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warned. “Do you have any idea what would happen if you pulled a strike? They'd bring in the goon squads and beat your heads in!” Rivers was no advocate of the present exploitation; he merely believed that what Joe was doing would make things worse, not better, for the pickers.
    “Not if we outnumbered the goons—and stood together,” Joe retorted.
    There was no decision yet, for though the union sentiment was gaining, it was far from unanimous.
    Slowly the pressure increased while the work continued. Each shift of jobs brought contact with new faces, and these people were increasingly interested.
    One memorable, if not critical, episode occurred after about six months. I was in a potato-bubble, part of a large crew with a number of unfamiliar faces and several new songs. I had been sleeping early, for grubbing potatoes is a dirty, wearing business. I woke early when I heard someone singing Worried Man Blues . Electrified, I bounced off my bunk and charged into the group. “That's my song!” I cried indignantly. The theft of a song was a serious business, sure provocation for a fight. I had to defend my song, or I would be in poor repute.
    The man stopped. He was old and grizzled, with deep lines around and through his face. “It's my song,”
    he said mildly. “Had it for thirty years.”
    I backed off, embarrassed. Of course, songs could duplicate; I had seen it happen to others. There were hundreds of songs, and thousands of workers. It just hadn't occurred to me that mine could have another owner. I now look back at this adolescent naïveté with a certain wonder; but the loss of innocence does seem to be a lifelong chore.
    The man smiled. “It's good to meet a brother,” he said, and extended his lined hand. “Haven't run into one in three years.”
    I took his hand, grateful for his attitude. “Mine's only six months.”
    “It's still authentic. Who named you, Worry?”
    “Well, really, it was Joe Hill and Old Man Rivers. They're on another shift right now.”
    “Them brothers!” he exclaimed. “If them two agreed on anything, it must be right!”
    Brothers? Not in the sense of matching songs. Song-brothers were those who shared a song, and they did not.
    “Well, come on, Worry,” he said. “It don't matter how long anyone's had it, it's ours. We'll sing it together.”
    And sing it we did. His voice wasn't any better than mine, but we complemented each other and made a richer song than either could have alone—and perhaps that is a suitable analogy for any type of cooperation in life. His version differed slightly from mine, but that only added to the appeal.
    After that we talked, exchanging information and attitudes. We really were not much alike, but the rules of this society bound us together, and this man was rather like an uncle to me, and I like a nephew to him.
    He had been a migrant laborer all his life and knew nothing else. He was largely illiterate, so could find no other work. Much of the time, he confessed, he was on the bottle; it eased his mind, but his liver was starting to go, and that worried him—of course!—but what else was there?
    And I learned that there was a duty as well as a friendship that went with the sharing of a song. If one of us died, and the other heard about it, he was supposed to come and investigate and set things to right if they needed it. Usually a few questions sufficed, and sometimes personal effects had to be taken to a blood relative, but once in a while there was foul play, and vengeance had to be sought. “But don't worry, Worry, about that,” he reassured me. “My liver'll take me out within five years if not sooner, and I don't have no living relatives and nothing worth saving. I'll never be a caution to you. See that you ain't to me.”
    I promised not to be a caution to him, and that was it. We parted ways on the next tour, and I never saw him again. But the experience buoyed me. There was someone who would look out for me, not from proximity