The Rainy Day Railroad War | Page 3

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 of the P. K. & R. system, at the company's general offices.
"By the way," said the chief, after his subordinate had finished his regular report, "Mr. Jerrard wishes to see you."
Jerrard was general traffic manager and chief executive.
The young engineer went slowly down the long corridor, apprehension gnawing at his heart. He huskily muttered his name to the clerk at the grilled door and was admitted. He fairly dragged his feet along