII. THE WIND IN THE OAKS

PART II--THE TEST

I. BEGINNINGS

II. THE NINE-TENTHS

III. OTHERS: AND SALLY HEFFER

IV. OTHERS: AND THEODORE MARRIN

V. FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN

VI. A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST

VII. OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND

VIII. THE ARREST

IX. RHONA

X. THE TRIAL

XI. THE WORKHOUSE

XII. CONFIDENT MORNING

XIII. THE CITY

PART I--THE DREAM

I

THE PRINTERY

That windy autumn noon the young girls of the hat factory darted out of
the loft building and came running back with cans of coffee, and bags of
candy, and packages of sandwiches and cakes. They frisked hilariously
before the wind, with flying hair and sparkling eyes, and crowded into
the narrow entrance with the grimy pressmen of the eighth floor. Over
and over again the one frail elevator was jammed with the laughing crowd
and shot up to the hat factory on the ninth floor and back.

The men smoked cigarettes as the girls chattered and flirted with them,
and the talk was fast and free.

At the eighth floor the pressmen got off, still smoking, for "Mr. Joe"
was still out. Even after the presses started up they went on
surreptitiously, though near one group of them in a dark corner of the
printery lay a careless heap of cotton waste, thoroughly soaked with
machine-oil. This heap had been passed by the factory inspector
unnoticed, the pressmen took it for granted, and Joe, in his slipshod
manner, gave it no thought. Later that very afternoon as the opening of
the hall do