CHAPTER 5. LIFE AT HARD LABOR—REFUSAL TO PAY INCOME TAX 74
did not sleep much because of the noise which lasted that Saturday night until 4:00 a.m. In the morning the wife of the proprietor fixed me an especially fine breakfast and wondered what they would have done if I had not happened to come at just the right time. I told her nothing "happened" in this world, that all things work together for good to those who love the good—God. I had barely stepped out of the place the next morning when a taxi stopped and the driver, who was going to work, took me the twenty-eight miles to Toledo.
This Sunday I walked twenty-two miles. Each place where I hoped to get something to eat was marked "Closed on Sunday." Toward evening I saw a church spire in the distance, and supposing it was a Lutheran church I determined to ask the wife of the pastor for coffee. Coming closer I saw a sign which read "Assumption". Where had I heard that word before? I had only had time to read Dorothy's column in the December CW in Cleveland. Sitting down on my pack in front of the church. I looked it over again and saw that Dorothy had been there a few weeks before. Knocking on the convent door, I asked for Sister Columbiere. I was ushered into the parlor and soon the sister arrived, wondering how I knew her name. I showed her a copy of the December CW in which her name was mentioned, and which she had not yet seen. In a few minutes another sister announced that my venison was ready. I had not said that I had nothing to eat since Monday or that I was a vegetarian but I suppose I looked hungry. Sister Suzanne spoke up quickly, "Oh, I know what he likes, for my father is a vegetarian." So eggs and cheese were substituted. The sisters were interested in my hike and in my anti-war activities. I was unable to see the priest, for he was busy with committee meetings for a credit union and a cooperative freezer locker.
After supper I attended Benediction in the church, hearing with pleasure the clear voice of Sister Columbiere, which matched her radiant countenance. I felt that all things did work together for good, as I had asserted that morning, for if I had received a ride I would have gone through this small settlement and not known I had missed it. The sisters gave me some blankets and I slept on a mattress above the garage. I left early in the morning my pack about five pounds heavier because of the sandwiches, celery, cake, etc. which the sisters had given me.
Arriving in Chicago at noon the next day I had a visit at CYO headquarters with Nina Polcyn, Florence and Margaret, old friends of the Milwaukee Catholic Worker group. I also spent several hours visiting with my old friend, Claude McKay, Negro poet and former Communist, a friend of Dorothy in the twenties, and now a convert to the church. I had a few minutes with Sharon as she practiced music at the University before school, and with Carmen as we walked toward a street car.
As I walked up the long hill on Route 151 to the south of Dubuque, Iowa, it commenced to snow. Cars had slipped off the road all along but the pilgrim on foot made it all right. About nine miles further on I heard the bells of the monastery tolling to the right. A man picked me up and wanted to know where I was going, I told him to the monastery. He wanted to know if I was going to join the monks. I told him that I was not, and that I was a kind of a desert
