The girls wore short deerskin or muskrat jackets. They smiled as they poke off the toasted bread with their heavenly little fingers. Kind, hard-working girls, fooled by insane American happiness!

On one of the drug-store counters we saw a case of German drawing instruments.

"Mr. Adams, is it possible that America does not make its own drawing instruments?"

"Of course not!" Mr. Adams replied with ardour. " We cannot make drawing instruments. Gentlemen, don't laugh! Not that we do not want to; no, we cannot. America with all of its grandiose technique does not know how to manufacture drawing instruments. The same America which makes millions of automobiles a year! And do you know wherein the trouble lies? If the drawing instruments were needed by the entire population, we would organize mass production and would produce tens of millions of drawing instruments at an amazingly low price. But the population of the United States does not need tens of millions of drawing instruments. It needs only tens of thousands. That means that it is impossible to establish mass production, and drawing instruments would have to be made by hand. And everything which in America is made not by machinery, but by the hand of man, costs incredibly much. So our drawing instruments would cost ten times more than the German ones. Mr. Ilf and Mr. Petrov, write this down in your little books, that this great America finds itself at times helpless before pathetic old Europe. That is very, very important to know!"

21 Rogers and His Wife

A MIDDLING wide promontory of the northern part of Texas separates the states of Oklahoma and New Mexico. On the way from Amarillo, which is in Texas, to Santa Fe we occasionally met some of the colourful local people.

Two cowboys were driving a herd of small steppe cows, shaggy, like dogs. Large felt hats protected the cowboys from the hot sun of the desert. Large spurs adorned their boots, which had elegant ladies' heels ornamented with figures. The cowboys hooted, their horses cavorted at full gallop. It all seemed a little more elaborate and ostentatious than it should have been for the modest purposes of directing a herd of cows. But there it was! You may be sure that here they know how to graze cows! It was not for us city folk to give them advice!

In an old glass-enclosed Ford rode other cowboys. These healthy fellows were crowded in the little machine, and they sat quite immobile, occasionally touching each other with the rigid edges of their incredible hats. Catching up with them, we saw through the window their rustic profiles and their manly sideburns. Five cowboys, five hats, and five pairs of sideburns—that was quite a load for the thin-legged Ford of the year 1917. But Old Henry, creaking with might and main, moved ahead little by little.

Trucks with high sides were transporting horses and mules. It is, after all, an amazing country—this America! Here even horses ride in automobiles. Surely, it is not possible to think up a greater degradation for that animal! Over the high enclosures there mournfully emerged the long ears of mules and occasionally the noble muzzle of a horse, the inexpressible boredom of travel reflected in its eyes.

We had scarcely left Amarillo when we saw a new hitchhiker with thumb up. In America hitchhikers are people who ask for a ride. Our marine of yesterday belonged to that category. We stopped. The hitchhiker dropped his hand. He was in overalls that revealed the open collars of two shirts. Over his overalls he wore a light-coloured and clean corduroy coat. He told us that he was bound for the city of Phoenix in the state of Arizona. We were not driving in that direction, but we were driving as far as Santa Fe, which was on the hitchhiker's way, so we asked him to get into the machine.

Mr. Adams lost no time in beginning his interrogation.

Our fellow traveller was called Rogers. He placed his black hat on his knees, and gladly began to tell us about himself. Another good trait of the Americans—they are sociable.

One of Rogers's friends had written to him that he had found work for him in Phoenix, packing fruit at eighteen dollars a week. So he had to travel seven hundred miles and, of course, he did not have the money for such a long journey. He had not slept all night, having travelled in a freight car, where it was very cold. He met several tramps in the car. Rogers's conscience hurt him to travel without paying his fare, and so at each station he got off to help the conductors load the baggage. But the tramps slept, regardless of the cold, and their consciences did not bother them at all. Rogers was travelling from Oklahoma City. There his wife was in a hospital.

He pulled out of his pocket a newspaper clipping, and we recognized the photograph of the young woman lying in a white hospital bed and the inscription:

"She smiles even on her couch of suffering."

Mr. Adams waved his hands excitedly.

"Why, sir!" he cried. "I read about your wife in a newspaper!"

For several hours on end Rogers talked, telling us the story of his life. He spoke unhurriedly, without getting excited, without appealing to pity or to compassion. He was asked to tell about himself, so he talked.

He was originally from Texas. His father and stepfather were carpenters. He graduated from high school but did not have the means to pursue his education further. He worked in a small village cannery, where he became foreman. Work in such a factory lasts only about three months of the year. Those seasonal workers are hired who usually move with their families over the country. At first they work in the South, then gradually they go up North, where harvesting begins later. These are very real nomads. It makes no difference that they are white and that they live in America. They are settled people whom contemporary technique forced to assume a nomad form of life. Men were paid twenty cents an hour and women seventeen cents. They received their indispensable merchandise from the factory store, and the cost of it was later deducted from their salary. They also had special relations with the farmers. To farmers, the boss of such a factory gives seeds ahead of time on credit and buys their crops of vegetables on the root before harvest. And not even on the root, but rather before that. The crop is bought before anything has been planted. It does not pay the farmers to deal that way, but the boss selects springtime for the consummation of deals, when the farmers are especially badly off. In a word, the boss of such a factory knows how to make money.

Concerning the making of money, Rogers expressed himself not with indignation but with approval.

As it happens, his boss has no easy life. He is tormented by the local banks. His future is uncertain. Undoubtedly the banks will swallow him up. That is how everything ends in America.

So, he was a foreman for a small manufacturer, and married the latter's daughter. It was a very happy marriage. The young married folks did everything together—-went to the motion-picture theatre, to see their friends, even danced only with each other. She was a teacher, a good and a bright girl. She did not want any children, because she feared that they might take her away from her husband. Their affairs were shipshape. During four years of living together they saved two thousand dollars. They had eighteen pedigreed cows and their own automobile. Everythiing went so well they could not wish for anything better. And then in February of 1934 a mishap occurred. His wife fell off a ladder and her spine was broken in a very complicated way. Operations began, treatments, and in the course of a year and a half everything that they owned went to the doctors. When you come right down to it, it looked more like a bandit raid than humane medical help. The doctors took everything, including their savings as well as the money obtained from the sale of the eighteen pedigreed cows and the automobile. The couple was left penniless. The first hospital charged at the rate of twenty-five dollars a week and the Oklahoma City hospital had to be paid now at the rate of fifty dollars. His wife must have a metal corset; that will cost another hundred and twenty dollars.