The great strike, like a receding sea, revealed heaps of queer wreckage.
Men who had once been respected by their fellows, but who had drifted
down the river of vice now came to claim the attention of the strikers
or the company. Most conspicuous among them was drunken Bill Greene.
Three months ago he would have been kicked out of a company section
house or passed by a Brotherhood man without a nod. Then he was "Old
Bill;" now they called him Billy.
In his palmy days he had wooed, and won the heart of Maggie Crogan, a
pretty waitress in the railway eating-house at Zero Junction. Maggie was
barely eighteen then, a strawberry blonde with a sunny smile and a
perpetual blush. In less than a year he had broken her heart, wrecked
her life and sent her adrift in the night. His only excuse was that he
was madly in love with Nora Kelly, but Nora, having heard the story of
Maggie's miserable life, turned her back on Greene and married George
Cowels, then a young apprentice in the shops. Inasmuch as it was about
the only commendable thing he ever did, it should be put to Greene's
credit that he did really love Nora Kelly; but, being a coward with an
inherited thirst, he took to drink the day she turned him down; and now,
after a few wasted years he and Maggie--old red-headed Mag they called
her--had drifted together, pooled their sorrows and often tried to drown
them in the same can of beer. She worked, when she worked at all, at
cleaning coaches. He borrowed her salary and bought drink with it. Once
he proposed marriage, and ended by beating her because she laughed at
him.
Before the strike he had been forced to keep sober four days out of a
week. Now he was comfortably tanked at all times. He had been a
machinist and round-house foreman, and the company saw in him a fair
"emergency" engineer, and was constantly watching for an opportunity to
try him on one of the fast express trains.
At last he was called to take out a passenger run. The round-house
foreman had gone personally to fetch "Billy" from the bar-room near the
Grand Pacific where he was waiting for a Brotherhood man to drop in and
buy him a drink. When told that he was wanted to take out the Pacific
express, the bum straightened up, hitched his suspenderless trousers and
asked: "Who're you?"
"I'm the foreman; come and have a bite o' breakfast and let's be off."
"Well--folks gen'ly drink afore they eat--come on, le's have a horn.
Here, bar-keep, give us a couple o' slugs."
"Got any dough?"
"Now don't git gay--I'm goin' down to take me run out--here's me
foreman."
"But you must not drink," broke in the official, "when you are going out
on an express train."
"What?"
"You must not drink."
"Then I don't work. Th' Brotherhood 'll pay me four dollars a day to sit
right here and keep three gages an' a flutter in the stack--go on with
yer damn ol' railroad--"
"Come now, Billy," pleaded the foreman, "this is an opportunity--"
"Billy! Month ago Stonaker's nigger threw me down the steps."
"Give 'm a drink," said the foreman, and the bar-keeper set out two
glasses and a large red bottle. While the foreman's back was turned and
the bar-man waited upon another customer, Billy did the honors. He
filled both glasses and had emptied one when the foreman, having
unearthed a quarter, turned and remarked to the liquor man that he did
not drink. The man was in the act of removing the glass when Billy
grabbed it, and with a quick crook of his elbow pitched the whiskey down
his neck.
"Now will you go and eat?"
"Naw--go t' work," said Greene, hitching up his trousers.
Off they went together, but at every saloon (and there are dozens of
them in Chicago), the new engineer of the Pacific express insisted upon
drinking. By hard coaxing the foreman had succeeded in passing three or
four of them when they were met by a couple of strikers.
"Hello Billy," said one of the men. "Where you goin'?"
"Goin' t' take me run out," said Greene, with another hitch.
"Now you fellows break away," said the foreman, for the strikers had
turned and were walking with the others.
"Reckon you don't own the sidewalk, do you?" said one of the men, and
the foreman was silent.
"Didn't think you'd shake us like this Billy," began the striker. "We
intended to take you into the order to-day an' end up with a good big
blow-out to-night. It's all right Billy. You go out on your run and
when you get in come round to the Pacific an' we'll square you with the
boys."
"An' we'll have a bowl together, eh?" said Billy, for the liquor was
beginning to make him happy.
The foreman was white with rage, but he was powerless.
"You bet we will, Billy," said the man who had done the talking.
"Hur--what's this, boss?"
"Come along now," urged the foreman, tugging at Billy's arm.
"Never run by a tank," said Billy, setting the air and coming to a dead
stall at the open door of a beer saloon. The silent striker had entered
the saloon, the other paused in the door, looked back, nodded and asked:
"Have something, Billy, b'fore you go?"
"Will I?" cried Billy, as he twisted from the foreman's grasp.
"Police--here--officer!" cried the foreman, and when the copper came he
found Billy just swallowing his second straight.
"Here," said the foreman, excitedly, "I want you to arrest these men."
"Better get a warrant first," said one of the strikers coolly. "We
simply came in here to have a drink," he explained to the officer.
"Phat's th' row hier, Tony?" asked the policeman.
"Th' ain't no row as I can see," said the bar-keeper, "these gents is
'aving a quiet drink w'en 'ees nibs there pips in an' calls fer a cop."
"This is one of our engineers," explained the foreman, "and I was on the
way to the station with him when these strikers took him away."
"Begad, he's a bute," said the officer, folding his arms over his ample
stomach and gazing with mirthful curiosity at the bum.
"Now, ye's fellies must not interfere with men as wants to make an
honest living--let th' ingineer go t' 'is ingine," and he gave Billy a
shove that sent him into the arms of the waiting foreman.
"What's it _to_ you," shouted the angry engine-driver, "who wants to
work--who said I wanted t' make a' honest livin'?--Go t' 'ell," and he
struck the foreman in the face.
"Here! Here!!" cried the officer, seizing the fighter, "you'll go to
work or go to jail," and Billy went away between the copper and the
foreman with his wheels sliding.
After much coaxing and cursing by the foreman, who was often asked to
come out in the alley and settle it, Billy was loaded into an engine
cab. While the foreman was selecting a fireman from the hard-looking
herd of applicants sent down from the office of the master-mechanic, the
gentle warmth of the boiler-head put Billy to sleep. It was a sound, and
apparently dreamless sleep, from which he did not wake the while they
rolled him from the engine, loaded him into a hurry-up wagon and
carried him away to the cooler.
When he had sobered up Greene went to the round-house and offered his
services to the company, but the foreman would not talk to him. Finally
Greene became abusive, and the foreman kicked him out of the round-house
and across the turntable. From that day Greene was a striker, and a very
troublesome one.