The Essential Writings of Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser
inquirer.
“You mean eat?” he replied.
“Yes, and sleep. I can’t go back to New York to-night.”
“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 to-night?” 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.
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