Sister Carrie: A Novel
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 a steady gait,” the foreman had said. “Don’t stop for any one 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.”
“Who’s on there?” asked the second officer, referring, of course, to
its complement of policemen.
“Schaeffer and Ryan.”
There was another silence, in which the car ran smoothly along. There
were not so many houses along this part of the way. Hurstwood did not
see many people either. The situation was not wholly disagreeable to
him. If he were not so cold, he thought he would do well enough.
He was brought out of this feeling by the sudden appearance of a curve
ahead, which he had not expected. He shut off the current and did an
energetic turn at the brake, but not in time to avoid an unnaturally
quick turn. It shook him up and made him feel like making some
apologetic remarks, but he refrained.
“You want to look out for them things,” said the officer on the left,
condescendingly.
“That’s right,” agreed Hurstwood, shamefacedly.
“There’s lots of them on this line,” said the officer on the right.
Around the corner a more populated way appeared. One or two pedestrians
were in view ahead. A boy coming out of a gate with a tin milk bucket
gave Hurstwood his first objectionable greeting.
“Scab!” he yelled. “Scab!”
Hurstwood heard it, but tried to make no comment, even to himself. He
knew he would get that, and much more of the same sort, probably.
At a corner farther up a man stood by the track and signalled the car
to stop.
“Never mind him,” said one of the officers. “He’s up to some game.”
Hurstwood obeyed. At the corner he saw the wisdom of it. No sooner did
the man perceive the intention to ignore him, than he shook his fist.
“Ah, you bloody coward!” he yelled.
Some half dozen men, standing on the corner, flung taunts and jeers
after the speeding car.
Hurstwood winced the least bit. The real thing was slightly worse than
the thoughts of it had been.
Now came in sight, three or four blocks farther on, a heap of something
on the track.
“They’ve been at work, here, all right,” said one of the policemen.
“We’ll have an argument, maybe,” said the other.
Hurstwood ran the car close and stopped. He had not done so wholly,
however, before a crowd gathered about. It was composed of ex-motormen
and conductors in part, with a sprinkling of friends and sympathisers.
“Come off the car, pardner,” said one of the men in a voice meant to be
conciliatory. “You don’t want to take the bread out of another man’s
mouth, do you?”
Hurstwood held to his brake and lever, pale and very uncertain what to
do.
“Stand back,” yelled one of the officers, leaning over the platform
railing. “Clear out of this, now. Give the man a chance to do his
work.”
“Listen, pardner,” said the leader, ignoring the policeman and
addressing Hurstwood. “We’re all working men, like yourself. If you
were a regular motorman, and had been treated as we’ve been, you
wouldn’t want any one to come in and take your place, would you? You
wouldn’t want any one to do you out of your chance to get your rights,
would you?”
“Shut her off! shut her off!” urged the other of the policemen,
roughly. “Get out of this, now,” and he jumped the railing and landed
before the crowd and began shoving. Instantly the other officer was
down beside him.
“Stand back, now,” they yelled. “Get out of this. What the hell do you
mean? Out, now.”
It was like a small swarm of bees.
“Don’t shove me,” said one of the strikers, determinedly. “I’m not
doing anything.”
“Get out of this!” cried the officer, swinging his club. “I’ll give ye
a bat on the sconce. Back, now.”
“What the hell!” cried another of the strikers, pushing the other way,
adding at the same time some lusty oaths.
Crack came an officer’s club on his forehead. He blinked his eyes
blindly a few times, wabbled on his legs, threw up his hands, and
staggered back. In return, a swift fist landed on the officer’s neck.
Infuriated by this, the latter plunged left and right, laying about
madly with his club. He was ably assisted by his brother of the blue,
who poured ponderous oaths upon the troubled waters. No severe damage
was done, owing to the agility of the strikers in keeping out of reach.
They stood about the sidewalk now and jeered.
“Where is the conductor?” yelled one of the officers, getting his eye
on that individual, who had come nervously forward to stand by
Hurstwood. The latter had stood gazing upon the scene with more
astonishment than fear.
“Why don’t you come down here and get these stones off the track?”
inquired the officer. “What you standing there for? Do you want to stay
here all day? Get down.”
Hurstwood breathed heavily in excitement and jumped down with the
nervous conductor as if he had been called.
“Hurry up, now,” said the other policeman.
Cold as it was, these officers were hot and mad. Hurstwood worked with
the conductor, lifting stone after stone and warming himself by the
work.
“Ah, you scab, you!” yelled the crowd. “You coward! Steal a man’s job,