The Rainy Day Railroad War | Page 2

soiled canvas apron fluttered at his waist.
Stones rained after him. The knot of men at the door scattered like
quicksilver and howling runners pursued him.
Probably fear helped him as much as agility, for he kept well ahead of
the rout, leaped a low fence at the bottom of the hill, scurried across a
little valley and came floundering up the soft soil of the railroad
embankment, scrambling toward the little group of engineer.
"It's Dominick," said Searles. "There seems to be a little more work cut
out for you in your side line of philanthropist."
"I do it whatta you say," screamed the man as his head came over the
edge of the embankment. "Nice! Good! All good to eat. But they want
mucha more--too mucha!"
He struck himself repeated blows on the breast with one fist and
pointed with the other hand at the men who came swarming up the side
of the graded road bed.
"You coma look--look to the nice br-read, meat all good, beer--plenty
much to eat, dr-rink!" the padrone gasped in appeal, as he circled about
Parker to put him between the rioters and himself.
The men who came after, screaming and cursing, jerking their arms
above their heads, rolling back their lips from their yellow teeth, were
apparently so many lunatics whose frenzy was not to be stayed. But
undisciplined natures whose excesses spring from lack of self control
are all the more ready to respond to the masterful control of others.
First of all the men recognized in Parker the champion who had won
their first rights from the padrone.

They stopped their shrill vituperation and, crowding about him, began
to bleat their explanations and appeals. But he threw out his arms,
pushed them back a safe distance from the panting Dominick and
roared them into silence, brandishing his fists, as he would have
quelled a noisy school.
When they understood that he wished them to be quiet they were silent,
all leaning forward, their eyes shining, their lips apart, their fists
clinched as tho they were holding their tongues in leash by that means,
their dark, brown faces alight with wistful, almost palpitating eagerness.
The regard they fixed on his face was baleful in its intentness.
"Looka what they do," yelled Dominick rushing to his side. He had
stripped his sleeve back from his arm. Blood was trickling from a knife
gash.
Then the tumult broke out again from the crowd. Two men leaped
forward shaking their hats in their hands and screaming assertions and
pointing quivering fingers at bullet holes in the crowns.
"Shut up!" barked the young man. The presence of the satiric and
unsympathetic old engineer nerved him to settle the dispute, if he might.
The hint from the other that he had been meddling in what was outside
his business gave him an uncomfortable sense of responsibility.
"About face and back to the camp," he shouted. "I will look at your
dinner and we shall see!"
They hesitated a moment, but he went among them, pushing them
down the bank.
He followed with the padrone behind the jabbering throng, and the two
engineers came along at his earnest request.
"Mr. Searles," said Parker after a little while, as they walked side by
side, "being an older and wiser man than I am you are probably right in
suggesting that I did wrong in interfering in this affair at the outset.
But," he half-chuckled, "I am going to lay the blame on my professor in

sociology. He set me to thinking pretty hard in college and I guess I
haven't been out from under his influence long enough to get hardened
into the selfish views of my fellowman."
There was earnestness under his smile.
"My boy," said the elder, "I am not blaming you for what you have
done for the poor devils. But I have been all for business in my life.
Business hasn't seemed to mix well with philanthropy. I haven't dared
to think of what I ought to do. I have thought only of what I had to do,
to earn a living for my family."
"Well," said Parker, "if the P. K. & R. folks decide that I've been
meddling in matters that are none of my business I have no family to
suffer for my indiscretion--but I have prospects and I know that a
discharged man is worse off than a man who has started."
The elder man patted Parker's arm.
"As it stands now--and I'm speaking as a friend, young man, and not as
a captious critic--you have set this Italian camp all askew by giving
them countenance in the first place. They haven't any regulators in their
heads, you see! When you're feeding charity to that kind of ruck you've
got to