The Rainy Day Railroad War | Page 3

be careful Parker, that they don't trample you down when they
rush for the trough."
The young man walked along up the hillside in silence. But just as they
arrived in front of the long camp the scowl of puzzled hesitation
disappeared from his forehead.
"As old Uncle Flanders used to say," he muttered, "'When a man sticks
his finger into a tight knot-hole he'd better pull it out mighty quick,
before it swells, even if he does leave some skin on the edges.'"
The men halted and grouped themselves about the door. Their eager
looks and nudgings of each other showed plainly that they expected
their champion to take up their cause against the padrone once more.

Dominick prudently halted at a little distance.
"You go look for yourself, Sir Engineer," he shouted; "on the kettle, in
the table all about and you see whatta I feed to those beasts when I try
to satisfy."
The men retorted in shrill chorus leaping about and gesticulating till
their joints snapped.
Parker resolutely pushed through the throng without trying to
understand what they were saying to him and slammed the door in the
faces of the few who attempted to crowd in with him. Those who
anxiously peered through the windows saw him examine the food set
out on the table for the noon meal, lift the covers from the stew pans on
the rusty stove and then pass into the little building behind the main
camp. The great stone ovens for the bread-baking were located there.
When at last he came out he faced them with grim visage, squared the
shoulders that had borne many a football assault and called to
Dominick.
"Go inside," he said, "and coax those two helpers of yours out of those
ovens. They couldn't understand my Italian. Tell them that they are safe.
Let the padrone through, men! Do you hear?"
The crowd sullenly parted and Dominick trotted up the lane they left,
hastening with apprehensive shruggings of his shoulders.
"Go about your work," said Parker, clutching his arm a moment as the
padrone hastened past. "I can see it isn't your fault this time."
"Now, men," he cried, turning to the throng, "few words and short so
that you may all understand. Dominick's dinner is good. Good as any in
the line boarding camps. I'm going to eat here. You come in and eat
too."
A mumbling began among them and immediately it swelled into a
jabbering chorus as the few who understood translated his words to the

others.
He leaped down off the muddy stoop and strode among them, cuffing
this one and that of those malcontents who were noisiest.
"That young man certainly understands dago nature," muttered Searles
to the other engineer. "A club, good grit and a hard fist will drive them
when a machine gun wouldn't."
"I stood up for you when you were not used right," shouted the young
man. "He has given you what I told him to give you--what you asked
for. Go in there and get it."
He knew who the ring-leaders in the mutiny were and he drove those
into the camp first. The others followed. In five minutes they were all
at their places at table munching quietly. Another man, even with equal
determination, might have not succeeded. But the greediest grumbler
among them understood that this young man had first been as valiant to
secure their rights as he was now ready to curb their rebellion.
In his own heart he was loathing this role of arbiter and mentor. His
first interference had come out of his natural sense of justice. He had
pitied this herd of men who had been so helplessly appealing against
their wrongs.
As he stood at one end of the room now and gazed at them, he realized
with a little pang of self-reproach that his latest exploit had been
prompted by as much of a desire to set himself right with the company
as to square the padrone's critical case.
Later, when they were trudging down the hill together Searles said with
a little touch of malice,
"For a philanthropist, Parker, you seem to relish rough-house about as
well as any one I ever saw, I've heard for a long time that football
makes prizefighters out of college boys--so much so that they go
looking for trouble. Is that so?"

"I wish you'd let the matter drop, Mr. Searles," said the young man.
"I'm thoroughly ashamed of the whole thing."
"Well, I was going to say," went on the elderly man, "that civil
engineers in these days get just as good wages without being
shoulder-hitters. You'll get along faster on the peace basis."
That was Parker's reflection two days later when he was in the room of
the chief engineer