Theodore Dreiser - THEODORE DREISER - Novels, Short Stories, Essays & Biographical Works

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.