CHAPTER 3. MARRIAGE—TRAVEL IN 48 STATES 38
We did so and met a 6 foot 6 jolly native whose voice boomed for a quarter of a mile in regular conversation. I had heard vaguely of such a character but had never met him. He had gone into Texas and worked in the oil fields; then onto farms where with others he joined The Working Class Union, a division of the I.W.W. Along with others he had refused to register and when taken into court and asked by the judge why he didn't go to war he said: "Why don't you go yourself; you old s.o.b.?" He was threatened with "contempt of court," and told them that is just what he had for the court. Two officers came toward him and he lifted them each by the neck and gently knocked their heads together, as much as saying that if he really wanted to he could do a good job at it. He was absolutely without guile, an "innocent" who didn't know enough to be afraid; and the court had to be adjourned, for no order could be kept with Will around. He got 20 years in Leavenworth and proceeded to act the same way there. An officer drilling the men would slip and fall in the mud. Will would laugh loudly and was put in solitary; here he yelled and made such a noise that they let him out and gave him a job picking up pieces of paper blowing around, with a spiked stick. Some fat guard would order him around and he would run after him saying; "I'll stick this thang in your fat belly," and the guard knew he would. He was called to the "head doctor," as he called it and asked why he didn't learn how to behave in jail. His reply was that it would "spoil me for the outside." He was finally catalogued as a "natural born anarchist" and discharged, for with Will in jail there could be no semblance of discipline.
We had read of the School of Organic Education at the Single Tax settlement of Fairhope, Alabama, across the bay from Mobile. Passing through there we were persuaded to stay because the history teacher in the high school had suddenly got married and left and they wanted me to teach history. I demurred that I was not a college graduate, was a jailbird and anarchist, and that my wife and I were married common law. They needed a teacher badly, it seemed, so I stayed. Selma had learned how to make baskets from pine needles and was interested in the English folk dances which they had at the school. We lived a mile north of town in a cement block house where huge pine cones and knots of pine made a cheery warmth in the fireplace.
The English teacher told me that Sam said he wouldn't study history and that new history teacher couldn't make him. This was in the Junior class. I told them all the story of the three blind men and the elephant. How one felt the tail and said it was a rope; another felt the trunk and said it was a tree; another touched the body and said it was a house. Of course they were all wrong for it was an elephant. I said it was the same way with history. The history books of one country said that country was right and the others wrong. The history books of a dominant religion or exploiting class said they were right and their opponents were wrong. What was history 10,000 years ago was mostly fable; even at 1,000 years ago we did a lot of guessing about it, and less than 300 years ago we had the fable about George Washington and the cherry tree. What then was the truth? On the Civil War I had learned only the side of the North and the folks here knew only the side of the South. There were three sides to a question: your side, my side, and the right side. Everyone was biased.
