Sinclair Lewis: Main Street

11. CHAPTER XI (continued)

VII

She had met Miles Bjornstam on the street. For the second of welcome encounter this workman with the bandit mustache and the muddy overalls seemed nearer than any one else to the credulous youth which she was seeking to fight beside her, and she told him, as a cheerful anecdote, a little of her story.

He grunted, "I never thought I'd be agreeing with Old Man Dawson, the penny-pinching old land-thief--and a fine briber he is, too. But you got the wrong slant. You aren't one of the people--yet. You want to do something for the town. I don't! I want the town to do something for itself. We don't want old Dawson's money--not if it's a gift, with a string. We'll take it away from him, because it belongs to us. You got to get more iron and cussedness into you. Come join us cheerful bums, and some day--when we educate ourselves and quit being bums--we'll take things and run 'em straight."

He had changed from her friend to a cynical man in over alls. She could not relish the autocracy of "cheerful bums."

She forgot him as she tramped the outskirts of town.

She had replaced The city hall project by an entirely new and highly exhilarating thought of how little was done for these unpicturesque poor.