“There’s another wants to try it,” said Officer Kiely to Officer Macey.
“I have my mind he’ll get his fill,” returned the latter, quietly.
They had been in strikes before.
CHAPTER XLI
THE STRIKE
THE BARN AT WHICH Hurstwood applied was exceedingly short-handed, and was being operated practically by three men as directors. There were a lot of green hands around—queer, hungry-looking men, who looked as if want had driven them to desperate means. They tried to be lively and willing, but there was an air of hang-dog diffidence about the place.
Hurstwood went back through the barns and out into a large, enclosed lot, where were a series of tracks and loops. A half-dozen cars were there, manned by instructors, each with a pupil at the lever. More pupils were waiting at one of the rear doors of the barn.
In silence Hurstwood viewed this scene, and waited. His companions took his eye for a while, though they did not interest him much more than the cars. They were an uncomfortable-looking gang, however. One or two were very thin and lean. Several were quite stout. Several others were rawboned and sallow, as if they had been beaten upon by all sorts of rough weather.
“Did you see by the paper they are going to call out the militia?” Hurstwood heard one of them remark.
“Oh, they’ll do that,” returned the other. “They always do.”
“Think we’re liable to have much trouble?” said another, whom Hurstwood did not see.
“Not very.”
“That Scotchman that went out on the last car,” put in a voice, “told me that they hit him in the ear with a cinder.”
A small, nervous laugh accompanied this.
“One of those fellows on the Fifth Avenue line must have had a hell of a time, according to the papers,” drawled another. “They broke his car windows and pulled him off into the street ‘fore the police could stop ’em.”
“Yes; but there are more police around to-day,” was added by another.
Hurstwood hearkened without much mental comment. These talkers seemed scared to him. Their gabbling was feverish—things said to quiet their own minds. He looked out into the yard and waited.
Two of the men got around quite near him, but behind his back. They were rather social, and he listened to what they said.
“Are you a railroad man?” said one.
“Me? No. I’ve always worked in a paper factory.”
“I had a job in Newark until last October,” returned the other, with reciprocal feeling.
There were some words which passed too low to hear. Then the conversation became strong again.
“I don’t blame these fellers for striking,” said one. “They’ve got the right of it, all right, but I had to get something to do.”
“Same here,” said the other. “If I had any job in Newark I wouldn’t be over here takin’ chances like these.”
“It’s hell these days, ain’t it?” said the man. “A poor man ain’t nowhere. You could starve, by God, right in the streets, and there ain’t most no one would help you.”
“Right you are,” said the other. “The job I had I lost ’cause they shut down. They run all summer and lay up a big stock, and then shut down.”
Hurstwood paid some little attention to this. Somehow, he felt a little superior to these two—a little better off. To him these were ignorant and commonplace, poor sheep in a driver’s hand.
“Poor devils,” he thought, speaking out of the thoughts and feelings of a bygone period of success.
“Next,” said one of the instructors.
“You’re next,” said a neighbour, touching him.
He went out and climbed on the platform. The instructor took it for granted that no preliminaries were needed.
“You see this handle,” he said, reaching up to an electric cut-off, which was fastened to the roof. “This throws the current off or on. If you want to reverse the car you turn it over here. If you want to send it forward, you put it over here. If you want to cut off the power, you keep it in the middle.”
Hurstwood smiled at the simple information.
“Now, this handle here regulates your speed. To here,” he said, pointing with his finger, “gives you about four miles an hour. This is eight. When it’s full on, you make about fourteen miles an hour.”
Hurstwood watched him calmly. He had seen motormen work before. He knew just about how they did it, and was sure he could do as well, with a very little practice.
The instructor explained a few more details, and then said:
“Now, we’ll back her up.”
Hurstwood stood placidly by, while the car rolled back into the yard.
“One thing you want to be careful about, and that is to start easy. Give one degree time to act before you start another. The one fault of most men is that they always want to throw her wide open. That’s bad. It’s dangerous, too. Wears out the motor. You don’t want to do that.”
“I see,” said Hurstwood.
He waited and waited, while the man talked on.
“Now you take it,” he said, finally.
The ex-manager laid hand to the lever and pushed it gently, as he thought. It worked much easier than he imagined, however, with the result that the car jerked quickly forward, throwing him back against the door. He straightened up sheepishly, while the instructor stopped the car with the brake.
“You want to be careful about that,” was all he said.
Hurstwood found, however, that handling a brake and regulating speed were not so instantly mastered as he had imagined. Once or twice he would have ploughed through the rear fence if it had not been for the hand and word of his companion. The latter was rather patient with him, but he never smiled.
“You’ve got to get the knack of working both arms at once,” he said. “It takes a little practice.”
One o’clock came while he was still on the car practising, and he began to feel hungry. The day set in snowing, and he was cold. He grew weary of running to and fro on the short track.
They ran the car to the end and both got off. Hurstwood went into the barn and sought a car step, pulling out his paper-wrapped lunch from his pocket. There was no water and the bread was dry, but he enjoyed it. There was no ceremony about dining. He swallowed and looked about, contemplating the dull, homely labour of the thing. It was disagreeable—miserably disagreeable—in all its phases. Not because it was bitter, but because it was hard. It would be hard to any one, he thought.
After eating, he stood about as before, waiting until his turn came.
The intention was to give him an afternoon of practice, but the greater part of the time was spent in waiting about.
At last evening came, and with it hunger and a debate with himself as to how he should spend the night. It was half-past five. He must soon eat. If he tried to go home, it would take him two hours and a half of cold walking and riding. Besides, he had orders to report at seven the next morning, and going home would necessitate his rising at an unholy and disagreeable hour. He had only something like a dollar and fifteen cents of Carrie’s money, with which he had intended to pay the two weeks’ coal bill before the present idea struck him.
“They must have some place around here,” he thought. “Where does that fellow from Newark stay?”
Finally he decided to ask. There was a young fellow standing near one of the doors in the cold, waiting a last turn. He was a mere boy in years—twenty-one about—but with a body lank and long, because of privation. A little good living would have made this youth plump and swaggering.
“How do they arrange this, if a man hasn’t any money?” inquired Hurstwood, discreetly.
The fellow turned a keen, watchful face on the inquirer.
“You mean eat?” he replied.
“Yes, and sleep. I can’t go back to New York tonight.”
“The foreman ’ll fix that if you ask him, I guess. He did me.”
“That so?”
“Yes. I just told him I didn’t have anything. Gee, I couldn’t go home. I live way over in Hoboken.”
Hurstwood only cleared his throat by way of acknowledgment.
“They’ve got a place upstairs here, I understand. I don’t know what sort of a thing it is. Purty tough, I guess. He gave me a meal ticket this noon. I know that wasn’t much.”
Hurstwood smiled grimly, and the boy laughed.
“It ain’t no fun, is it?” he inquired, wishing vainly for a cheery reply.
“Not much,” answered Hurstwood.
“I’d tackle him now,” volunteered the youth. “He may go ’way.”
Hurstwood did so.
“Isn’t there some place I can stay around here tonight?” he inquired. “If I have to go back to New York, I’m afraid I won’t—”
“There’re some cots upstairs,” interrupted the man, “if you want one of them.”
“That’ll do,” he assented.
He meant to ask for a meal ticket, but the seemingly proper moment never came, and he decided to pay himself that night.
“I’ll ask him in the morning.”
He ate in a cheap restaurant in the vicinity, and, being cold and lonely, went straight off to seek the loft in question. The company was not attempting to run cars after nightfall. It was so advised by the police.
The room seemed to have been a lounging place for night workers. There were some nine cots in the place, two or three wooden chairs, a soap box, and a small, round-bellied stove, in which a fire was blazing. Early as he was, another man was there before him. The latter was sitting beside the stove warming his hands.
Hurstwood approached and held out his own toward the fire. He was sick of the bareness and privation of all things connected with his venture, but was steeling himself to hold out. He fancied he could for a while.
“Cold, isn’t it?” said the early guest.
“Rather.”
A long silence.
“Not much of a place to sleep in, is it?” said the man.
“Better than nothing,” replied Hurstwood.
Another silence.
“I believe I’ll turn in,” said the man.
Rising, he went to one of the cots and stretched himself, removing only his shoes, and pulling the one blanket and dirty old comforter over him in a sort of bundle. The sight disgusted Hurstwood, but he did not dwell on it, choosing to gaze into the stove and think of something else. Presently he decided to retire, and picked a cot, also removing his shoes.
While he was doing so, the youth who had advised him to come here entered, and, seeing Hurstwood, tried to be genial.
“Better’n nothin’,” he observed, looking around.
Hurstwood did not take this to himself. He thought it to be an expression of individual satisfaction, and so did not answer. The youth imagined he was out of sorts, and set to whistling softly. Seeing another man asleep, he quit that and lapsed into silence.
Hurstwood made the best of a bad lot by keeping on his clothes and pushing away the dirty covering from his head, but at last he dozed in sheer weariness. The covering became more and more comfortable, its character was forgotten, and he pulled it about his neck and slept.
In the morning he was aroused out of a pleasant dream by several men stirring about in the cold, cheerless room. He had been back in Chicago in fancy, in his own comfortable home. Jessica had been arranging to go somewhere, and he had been talking with her about it. This was so clear in his mind, that he was startled now by the contrast of this room. He raised his head, and the cold, bitter reality jarred him into wakefulness.
“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.