The bad weather so long expected finally arrived. An afternoon of soft,
warm autumn skies, aglow with the radiance of the setting sun, and
brilliant in violet and gold, had been followed by a cold, gray morning.
Of a sudden a cloud the size of a hand had mounted clear of the horizon,
and called together its fellows. An unseen herald in the east blew a
blast, and winds and sea awoke.
By nine o'clock a gale was blowing. By ten Babcock's men were bracing
the outer sheathing of the coffer-dam, strengthening the derrick-guys,
tightening the anchor-lines, and clearing the working-platforms of sand,
cement, and other damageable property. The course-masonry, fortunately,
was above the water-line, but the coping was still unset and the rubble
backing of much of the wall unfinished. Two weeks of constant work
were necessary before that part of the structure contained in the first
section of the contract would be entirely safe for the coming winter.
Babcock doubled his gangs, and utilized every hour of low water to the
utmost, even when the men stood waist-deep. It was his only hope for
completing the first section that season. After that would come the
cold, freezing the mortar, and ending everything.
Tom Grogan performed wonders. Not only did she work her teams far into
the night, but during all this bad weather she stood throughout the day
on the unprotected dock, a man's sou'wester covering her head, a rubber
waterproof reaching to her feet. She directed every boat-load herself,
and rushed the materials to the shovelers, who stood soaking wet in the
driving rain.
Lathers avoided her; so did McGaw. Everybody else watched her in
admiration. Even the commandant, a bluff, gray-bearded naval officer,--a
hero of Hampton Roads and Memphis,--passed her on his morning inspection
with a kindly look in his face and an aside to Babcock: “Hire some more
like her. She is worth a dozen men.”
Not until the final cargo required for the completion of the wall had
been dumped on the platforms did she relax her vigilance. Then she shook
the water from her oilskins and started for home. During all these hours
of constant strain there was no outbreak of bravado, no spell of ill
humor. She made no boasts or promises. With a certain buoyant pluck
she stood by the derricks day after day, firing volleys of criticism
or encouragement, as best suited the exigencies of the moment, now she
sprang forward to catch a sagging bucket, now tended a guy to relieve a
man, or handled the teams herself when the line of carts was blocked or
stalled.
Every hour she worked increased Babcock's confidence and admiration. He
began to feel a certain pride in her, and to a certain extent to
rely upon her. Such capacity, endurance, and loyalty were new in his
experience. If she owed him anything for her delay on that first
cargo, the debt had been amply paid. Yet he saw that no such sense of
obligation had influenced her. To her this extra work had been a duty:
he was behind-hand with the wall, and anxious; she would help him out.
As to the weather, she reveled in it. The dash of the spray and the
driving rain only added to her enjoyment. The clatter of rattling
buckets and the rhythmic movement of the shovelers keeping time to her
orders made a music as dear to her as that of the steady tramp of men
and the sound of arms to a division commander.
Owing to the continued bad weather and the difficulty of shipping small
quantities of fuel, the pumping-engines ran out of coal, and a complaint
from Babcock's office brought the agent of the coal company to the
sea-wall. In times like these Babcock rarely left his work. Once let the
Old Man of the Sea, as he knew, get his finger in between the cracks of
a coffer-dam, and he would smash the whole into wreckage.
“I was on my way to see Tom Grogan,” said the agent. “I heard you were
here, so I stopped to tell you about the coal. There will be a load down
in the morning. I am Mr. Crane, of Crane & Co., coal-dealers.”
“You know Mrs. Grogan, then?” asked Babcock, after the delay in the
delivery of the coal had been explained. He had been waiting for
some such opportunity to discover more about his stevedore. He never
discussed personalities with his men.
“Well, I should say so--known her for years. Best woman on top of Staten
Island. Does she work for you?”
“Yes, and has for some years; but I must confess I never knew Grogan was
a woman until I found her on the dock a few weeks ago, handling a cargo.
She works like a machine. How long has she been a widow?”
“Well, come to think of it, I don't know that she is a widow. There's
some mystery about the old man, but I never knew what. But that don't
count; she's good enough as she is, and a hustler, too.”
Crane was something of a hustler himself--one of those busy Americans
who opens his daily life with an office-key and closes it with a letter
for the late mail. He was a restless, wiry, black-eyed little man,
never still for a moment, and perpetually in chase of another eluding
dollar,--which half the time he caught.
Then, laying his hand on Babcock's arm: “And she's square as a brick,
too. Sometimes when a chunker captain, waiting to unload, shoves a few
tons aboard a sneak-boat at night, Tom will spot him every time. They
try to fool her into indorsing their bills of lading in full, but it
don't work for a cent.”
“You call her Tom Grogan?” Babcock asked, with a certain tone in his
voice. He resented, somehow, Crane's familiarity.
“Certainly. Everybody calls her Tom Grogan. It's her husband's name.
Call her anything else, and she don't answer. She seems to glory in it,
and after you know her a while you don't want to call her anything else
yourself. It comes kind of natural--like your calling a man 'colonel' or
'judge.”
Babcock could not but admit that Crane might be right. All the names
which could apply to a woman who had been sweetheart, wife, and mother
seemed out of place when he thought of this undaunted spirit who had
defied Lathers, and with one blow of her fist sent the splinters of a
fence flying about his head.
“We've got the year's contract for coal at the fort,” continued Crane.
“The quarter-master-sergeant who inspects it--Sergeant Duffy--has a
friend named McGaw who wants to do the unloading into the government
bins. There's a low price on the coal, and there's no margin for
anybody; and if Duffy should kick about the quality of the coal,--and
you can't please these fellows if they want to be ugly,--Crane & Co.
will be in a hole, and lose money on the contract. I hate to go back on
Tom Grogan, but there's no help for it. The ten cents a ton I'd save if
she hauls the coal instead of McGaw would be eaten up in Duffy's short
weights and rejections. I sent Sergeant Duffy's letter to her, so she
can tell how the land lies, and I'm going up now to her house to see
her, on my way to the fort. I don't know what Duffy will get out of it;
perhaps he gets a few dollars out of the hauling. The coal is shipped,
by the way, and ought to be here any minute.”
“Wait; I'll go with you,” said Babcock, handing him an order for more
coal. “She hasn't sent down the tally-sheet for my last scow.” There was
not the slightest necessity, of course, for Babcock to go to Grogan's
house for this document.
As they walked on, Crane talked of everything except what was uppermost
in Babcock's mind. Babcock tried to lead the conversation back to Tom,
but Crane's thoughts were on something else.
When they reached the top of the hill, the noble harbor lay spread out
beneath them, from the purple line of the great cities to the silver
sheen of the sea inside the narrows. The clearing wind had hauled to the
northwest. The sky was heaped with soft clouds floating in the blue. At
the base of the hill nestled the buildings and wharves of the Lighthouse
Depot, with the unfinished sea-wall running out from the shore, fringed
with platforms and bristling with swinging booms--the rings of white
steam twirling from the exhaust-pipes.
On either side of the vast basin lay two grim, silent forts, crouched on
grassy slopes like great beasts with claws concealed. Near by, big lazy
steamers, sullen and dull, rested motionless at Quarantine, awaiting
inspection; while beyond, white-winged graceful yachts curved tufts
of foam from their bows. In the open, elevators rose high as church
steeples; long lines of canal-boats stretched themselves out like huge
water-snakes, with hissing tugs for heads; enormous floats groaned under
whole trains of cars; big, burly lighters drifted slowly with widespread
oil-stained sails; monster derricks towered aloft, derricks that pick
up a hundred-ton gun as easily as an ant does a grain of sand--each
floating craft made necessary by some special industry peculiar to the
port of New York, and each unlike any other craft in the harbor of any
other city of the world.
Grogan's house and stables lay just over the brow of this hill, in a
little hollow. The house was a plain, square frame dwelling, with
front and rear verandas, protected by the arching branches of a big
sycamore-tree, and surrounded by a small garden filled with flaming
dahlias and chrysanthemums. Everything about the place was scrupulously
neat and clean.
The stables--there were two--stood on the lower end of the lot. They
looked new, or were newly painted in a dark red, and appeared to have
accommodations for a number of horses. The stable-yard lay below the
house. In its open square were a pump and a horse-trough, at which two
horses were drinking. One, the Big Gray, had his collar off, showing
where the sweat had discolored the skin, the traces crossed loosely over
his back. He was drinking eagerly, and had evidently just come in from
work. About, under the sheds, were dirt-carts tilted forward on their
shafts, and dust-begrimed harnesses hanging on wooden pegs.
A strapping young fellow in a red shirt came out of the stable door
leading two other horses to the trough. Babcock looked about him in
surprise at the extent of the establishment. He had supposed that his
stevedore had a small outfit and needed all the work she could get. If,
as McGaw had said, only boys did Grogan's work, they at least did it
well.
Crane mounted the porch first and knocked. Babcock followed.
“No, Mr. Crane,” said a young girl, opening the door, “she's not at
home. I'm expecting her every minute. Mother went to work early this
morning. She'll be sorry to miss you, sir. She ought to be home now, for
she's been up 'most all night at the fort. She's just sent Carl up for
two more horses. Won't you come in and wait?”
“No; I'll keep on to the fort,” answered Crane. “I may meet her on the
road.”
“May I come in?” Babcock asked, explaining his business in a few words.
“Oh, yes, sir. Mother won't be long now. You've not forgotten me, Mr.
Babcock? I'm her daughter Jennie. I was to your office once. Gran'pop,
this is the gentleman mother works for.”
An old man rose with some difficulty from an armchair, and bowed in a
kindly, deferential way. He had been reading near the window. He was
in his shirt-sleeves, his collar open at the throat. He seemed rather
feeble. His legs shook as if he were weak from some recent illness.
About the eyes was a certain kindliness that did not escape Babcock's
quick glance; they were clear and honest, and looked straight into
his--the kind he liked. The old man's most striking features were
his silver-white hair, parted over his forehead and falling to his
shoulders, and his thin, straight, transparent nose, indicating both ill
health and a certain refinement and sensitiveness of nature. Had it not
been for his dress, he might have passed for an English curate on half
pay.
“Me name's Richard, sor--Richard Mullins,” said the old man. “I'm Mary's
father. She won't be long gone now. She promised me she'd be home for
dinner.” He placed a chair for Babcock, and remained standing.
“I will wait until she returns,” said Babcock. He had come to discover
something more definite about this woman who worked like a steam-engine,
crooned over a cripple, and broke a plank with her fist, and he did
not intend to leave until he knew. “Your daughter must have had great
experience. I have never seen any one man handle work better,” he
continued, extending his hand. Then, noticing that Mullins was still
standing, “Don't let me take your seat.”
Mullins hesitated, glanced at Jennie, and, moving another chair from the
window, drew it nearer, and settled slowly beside Babcock.
The room was as clean as bare arms and scrubbing-brushes could make
it. Near the fireplace was a cast-iron stove, and opposite this stood a
parlor organ, its top littered with photographs. A few chromos hung
on the walls. There were also a big plush sofa and two haircloth
rocking-chairs, of walnut, covered with cotton tidies. The carpet on the
floor was new, and in the window, where the old man had been sitting,
some pots of nasturtiums were blooming, their tendrils reaching up both
sides of the sash. Opening from this room was the kitchen, resplendent
in bright pans and a shining copper wash-boiler. The girl passed
constantly in and out the open door, spreading the cloth and bringing
dishes for the table.
Her girlish figure was clothed in a blue calico frock and white apron,
the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, showing some faint traces of flour
clinging to her wrists, as if she had been suddenly summoned from the
bread-bowl. She was fresh and sweet, strong and healthy, with a certain
grace of manner about her that pleased Babcock instantly. He saw
now that she had her mother's eyes and color, but not her air of
fearlessness and self-reliance--that kind of self-reliance which comes
only of many nights of anxiety and many days of success. He noticed,
too, that when she spoke to the old man her voice was tempered with a
peculiar tenderness, as if his infirmities were more to be pitied than
complained of. This pleased him most of all.
“You live with your daughter, Mrs. Grogan?” Babcock asked in a friendly
way, turning to the old man.
“Yis, sor. Whin Tom got sick, she sint fer me to come over an' hilp her.
I feeds the horses whin Oi'm able, an' looks after the garden, but Oi'm
not much good.”
“Is Mr. Thomas Grogan living?” asked Babcock cautiously, and with a
certain tone of respect, hoping to get closer to the facts, and yet not
to seem intrusive.
“Oh, yis, sor: an' moight be dead fer all the good he does. He's in
New Yorruk some'er's, on a farm”--lowering his voice to a whisper and
looking anxiously toward Jennie--“belongin' to the State, I think, sor.
He's hurted pretty bad, an' p'haps he's a leetle off--I dunno. Mary has
niver tould me.”
Before Babcock could pursue the inquiry further there was a firm tread
on the porch steps, and the old man rose from the chair, his face
brightening.
“Here she is, Gran'pop,” said Jennie, laying down her dish and springing
to the door.
“Hold tight, darlint,” came a voice from the outside, and the next
instant Tom Grogan strode in, her face aglow with laughter, her hood
awry, her eyes beaming. Patsy was perched on her shoulder, his little
crutch fast in one hand, the other tightly wound about her neck. “Let
go, darlint; ye're a-chokin' the wind out of me.”
“Oh, it's ye a-waitin', Mr. Babcock--me man Carl thought ye'd gone.
Mr. Crane I met outside told me you'd been here. Jennie'll get the
tally-sheet of the last load for ye. I've been to the fort since
daylight, and pretty much all night, to tell ye God's truth. Oh,
Gran'pop, but I smashed 'em!” she exclaimed as she gently removed
Patsy's arm and laid him in the old man's lap. She had picked the little
cripple up at the garden gate, where he always waited for her. “That's
the last job that sneakin' Duffy and Dan McGaw'll ever put up on me. Oh,
but ye should'a' minded the face on him, Gran'pop!”--untying her hood
and breaking into a laugh so contagious in its mirth that even Babcock
joined in without knowing what it was all about.
As she spoke, Tom stood facing her father, hood and ulster off, the
light of the windows silhouetting the splendid lines of her well-rounded
figure, with its deep chest, firm bust, broad back, and full throat, her
arms swinging loose and free.
“Ye see,” she said, turning to Babcock, “that man Duffy tried to do
me,--he's the sergeant at the fort--and Dan McGaw--ye know him--he's the
divil that wanted to work for ye. Ye know I always had the hauling of
the coal at the fort, an' I want to hold on to it, for it comes every
year. I've been a-watchin' for this coal for a month. Every October
there's a new contractor, and this time it was me friend Mr. Crane I've
worked for before. So I sees Duffy about it the other day, an' he says,
'Well, I think ye better talk to the quartermaster, who's away, but
who'll be home next week.' An' that night when I got home, there lay a
letter from Mr. Crane, wid another letter inside it Sergeant Duffy
had sent to Mr. Crane, sayin' he'd recommend Dan McGaw to do the
stevedorin'--the sneakin' villain--an' sayin' that he--Duffy--was
a-goin' to inspect the coal himself, an' if his friend Dan McGaw hauled
it, the quality would be all right. Think of that! I tell ye, Mr.
Babcock, they're divils. Then Mr. Crane put down at the bottom of his
letter to me that he was sorry not to give me the job, but that he must
give it to Duffy's friend McGaw, or Duffy might reject the coal. Wait
till I wash me hands and I'll tell ye how I fixed him,” she added
suddenly, as with a glance at her fingers she disappeared into the
kitchen, reappearing a moment later with her bare arms as fresh and as
rosy as her cheeks, from their friction with a clean crash towel.
“Well!” she continued, “I jumps into me bonnet yisterday, and over I
goes to the fort; an' I up an' says to Duffy, 'I can't wait for the
quartermaster. When's that coal a-comin'?' An' he says, 'In a couple of
weeks.' An' I turned onto him and says: 'Ye're a pretty loafer to take
the bread out of Tom Grogan's children's mouths! An' ye want Dan McGaw
to do the haulin', do ye? An' the quality of the coal'll be all right
if he gits it! An' there's sure to be twenty-five dollars for ye, won't
there? If I hear a word more out of ye I'll see Colonel Howard sure,
an' hand him this letter.' An' Duffy turned white as a load of lime, and
says, 'Don't do it, for God's sake! It'll cost me m' place.' While I was
a-talkin' I see a chunker-boat with the very coal on it round into the
dock with a tug; an' I ran to the string-piece and catched the line, and
has her fast to a spile before the tug lost head-way. Then I started for
home on the run, to get me derricks and stuff. I got home, hooked up by
twelve o'clock last night, an' before daylight I had me rig up an' the
fall set and the buckets over her hatches. At six o'clock this mornin' I
took the teams and was a-runnin' the coal out of the chunker, when down
comes Mr.--Daniel--McGaw with a gang and his big derrick on a cart.” She
repeated this in a mocking tone, swinging her big shoulders exactly as
her rival would have done.
“'That's me rig,' I says to him, p'intin' up to the gaff, 'an' me coal,
an' I'll throw the fust man overboard who lays hands on it!' An' then
the sergeant come out and took McGaw one side an' said somethin' to him,
with his back to me; an' when McGaw turned he was white too, an' without
sayin' a word he turned the team and druv off. An' just now I met Mr.
Crane walkin' down, lookin' like he had lost a horse. 'Tom Grogan,' he
says, 'I hate to disappoint ye, an' wouldn't, for ye've always done me
work well; but I'm stuck on the coal contract, an' the sergeant can put
me in a hole if ye do the haulin'.' An' I says, 'Brace up, Mr. Crane,
there's a hole, but ye ain't in it, an' the sergeant is. I'll unload
every pound of that coal, if I do it for nothin', and if that sneak in
striped trousers bothers me or you, I'll pull him apart an' stamp on
him!'”
Through all her talk there was a triumphant good humor, a joyousness, a
glow and breeziness, which completely fascinated Babcock. Although she
had been up half the night, she was as sweet and fresh and rosy as a
child. Her vitality, her strength, her indomitable energy, impressed him
as no woman's had ever done before.
When she had finished her story she suddenly caught Patsy out of her
father's arms and dropped with him into a chair, all the mother-hunger
in her still unsatisfied. She smothered him with kisses and hugged him
to her breast, holding his pinched face against her ruddy cheek. Then
she smoothed his forehead with her well-shaped hand, and rocked him back
and forth. By and by she told him of the stone that the Big Gray had got
in his hoof down at the fort that morning, and how lame he had been, and
how Cully had taken it out with--a--great--big--spike!--dwelling on the
last words as if they belonged to some wonderful fairy-tale. The little
fellow sat up in her lap and laughed as he patted her breast joyously
with his thin hand. “Cully could do it,” he shouted in high glee; “Cully
can do anything.” Babcock, apparently, made no more difference to her
than if he had been an extra chair.
As she moved about her rooms afterward, calling to her men from the open
door, consulting with Jennie, her arms about her neck, or stopping
at intervals to croon over her child, she seemed to him to lose all
identity with the woman on the dock. The spirit that enveloped her
belonged rather to that of some royal dame of heroic times, than to that
of a working woman of to-day. The room somehow became her castle, the
rough stablemen her knights.
On his return to his work she walked back with him part of the way.
Babcock, still bewildered, and still consumed with curiosity to learn
something of her past, led the talk to her life along the docks,
expressing his great surprise at discovering her so capable and willing
to do a man's work, asking who had taught her, and whether her husband
in his time had been equally efficient and strong.
Instantly she grew reticent. She did not even answer his question. He
waited a moment, and, realizing his mistake, turned the conversation in
another direction.
“And how about those rough fellows around the wharves--those who don't
know you--are they never coarse and brutal to you?”
“Not when I look 'em in the face,” she answered slowly and deliberately.
“No man ever opens his head, nor dar'sn't. When they see me a-comin'
they stops talkin', if it's what they wouldn't want their daughters to
hear; an' there ain't no dirty back talk, neither. An' I make me own men
civil, too, with a dacint tongue in their heads. I had a young strip of
a lad once who would be a-swearin' round the stables. I told him to mend
his manners or I'd wash his mouth out, an' that I wouldn't have nobody
hit me horses on the head. He kep' along, an' I see it was a bad example
for the other drivers (this was only a year ago, an' I had three of
'em); so when he hit the Big Gray ag'in, I hauled off and give him a
crack that laid him out. I was scared solid for two hours, though they
never knew it.”
Then, with an almost piteous look in her face, and with a sudden burst
of confidence, born, doubtless, of a dawning faith in the man's evident
sincerity and esteem, she said in a faltering tone:--
“God help me! what can I do? I've no man to stand by me, an' somebody's
got to be boss.”