Snow on the Headlight. Cy Warman
Q is big enough to be good to her old employees, even if her stock is a little down. What do you say—do I get the pass—does mother see her railroad boy to-night?"
The door that was marked "Private" opened slowly and the general manager came in. The chief clerk shuffled the letters while Patsy made a desperate effort to look serious and respectful.
"What brings you here, Patsy?" asked the head of the road, for he was by no means displeased at seeing one of the old employees in the office who was not a member of a grievance committee.
"I want to get a pass, if you please sir, to run down to the Bluffs and see the folks."
"Patsy wants a request for a pass over the North Western," said the clerk, taking courage now that the subject was opened.
"Ah! is that all? now suppose I ask you to take a passenger train out to-night, will you do it?" asked the general manager, turning to Patsy.
"What's the matter with the regular conductor?"
"Joined the strikers," was the reply.
"But the papers say the strike is over."
"It is! but a lot of you fellows don't seem to know it."
"I'm glad of it, and now I must hurry back, so as to be ready to take my run out. Do I get the pass?"
"And you expect, when the strike is off, to go back to your old place?"
"Sure," said Patsy, "I don't intend to quit you as long as you have a brake for me to turn."
"There's a lot of brakes that nobody is turning right now; come, you young rascal, will you go to work?"
"Now," said the young rascal, "you know what it says at the bottom of the time-card: 'In case of doubt take the safe side.' I'm waiting to see which side is safe."
With that the manager went back to his desk and closed the door behind him, and the secretary went on with his work.
Patsy stood and looked out at the window for a while, and then said half to himself, but so the clerk could hear him: "Poor little mother, how she will miss me to-night."
The secretary said nothing, but leaving his desk entered the office of his chief, and when they had talked over the business of the hour and read the story prepared by the passenger department for the press that day, he asked what should be done for Patsy.
"Oh! give him the letter, I suppose, but he's the only employee on the road I would do so much for."
"And he's the only one with nerve enough to ask it," said the secretary.
"Yes, he is a bit nervy, John; but it isn't an offensive sort of nerve; and then he's so happy. Why, he really rests me when he comes in. He's smart, too, too smart to be a striker and he may be of some use to us yet."
In a little while Patsy went singing himself out just as he had sung himself in. The general manager sat watching the happy youth from the outer door of his room until the song and the sound of footsteps died away in the wide hall. Turning to his desk he sighed and said: "Ah, well! the English poet was right when he wrote:
'The world that knows itself too sad
Is proud to keep some faces glad!'"
CHAPTER THIRD
Patsy, the postman and the newsgatherers, who left the headquarters of the company and wandered over to the Grand Pacific where the strikers held forth, must have been struck forcibly by the vast difference in the appearance of the two places upon this particular morning. At the first place all was neatness and order in spite of the deplorable condition of affairs outside; and a single man handled the almost endless flood of letters and telegrams that fell like autumn leaves upon his desk.
In fact, the office boy and the colored porter were the only people about the company's headquarters who showed any real anxiety.
At the headquarters of the strikers all was confusion and disorder. The outer offices and ante-rooms were filled with a vast crowd of men who idled about, smoked, swapped stories and swore; and some of them, I'm sorry to say, chewed tobacco and flooded the floor with inexcusable filth. Even Mr. Hogan's private office was not private. Leading strikers and men prominent in the Brotherhood loafed there as the others loafed outside. Not more than half the men about the building had ever been employed by the Burlington company. There were scores of "tramp" switchmen and travelling trainmen, made reckless by idleness, as men are sometimes made desperate by hunger, with an alarmingly large representation of real criminals, who follow strikes as "grafters" follow a circus. If a striker lost his temper and talked as he ought not to talk, this latter specimen was always ready to encourage him; for whatever promised trouble for others promised profitable pastime for the criminal. If the real workers could keep clear of this class, as well as the idle, loafing element in their own profession, ninety per cent. of the alleged labor outrages would never be committed. Very likely there were a number of detectives moving among the strikers, and they, too, have been known to counsel violence in order to perpetuate a struggle between labor and capital that they themselves might not be idle. It is only in the best organized agencies that detectives can be relied upon to take no undue advantage of those whom they are sent out to detect. Over in another part of the same building, where the firemen held forth, the scene was about the same, save that the men there were younger in years and louder in their abuse of the railway officials; and generally less discreet.
"Always together in sunshine and rain,
Facing the weather atop o' the train,"
sang Patsy as he strolled into the private office of Chairman Borphy, who was in charge of the firemen's end of the strike. Borphy greeted Patsy pleasantly as did the others in the office, with one exception. Over in a window sat fireman George Cowels, a great striker, and in the eyes of some of his enthusiastic friends a great man, and in his own estimation a great orator. Removing his cigar in order to give the proper effect to the expression he was about to assume, Cowels gave Patsy a hard searching look as he asked:
"Does that song of yours mean yourself and the general manager?"
"An' if it does," said Patsy, stepping close in front of his questioner: "What's it to you?"
"Just this," said Cowels: "You have been watched. You went to the general office this morning the moment it was open, and took a message for Mr. Stonaker to the general manager of the C. & N. W. Does that fit your case? Perhaps you will favor us with the result of your mission! Come, will the North Western help your friend out?"
At the conclusion of this eloquent burst of indignation Cowels smiled triumphantly, for, as Patsy paled into silence, the big fellow thought he had his man scared; but when Patsy took another step forward, forcing his opponent back to the window, and asked between his closed teeth, if Cowels meant to accuse him of betraying the strikers to the company every one in the room realized that something was about to happen. Perhaps Cowels thought so, too, but he was in a hole and could only answer Yes. The next instant Patsy drove his fist up under the orator's chin, and the back of that gentleman's head made a hole in the window. The bystanders, knowing the temper of both the men, sprang between them before any further damage could be done.
If Patsy had the best of the fight he had the worst of the argument. He had been openly accused of being a "spotter" and had made no explanation of his conduct; so when it was reported that he had gone to Council Bluffs over the North Western, the more ignorant and noisy of his associates were easily persuaded that such a favor to a striker could only be secured upon the request of Mr. Stonaker and that request would be given only for services rendered; and Patsy Daly was from that day doomed to walk under a cloud.
The long struggle was beginning to tell on the strikers. It was evidenced in the shiny suits worn by the men who met daily at the hall in town to discuss the strike. It was seen again in the worn wraps of many a mother and in the torn shoes of school-children. These were only the outer signs, the real suffering was carefully covered up—hidden in the homes where home comfort had become a reminiscence. The battle at first had been with the strong but now the brunt of it was being shifted to the shoulders of the women, the wives and mothers of the strikers. These patient martyrs, whose business it had been to look after the