Snow on the Headlight
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"We are fighting a losing fight," repeated the chief, "and you who fight hardest here will be first to fall," and he looked at Cowels as he spoke. "It could not be pleasant to me, even with your respectful attention, to break this news to you. I do it because it is my duty. But now, having said what I had to say, let me assure you that if a majority of you elect to continue the fight, I will lead you, and I promise that every man of you shall have his fill."
This last declaration was rather a cooler for Cowels. It took a vast amount of wind out of his sails, but he was on his feet and so had to make a speech. He was not very abusive, but managed to make it plain that there were others ready and able to lead if their leader failed to do his duty. When he had succeeded in getting his train of thought out over the switches his hearers, especially the no-surrenderers, began to enthuse. His speech was made picturesque by the introduction of short rhymes, misquotations from dead poets, and tales that had never been told in type. "If," he exclaimed dramatically, "to use a Shakesperian simile, the galled wench be jaded, let him surrender his sword to some one worthy of the steel."
The orator worked the Shakesperian pedal so hard that some of his hearers expressed a desire to know more about the distinguished poet. Finally, when he became too deep for them, a man with a strong clear voice shouted a single word—the name of a little animal whose departure from a sinking ship makes sailors seek the shore—and Cowels closed like a snuff-box.
Now the casual observer would say of the great orator: he has money; his family is not in want. But the statement would have been incorrect.
The Cowelses, like hundreds of other families, were without money, without credit, and would shortly be without food. The last money they had received from the Brotherhood had gone to pay the interest on the money due the Benevolent Building Association, for fuel, and to pay the milkman who was bringing milk for the baby. It would be forty or fifty days before another assessment could be made and the money collected. The outlook was gloomy. Mr. Hawkins had called again and offered ten dollars a month for the little spare room on the second floor, but Cowels would not consent.
But at the very moment when he was making this speech his wife was returning empty-handed from the bakery. Bennie had been watching, waiting at the window for her, and when she saw him staring at her, saw the tears come into his innocent eyes, she took him in her arms and wept as she had not wept before. They had breakfasted on bread and water. It was now past noon and they were all hungry. She gave Bennie some of the baby's milk, and then sat down to think. The door-bell rung. "I was just passing by," said Mr. Hawkins, "and thought I'd stop and see if there was any show to get that room. I work for the plumber in the next block, so you see it would be handy for me."
"Would you pay in advance?" asked Mrs. Cowels.
"I shouldn't mind," said the plumber, "if it would be of any advantage to you."
"Then you can have the room."
"Very well," said the man, apparently delighted with his bargain, and he gave her a crisp ten-dollar note. He also gave Bennie a big, red apple, and looked surprised when the boy began to bite great chunks out of it.
That evening when Cowels came home he found the house filled with the fumes of boiled beef, and it put him in a good humor at once. He was hungry, having had nothing all day but a glass of beer and a free lunch.
"They's a man up-stairs," said Bennie, shoving his empty plate up for another load of boiled beef. Mrs. Cowels smiled a faint smile, and her husband asked:
"Who is this fellow?"
"He's a plumber," was the reply, "and he seems like a very nice man."
"Did he pay a month in advance?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't like the idea of having strangers in the house," said Cowels, "and I wish you had not taken him in."
"I dislike it too, George," said Mrs. Cowels, "but the baker had refused me a loaf of bread, the children were hungry and you might as well know now that I can never see my babies suffer for want of food, and you need not be surprised at anything I may do to supply their wants."
Cowels had never seen his wife display so much spirit and it surprised him. "It's all very well," she went on, "to prate about honor and loyalty to the Brotherhood, but an obligation that entails the suffering of innocent women and children is not an honorable obligation and ought not to exist. A man's first duty is to his family. My advice to you would be to miss a few meetings and go and try to find something to do. Think how we have denied ourselves in order to have a place of our own, and now it's all to be taken from us, and all because of this senseless and profitless strike."
"By George, she's a cracker-jack!" said Hawkins, who had been listening down the stove-pipe.
Cowels made no reply to his wife, but he was thinking. In fact, he had been thinking all the way home. He had been interrupted twice that day while addressing the meeting. One fellow had asked who the devil Shakespeare was, and if he had ever done anything for the Union. Another man had said "rats," and the orator was sore.
Now, when he had thought it all over, he surprised his wife as much as she had surprised him. "They're all a lot of unliterate ingrates," said Cowels, "and for two cents I'd shake the whole show and go to work. If they turn me down at the convention, and this strike is not settled, I'll take an engine."
Mr. Hawkins gave a low whistle.
"No, you must never do that, George, after all you've said against such things; it would not do."
"Then they must not drive me to it," said Cowels. "I've tried to show them the way to success, even to lead them, and they have the nerve to guy me. I'll fool 'em yet if they trifle with me."
"That's what I thought all along," mused Hawkins. "It was not the Brotherhood that Mr. Cowels was working so hard for, but Mr. Cowels. Well, he will be just as eager to succeed in another direction—he's ambitious."
CHAPTER SEVENTH
The great strike, like a receding sea, revealed heaps of queer wreckage. Men who had once been respected by their fellows, but who had drifted down the river of vice now came to claim the attention of the strikers or the company. Most conspicuous among them was drunken Bill Greene. Three months ago he would have been kicked out of a company section house or passed by a Brotherhood man without a nod. Then he was "Old Bill;" now they called him Billy.
In his palmy days he had wooed, and won the heart of Maggie Crogan, a pretty waitress in the railway eating-house at Zero Junction. Maggie was barely eighteen then, a strawberry blonde with a sunny smile and a perpetual blush. In less than a year he had broken her heart, wrecked her life and sent her adrift in the night. His only excuse was that he was madly in love with Nora Kelly, but Nora, having heard the story of Maggie's miserable life, turned her back on Greene and married George Cowels, then a young apprentice in the shops. Inasmuch as it was about the only commendable thing he ever did, it should be put to Greene's credit that he did really love Nora Kelly; but, being a coward with an inherited thirst, he took to drink the day she turned him down; and now, after a few wasted years he and Maggie—old red-headed Mag they called her—had drifted together, pooled their sorrows and often tried to drown them in the same can of beer. She worked, when she worked at all, at cleaning coaches. He borrowed her salary and bought drink with it. Once he proposed marriage, and ended by beating her because she laughed at him.
Before the strike he had been forced to keep sober four days out of a week. Now he was comfortably tanked at all times. He had been a machinist and round-house foreman, and the company saw in him a fair "emergency" engineer, and was constantly watching for an opportunity to try him on one of the fast express trains.
At last he was called to take out a passenger run. The round-house foreman had gone personally to fetch "Billy" from the bar-room near the Grand Pacific where he was waiting for a Brotherhood man to drop in and buy him a drink. When told that he was wanted to take out the Pacific express, the bum straightened up, hitched his suspenderless trousers and asked: "Who're you?"
"I'm the foreman; come and have a bite o' breakfast and let's be off."
"Well—folks gen'ly drink afore they eat—come on, le's have a horn. Here, bar-keep, give us a couple o' slugs."
"Got any dough?"
"Now don't git gay—I'm goin' down to take me run out—here's me foreman."
"But you must not drink," broke in the official, "when you are going out on an express train."
"What?"
"You must not drink."
"Then I don't work. Th' Brotherhood 'll pay me four dollars a day to sit right here and keep three gages an' a flutter in the stack—go on with yer damn ol' railroad—"
"Come now, Billy," pleaded the foreman, "this is an opportunity—"
"Billy! Month ago Stonaker's nigger threw me down the steps."
"Give 'm a drink," said the foreman, and the bar-keeper set out two glasses and a large red bottle. While the foreman's back was turned and the bar-man waited upon another customer, Billy did the honors. He filled both glasses and had emptied one when the foreman, having unearthed a quarter, turned and remarked to the liquor man that he did not drink. The man was in the act of removing the glass when Billy grabbed it, and with a quick crook of his elbow pitched the whiskey down his neck.
"Now will you go and eat?"
"Naw—go t' work," said Greene, hitching up his trousers.
Off they went together, but at every saloon (and there are dozens of them in Chicago), the new engineer of the Pacific express insisted upon drinking. By hard coaxing the foreman had succeeded in passing three or four of them when they were met by a couple of strikers.
"Hello Billy," said one of the men. "Where you goin'?"
"Goin' t' take me run out," said Greene, with another hitch.
"Now you fellows break away," said the foreman, for the strikers had turned and were walking with the others.
"Reckon you don't own the sidewalk, do you?" said one of the men, and the foreman was silent.
"Didn't think you'd shake us like this Billy," began the striker. "We intended to take you into the order to-day an' end up with a good big blow-out to-night. It's all right Billy. You go out on your run and when you get in come round to the Pacific an' we'll square you with the boys."
"An' we'll have a bowl together, eh?" said Billy, for the liquor was beginning to make him happy.
The foreman was white with rage, but he was powerless.
"You bet we will, Billy," said the man who had done the talking.
"Hur—what's this, boss?"
"Come along now," urged the foreman, tugging at Billy's arm.
"Never run by a tank," said Billy, setting the air and coming to a dead stall at the open door of a beer saloon. The silent striker had entered the saloon, the other paused in the door, looked back, nodded and asked: "Have something, Billy, b'fore you go?"
"Will I?" cried Billy, as he twisted from the foreman's grasp.
"Police—here—officer!" cried the foreman, and when the copper came he found Billy just swallowing his second straight.
"Here," said the foreman, excitedly, "I want you to arrest these men."
"Better get a warrant first," said one of the strikers coolly. "We simply came in here to have a drink," he explained to the officer.
"Phat's th' row hier, Tony?" asked the policeman.
"Th' ain't no row as I can see," said the bar-keeper, "these gents is 'aving a quiet drink w'en 'ees nibs there pips in an' calls fer a cop."
"This is one of our engineers," explained the foreman, "and I was on the way to the station with him when these strikers took him away."
"Begad, he's a bute," said the officer, folding his arms over his ample stomach and gazing with mirthful curiosity at the bum.
"Now, ye's fellies must not interfere with men as wants to make an honest living—let th' ingineer go t' 'is ingine," and he gave Billy a shove that sent him into the arms of the waiting foreman.
"What's it to you," shouted the angry engine-driver, "who wants to work—who said I wanted t' make a' honest livin'?—Go t' 'ell," and he struck the foreman in the face.
"Here! Here!!" cried the officer, seizing the fighter, "you'll go to work or go to jail," and Billy went away between the copper and the foreman with his wheels sliding.
After much coaxing and cursing by the foreman, who was often asked to come out in the alley and settle it, Billy was loaded into an engine cab. While the foreman was selecting a fireman from the hard-looking herd of applicants sent down from the office of the master-mechanic, the gentle warmth of the boiler-head put Billy to sleep. It was a sound, and apparently dreamless sleep, from which he did not wake the while they rolled him from the engine, loaded him into a hurry-up wagon and carried him away to the cooler.
When he had sobered up Greene went to the round-house and offered his services to the company, but the foreman would not talk to him. Finally Greene became abusive, and the foreman kicked him out of the round-house and across the turntable. From that day Greene was a striker, and a very troublesome one.
CHAPTER EIGHTH
Two weeks had passed when the Philosopher met Patsy, now in deep disgrace. Patsy had been expelled from the Brotherhood for aiding a scab. "O! it's nothing," said Patsy.
"That's right. It won't be worth much to belong to the Union when this cruel war is over."
"Only a fellow hates to get the worst of it when he really tries to tote fair."
"The best you can get is the worst of it when you are bound by oath to an organization that is engaged in a hopeless fight. The president offered yesterday to take back seventy-five per cent. of the men, and immediately they said he was running. This morning the offer is for sixty per cent., but they won't have it. Have they offered to balm you with promotion?"
"Yes."
"Varnished cars, eh?"
"Yep—finest train on the road."
"And you told them?—"
"No."
"Well, I think you did right. Shall we go and peck?"
"Have you been working?"
"No. I've been vag'd. When the police got through with me, and returned my pie-card I turned it in for a commutation ticket, and there are still a few feeds to the good on it. The commutation ticket is the proper card for a gentleman in straitened circumstances. You are not obliged to gorge yourself at early morn with a whole twenty-cent breakfast when all you really need is a cup of black coffee and a roll. Besides, when a man is not working he should not eat so much. I frequently edge in with a crowd of other gentlemen and procure a nice warm lunch at one of the beer saloons, omitting the beer. By the way, the free lunch room is a good place for the study of human nature. There you will see the poor working man fish up his last five cents to pay for a beer in order to get a hot lunch, and if you look closely, spot a two-by-four-shopkeeper, for instance, as he enters the front door, and keep your eye on him until he goes out again, you will observe that he hasn't lost a cent. A little dark man who runs a three-ball in La Salle Street makes a business of this, and of loaning money at fifty per cent. and seems to be doing quite well."
When they had reached a "Kohlsaat" the two men sat down, or up, and when they had finished Patsy paid for the meal.
"If you see a man who has wood to saw or a piano to tune or anything that isn't scabbin' I wish you'd give me a character and get me the job," said the Philosopher when they had reached the sidewalk.
"You follow my smoke," said Patsy, after a moment's meditation, and he strolled down the crowded street, turning and twisting through the multitude like a man trying to lose a dog, but he couldn't lose the Philosopher. Presently he stepped in front of a big building, waited for his companion, and they went in together.
"Mr. Stonaker," said Patsy when he had been admitted to the general manager's private office, "I have a favor to ask. I want you to give a friend of mine a job. He's a switchman, and a good trainman, but he will not take the place of a striker."
"Can you vouch for his honesty, Patsy?" asked the official.
"I think I can."
"Very well, we want a reliable watchman here in the building; bring your friend in."
When the Philosopher had been informed as to his new duties, and learned that he was to have charge of the entire building, he asked if Patsy had given his history.
"I have vouched for you," said Patsy, a little embarrassed.
The general manager pressed a button and when the stenographer came in instructed him to take the man's personal record, in accordance with a well-known rule. This information is intended chiefly as a guide to the management in notifying the relatives or friends of an employee in case of accident or death. The manager did the questioning and when the man had given his name and declared that he had no relatives, no home, no friends—except Patsy—the official showed some surprise and asked:
"Where did you work last?"
"In the workhouse."
"When?" queried the general manager, casting a quick glance at Patsy, who was growing nervous.
"'Bout a year ago now."
"At what particular place have you lived or lodged since that time?"
"In jail."
"What were you in jail for?"
"Stealing a meal-ticket, this coat and cap from Patsy."
"I gave the things to him, sir," said Patsy, "and he was discharged."
"Where have you been living since you left the workhouse?"
"In the streets and in the fields."
"Do you drink?"
"No, sir."
"Do you mean to tell me that an experienced yardman, strong and intelligent as you appear to be, can sink so low without being a drunkard?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you have been foreman in the Buffalo yards? What else have you been?"
"A Union man, tramp, bum, vag, thief, and a scab."
"Huh!" said the general manager, pushing out his lips, "is this your notion of a reliable man, Patsy?"
"Yes, sir, I still vouch for him."
The general manager looked puzzled. "But you could hardly expect me to employ, in a responsible position, a self-confessed criminal?"
"And yet," said the Philosopher, "if I had lied to you I might have gained a good place, but having told the truth I suppose I must go."
The general manager, who had left his seat, began to pace the floor.
"It may be possible for an honest man to be a tramp—even a vag, but why did you steal?"
"For the same reason that I took the place of a striker the other day—because I was hungry," said the Philosopher looking the general manager full in the face.
"But what brought you to this condition? that's what I want to know," said the official earnestly. "And if you can explain that, you can have the place, provided you really want to reform."
"I'm not so anxious to reform," said the Philosopher. "What I want is a show to earn an honest living, and let the balance of the world reform. But if you want to know what brought me to my present condition I can tell you—this is the instrument." And the man lifted from the manager's desk a slip of paper, full of names, across the top of which was printed "Black List."
"It's the blight of the black-list that is upon me, sir, and it gives me pleasure to be able to present to you a sample of the class of citizens you and your associates are turning out," said the Philosopher with much feeling, and he turned to go.
"Stay," said Patsy. "Mr. Stonaker, you told me yesterday that if I ever needed your assistance in any way to make my wants known."
"And do you still vouch for this man?"
"I do."
"Very well, then—he can have the place!"
CHAPTER NINTH
Mr. Hawkins had been in his new lodgings nearly a week and had frequently discussed the strike with the great labor leader, when he made bold one evening to state that he had no use for the Brotherhood and that he had it from inside sources that a number of the old engineers were going to return to work, and that the strike would soon be a thing of the past, as would the comfortable jobs that the strikers had left.
Cowels, of course, was indignant, but he was interested. Mr. Hawkins had expected as much.
"I'm going out firing myself," he went on, "and I'm promised promotion as soon as I can start and stop. If I had your experience and your ability, generally, I could get the best run on the road with a cinch on a job as M. M. at the first opening. A good man who goes to the company's rescue now won't want for anything. If he's hard up he can get all the money he needs—that is a few hundred at least—advanced to him."
Cowels listened attentively.
Mr. Hawkins lighted a fresh ten-cent cigar and gave one to his landlord.
"Of course, it's different with you," resumed the lodger, "you own your home and have saved your money, perhaps, but a whole lot of the strikers are being pinched and they're going to weaken. They'll be cursed a little bit by the Brotherhood, but the public is dead against the strikers—read the Chicago papers to-day."
"But the papers are owned body and soul by the Burlington," said Cowels.
"Well, what do you fellows own? That only shows which is the winning side. You take my advice and let go while you've got plenty."
"Plenty?" echoed Cowels. "Do you suppose I'd take a stranger into my home—do you think for a minute that I would sit here and let you talk to me as you have done if I could help myself? Plenty! I'm a beggar."
Hawkins knew that, but he expressed surprise. When they had smoked in silence for a while the plumber handed an unsealed letter to his landlord and watched his face closely as he read it.
The letter was from one of the Burlington officials and it stated plainly that the bearer was empowered to make terms with the gentleman addressed looking to his return to the service of the company.
Mr. Cowels was very indignant, at first, but finally consented to discuss the matter. Mr. Hawkins was very cool, explaining that it made no difference with him one way or the other. The official happened to be a personal friend of his and had trusted him with this commission. "If you ask my advice," said the plumber, "I should say take whatever they offer and go to work. No man can hold out against such odds for any great length of time; sooner or later you will be as hard up as the rest, your wife will be in need of the actual necessaries of life, your children will be crying for food, and how can you answer them if you let this opportunity pass? To-morrow, I am told, is to be the last day of grace, so you might better heel yourself and let the Brotherhood walk the floor for a while. The probabilities are that the strike will simply be declared off, the old employees to be taken back only as their services are required, and as new men. Every day that passes adds to the strength of the company. Labor organizations, like bands of Indians, are ever at each other's throats. When the Knights of Labor struck on the Reading those haughty aristocrats of the working world, the Engineers' Brotherhood, took their places, and now the Knights of Labor engineers are coming here in carload lots to fill the cabs of the Burlington. If the engineers were offered their old places back to-day they would bolt for the round-house nor cast one longing, lingering look for their old friends. Finally, when the strike is settled it will be by the engineers. If it is to be declared off, the unconditional surrender of all the forces will be made by them. If the terms of settlement suit them, your followers will take their medicine and look pleasant. Bring the matter nearer home,—to your own experience. You have given your time, neglected your family, and worked unceasingly for the advancement of the cause. Your eloquence, your genius and your influence have held the men in line when they have wavered and would have broken, and what has your own order done for you, and what will it do at the coming convention? They have guyed you in public and they will throw you down hard when the time comes. It's nothing to me, only I hate to see a good man turned down. I dislike to see real talent and personal worth wasted upon a lot of loud-mouthed, uneducated coyotes who don't know who Shakespeare is. You're too big a man, Cowels, that's the trouble; you're out of your sphere. When you are master-mechanic, with your hands full of promotions, they will look up to you, and it is all within easy reach. If you will report for duty to-morrow morning you can go out on Blackwings to-morrow night, with the Denver Limited, the finest train in the West, behind you. The best run on the road will be the meanest position you will ever be asked to fill. But I must say no more, for I don't want to persuade you to take a step which you might regret in after years. I only ask you to think it over to-night and choose between what you call loyalty to the Brotherhood, and your plain duty to your family—Good-night."