John Marvel, Assistant Part 9

"No, Madame," I said grimly, thinking, "Well, I must have a brakeman's air to-day."

"Oh! Will you ring that bell?"

"Certainly." I rang and, pa.s.sing on, was met by the porter coming to answer the bell.

"This is a private car," he said shortly, blocking my way.

"I know it." I looked him in the eye.

"You can't go th'oo this car."

"Oh! yes, I can. I have got to go through it. Move out of my way."

My tone and manner impressed him sufficiently, and he surlily moved aside, muttering to himself; and I pa.s.sed on, just conscious that the stout lady had posted herself at the opening of the pa.s.sage-way behind, and had beckoned to the porter, who sprang toward her with alacrity. As I pa.s.sed through the open saloon, the young lady was engaged in supplying my little charges with large plates of bread and b.u.t.ter, while a grinning cook, in his white ap.r.o.n and cap, was bringing a yet further supply. She turned and smiled to me as I pa.s.sed.

"Won't you have something, too? It is a very poor apology for a breakfast; for we had finished and cleared away, but if----"

"These little tots don't appear to think so," I said, my ill-humor evaporating under her smile.

"Well, won't you have something?"

I declined this in my best Chesterfieldian manner, alleging that I must go ahead and tell their mother what a good fairy they had found.

"Oh! it is nothing. To think of these poor little things being kept without breakfast all morning. My father will be very much disturbed to find that this car has caused the delay."

"Not if he is like his sister," I thought to myself, but I only bowed, and said, "I will come back in a little while, and get them for their mother." To which she replied that she would send them to their mother by the porter, thereby cutting off a chance which I had promised myself of possibly getting another glimpse of her. But the sight of myself at this moment in a mirror hastened my departure. A large smudge of black was across my face, evidently from a hand of one of the children. The prints of the fingers in black were plain on my cheek, while a broad smear ran across my nose. No wonder they thought me a brakeman.

As I reached the front door of the car I found it locked and I could not open it. At the same moment the porter appeared behind me.

"Ef you'll git out of my way, I'll open it," he said in a tone so insolent that my gorge rose.

I stood aside and, still muttering to himself, he unlocked the door, and with his hand on the k.n.o.b, stood aside for me to pa.s.s. As I pa.s.sed I turned to look for Dixie, who was following me, and I caught the words, "I'se tired o' po' white folks and dogs in my car." At the same moment Dixie pa.s.sed and he gave him a kick, which drew a little yelp of surprise from him. My blood suddenly boiled. The door was still open and, quick as light, I caught the porter by the collar and with a yank jerked him out on the platform. The door slammed to as he came, and I had him to myself. With my hand still on his throat I gave him a shake that made his teeth rattle.

"You black scoundrel," I said furiously. "I have a good mind to fling you off this train, and break your neck." The negro's face was ashy.

"Indeed, boss," he said, "I didn' mean no harm in the world by what I said. If I had known you was one of dese gentlemens, I'd 'a' never said a word; nor suh, that I wouldn'. An' I wouldn' 'a' tetched your dorg for nuthin', no suh."

"Well, I'll teach you something," I said. "I'll teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head, at least."

"Yes, suh, yes, suh," he said, "I always is, I always tries to be, I just didn't know; nor suh, I axes your pardon. I didn' mean nuthin' in the worl'."

"Now go in there and learn to behave yourself in the future," I said.

"Yes, suh, I will." And, with another bow, and a side look at Dix, who was now growling ominously, he let himself in at the door and I pa.s.sed on forward.

IX

I PITCH MY TENT

When, a little later, my small charges were brought back to their mother (to whom I had explained their absence), it was by the young lady herself, and I never saw a more grateful picture than that young girl, in her fresh travelling costume, convoying those children down the car aisle. Her greeting of the tired mother was a refreshment, and a minute after she had gone the mother offered me a part of a substantial supply of sandwiches which she had brought her, so that I found myself not quite so much in sympathy as before with the criticism of the road that was now being freely bandied about the car, and which appeared to have made all the pa.s.sengers as one.

Not long after this we dropped the private car at a station and proceeded on without it. We had, however, not gone far when we stopped and were run into a siding and again waited, and after a time, a train whizzed by us--a special train with but two private cars on it. It was going at a clipping rate, but it did not run so fast that we did not recognize the private car we had dropped some way back, and it soon became known throughout our train that we had been side-tracked to let a special with private cars have the right-of-way. I confess that my gorge rose at this, and when the man in front of me declared that we were the most patient people on earth to give public franchises, pay for travelling on trains run by virtue of them, and then stand being shoved aside and inconvenienced out of all reason to allow a lot of bloated dead-heads to go ahead of us in their special trains, I chimed in with him heartily.

"Well, the road belongs to them, don't it?" inquired a thin man with a wheezing voice. "That was Canter's private train, and he took on the Argand car at that station back there."

"'They own the road!' How do they own it? How did they get it?" demanded the first speaker warmly.

"Why, you know how they got it. They got it in the panic--that is, they got the controlling interest."

"Yes, and then ran the stock down till they had got control and then reorganized and cut out those that wouldn't sell--or couldn't--the widows and orphans and infants--that's the way they got it."

"Well, the court upheld it?"

"Yes, under the law they had had made themselves to suit themselves. You know how 'twas! You were there when 'twas done and saw how they flung their money around--or rather the Argand money--for I don't believe Canter and his set own the stock at all. I'll bet a thousand dollars that every share is up as collateral in old Argand's bank."

"Oh! Well, it's all the same thing. They stand in together. They run the bank--the bank lends money; they buy the stock and put it up for the loan, and then run the road."

"And us," chipped in the other; for they had now gotten into a high good-humor with each other--"they get our franchises and our money, and then side-track us without breakfast while they go sailing by--in cars that they call theirs, but which we pay for. I do think we are the biggest fools!"

"That's Socialistic!" said his friend again. "You've been reading that fellow's articles in the Sunday papers. What's his name?"

"No, I've been thinking. I don't care what it is, it's the truth, and I'm tired of it."

"They say he's a Jew," interrupted the former.

"I don't care what he is, it's the truth," a.s.serted the other doggedly.

"Well, I rather think it is," agreed his friend; "but then, I'm hungry, and there isn't even any water on the car."

"And they guzzle champagne!" sneered the other, "which we pay for," he added.

"You're a stockholder?"

"Yes, in a small way; but I might as well own stock in a paving-company to h.e.l.l. My father helped to build this road and used to take great pride in it. They used to give the stockholders then a free ride once a year to the annual meeting, and it made them all feel as if they owned the road."

"But now they give free pa.s.ses not to the stockholders, but to the legislators and the judges."

"It pays better," said his friend, and they both laughed. It appeared, indeed, rather a good joke to them--or, at least, there was nothing which they could do about it, so they might as well take it good-humoredly.

By this time I had learned that my neighbor with the five children was the wife of a man named McNeil, who was a journeyman machinist, but had been thrown out of work by a strike in another city, and, after waiting around for months, had gone North to find employment, and having at last gotten it, had now sent for them to come on. She had not seen him for months, and she was looking forward to it now with a happiness that was quite touching. Even the discomforts of the night could not dull her joy in the antic.i.p.ation of meeting her husband--and she constantly enheartened her droopy little brood with the prospect of soon seeing their "dear Daddy."

Finally after midday we arrived.

I shall never forget the sight and smells of that station, if I live to be a thousand years old. It seemed to me a sort of temporary resting-place for lost souls--and I was one of them. Had Dante known it, he must have pictured it, with its reek and grime. The procession of tired, bedraggled travellers that streamed in through the black gateways to meet worn watchers with wan smiles on their tired faces, or to look anxiously and in vain for friends who had not come, or else who had come and gone. And outside the roar of the grimy current that swept through the black street.