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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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"Guess I’d better get up," he said. There was no water on this floor. He put on his shoes in the cold and stood up, shaking himself in his stiffness. His clothes felt disagreeable, his hair bad. "Hell!" he muttered, as he put on his hat. Downstairs things were stirring again. He found a hydrant, with a trough which had once been used for horses, but there was no towel here, and his handkerchief was soiled from yesterday. He contented himself with wetting his eyes with the ice-cold water. Then he sought the foreman, who was already on the ground. "Had your breakfast yet?" inquired that worthy. "No," said Hurstwood. "Better get it, then; your car won’t be ready for a little while." Hurstwood hesitated. "Could you let me have a meal ticket?" he asked, with an effort. "Here you are," said the man, handing him one. He breakfasted as poorly as the night before on some fried steak and bad coffee. Then he went back. "Here," said the foreman, motioning him, when he came in. "You take this car out in a few minutes." Hurstwood climbed up on the platform in the gloomy barn and waited for a signal. He was nervous, and yet the thing was a relief. Anything was better than the barn. On this the fourth day of the strike, the situation had taken a turn for the worse. The strikers, following the counsel of their leaders and the newspapers, had struggled peaceably enough. There had been no great violence done. Cars had been stopped, it is true, and the men argued with. Some crews had been won over and led away, some windows broken, some jeering and yelling done; but in no more than five or six instances had men been seriously injured. These by crowds whose acts the leaders disclaimed. Idleness, however, and the sight of the company, backed by the police, triumphing, angered the men. They saw that each day more cars were going on, each day more declarations were being made by the company officials that the effective opposition of the strikers was broken. This put desperate thoughts in the minds of the men. Peaceful methods meant, they saw, that the companies would soon run all their cars and those who had complained would be forgotten. There was nothing so helpful to the companies as peaceful methods. All at once they blazed forth, and for a week there was storm and stress. Cars were assailed, men attacked, policemen struggled with, tracks torn up, and shots fired, until at last street fights and mob movements became frequent, and the city was invested with militia. Hurstwood knew nothing of the change of temper. "Run your car out," called the foreman, waving a vigorous hand at him. A green conductor jumped up behind and rang the bell twice as a signal to start. Hurstwood turned the lever and ran the car out through the door into the street in front of the barn. Here two brawny policemen got up beside him on the platform-one on either hand. At the sound of a gong near the barn door, two bells were given by the conductor and Hurstwood opened his lever. The two policemen looked about them calmly. "’Tis cold, all right, this morning," said the one on the left, who possessed a rich brogue. "I had enough of it yesterday," said the other. "I wouldn’t want a steady job of this." "Nor I." Neither paid the slightest attention to Hurstwood, who stood facing the cold wind, which was chilling him completely, and thinking of his orders. "Keep a steady gait," the foreman had said. "Don’t stop for anyone who doesn’t look like a real passenger. Whatever you do, don’t stop for a crowd." The two officers kept silent for a few moments. "The last man must have gone through all right," said the officer on the left. "I don’t see his car anywhere." |
