THE STRIKE
A strike at this of all times! And Pete Carlin at the bottom of it! With
her nerves frayed raw by two nights of sleepless vigil and the memory of
the _Curlew's_ disabled motor rankling within her, Dickie Lang brushed
by a group of men and confronted a bullet-headed man in a loose gray
sweater.
"Carlin," she said clearly in a voice which all could hear, "you're
fired. You're a crook. If you'd work the clock around I wouldn't have
you on the job."
Turning to the fishermen she rapidly related the incident of the finding
of the emery-dust in the _Curlew's_ motor.
"It's a lie," Carlin interrupted, "I don't----"
"It's the truth, Pete Carlin, and you know it."
Dickie moved closer to Carlin and her eyes met his. "You can't look me
in the eye and deny it," she challenged. As the man said nothing, she
flashed: "Get off my dock while you're still able to walk. If I was a
man I'd knock you down."
The man grinned but did not move.
"But you ain't," he retorted. "I reckon I ain't goin' to have no fool
girl tell me where to head in at. I reckon I----"
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder and his sentence remained unfinished.
Gregory's eyes were snapping close to Carlin's.
"Beat it," he said, "while the trail's open."
Carlin flashed a glance over his shoulder at the fishermen who stood
looking on in stoical silence. Then he decided to go. Mumbling to
himself, he turned sullenly from the men about him and walked slowly
down the dock.
Dickie Lang faced the silent fishermen.
"Now, boys, what is it? I'll hear what you've got to say. But I won't
have any dealings with a crook."
The men about her shuffled their feet and drew closer. Then a man in a
faded plaid jumper detached himself from the others and began to speak.
"We ain't got nothin' against you, Miss Lang," he began uncertainly.
"But we've all got to look out for ourselves. We got families and folks
dependin' on us. Livin' 's out of sight. So is clothes and everything.
We----"
"What's your proposition, Blagg?"
The fisherman hesitated at the directness of the question. Then he
recited: "Straight time. Eight-hour day for six dollars. Double money
for overtime and Sundays."
Dickie started at the demand. Carlin had done his work well to set such
a limit as that. She wondered how far the seeds of discontent had
spread among the others. As her eye traveled over the silent groups,
Blagg went on:
"You see, miss, as I say we got families and the women-folks----"
"Don't blame the women, Joe," interrupted the girl. "If they got half of
what the saloons leave they'd have no kick coming. I'll bet they're not
back of this. You've been listening to a half-baked fool who couldn't
make a living if dollars grew on trees. All Pete Carlin can do is talk.
You boys know he isn't a fisherman."
She stepped closer and her voice dropped to a conversational tone. "It
just isn't in the business, boys. If I promised to pay those wages I
couldn't do it. I'd be broke with the first run of bad luck and you know
it as well as I do, if you'd stop to think. The man doesn't live who can
pay that around here and get out."
Blagg smiled knowingly at the fishermen.
"You're wrong, miss," he said. "We've already got the offer for a job at
them terms."
"Not here?"
He nodded. "Right here in town. We won't have to move nor nothin'."
Watching the effect of his words upon the girl, he went on, carried away
by the importance of his announcement. "That's why we're puttin' it up
to you. You've always shot pretty square with us. But money talks, and
we all got to look out for Number One. I reckon none of the boys is
honein' to go to work for a furrinor, but we all knows his money's good
as yours and that's what counts."
"You mean you're going to ditch me for Mascola?"
Blagg dropped his eyes to the planks of the wharf before the girl's
steady gaze.
"We don't aim to ditch nobody," he said awkwardly. "But we got to live.
The dago's offered us six day straight with double for overtime and
Sundays. We ain't decided yet. We waited to give you a chance."
Dickie Lang listened quietly, her eyes roaming among the knots of silent
fishermen. Some she noticed stood close and as their spokesman went on,
shuffled closer. Others held aloof. When Blagg had concluded, she began
to speak in a voice which carried to the detached groups of men standing
in the back row.
"I'm not going to say much. But what I do say I want it to sink in. Come
up closer all of you where we can see one another."
When the fishermen ranged themselves about her, she looked hard into
their weather-beaten faces and went on earnestly: "Boys, you've known me
since I was a kid. Most of you knew my dad. If you did, you knew a man.
He had to fight hard for a living. But he shot square every foot of the
way. Some of you were here when he came."
She singled out a few of the older men and spoke directly to them: "Do
you think you'd be here now if it hadn't been for Bill Lang? What were
the Russians and Austrians doing to you when he came? You were all down
on your uppers and didn't know where your next meal was coming from. Who
was it that took up your fight? Who backed you with boats and gear and
taught you how to fish so you could hold your own against the outsiders?
You know without my telling you."
Some of the older fishermen dropped their eyes to the rough board planks
at the girl's words. There was no doubt that Lang had been square. But
as Blagg had pointed out, a man had to look out for himself.
"You think that hasn't anything to do with your quitting me to get more
money? All right. I'll show you that it has. Let me ask you some
questions. What is Mascola paying his own fishermen? Why should he pay
you fellows twice that much? Does he think you'll rob more traps, lay
round more nets and run more men off the beach with his seine? Why
should he pay you six dollars when he can load up with a gang that'll do
what he says for three? Is that business?"
She paused and her lips compressed in a straight line as she went on:
"You can answer those questions just as well as I can. You know what
Mascola's game is. He thinks he's going to put me out of business. He's
trying to crowd me off the sea. What do you suppose will become of you
if he makes good? How long will you get that six dollars a day with the
Lang fleet out of commission? You've been fighting his men for a square
deal ever since you came here. And now you're figuring on helping them
run you out of your own town."
Blagg noticed that several of the men were falling back and whispering
among themselves. Scenting signs of a break among his ranks, he felt it
was up to him to say something. Well, he had his trump card yet to play.
"We ain't such fools as you think," he said. "We ain't gone at this
thing without considering pretty careful and gettin' good advice. Last
night some of us had a meetin' and talked things over. Mr. Rock was
there and he give us some mighty good advice. He says to the boys that
it was every feller for himself and----"
"Rock's got a mortgage on your house, hasn't he, Joe?"
Blagg flushed beneath his tan.
"I reckon that ain't got nothing to do with it if he has," he
challenged. "And you understand I ain't even sayin' he has. But he's a
business man."
"And a hypocrite," supplemented Dickie Lang. "Nobody knows that any
better than I. He lied to me and tried to flim-flam me out of my boats
before my dad was buried a week. If I'd fallen for it he would have had
me right where he's got you, Joe. But I didn't. And when he found out I
was going to stick to you boys, he called me a fool and said no white
man could compete against Mascola's men."
As she paused for breath, Gregory saw Tom Howard hobbling through the
crowd, speaking in low tones with the fishermen.
"One minute more and I'm through," the girl concluded. "We're up against
a hard fight here at Legonia. A fight for Americans to fish their own
waters. Sounds foolish, but you know it's the truth. When my father and
Mr. Gregory were drowned off Diablo, Mascola thought he had us beaten.
Rock thought so, too. But I'm telling you we're going to fool them both.
There's something wrong around here, boys, when we can't get a
fifty-fifty break on our own coast. And we're going to find out what it
is."
Seeing that she had the ear of the men at last, she walked closer.
"Listen, boys, I've got a big proposition to offer you. One that will
beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this one is on the
square."
The fishermen crowded closer while she went on:
"You know what we've been up against here for years to get good help.
You boys have been working short-handed most of the time. Doing more
work than it was up to you to do. I've got a plan now to get all the men
you want. Good men too. Fellows who have been tried out, red-blooded
men. Fighters! I want you men to train them. Show them how to fish. In a
little while they'll be doing all the work and I'll pay you four dollars
a day straight time with a dollar a day more if you stick through the
season. But better than that I'll give you a share in the profits of
not only my own business, but the Legonia Fish Cannery as well."
Gregory gulped. It was Dickie's voice all right. But the words were his
own. There was some mistake somewhere. He strove to regain control of
his scattered senses as Blagg burst out:
"You're figurin' to start somethin' you can't finish, ain't you? You
ain't bought the cannery already, have you?"
"Don't you worry about that, Blagg. I know what I'm talking about. Mr.
Gregory and I are partners on this deal."
Blagg was taken back by the girl's announcement. Almost as much so as
Gregory himself.
"Suppose there ain't no profits?" put in another fisherman.
"That's your lookout as well as mine." Again the girl took Gregory's
words and went on: "But there will be. I'm going to get a bunch of
ex-navy men down here that mean business. They won't let Mascola, Rock
or anybody else bluff them off the sea. All they want is a chance to
learn the game. You boys can teach it to them right."
Blagg stepped back and began to whisper to the men about him. The other
fishermen looked at one another and listened for Bill Lang's girl to go
on:
"You fellows all know the advantage it gives you to have enough boats
and men. If you break down and get into any trouble, it's pretty good to
have somebody standing by to give you a hand. And you know that Mascola
knows how to make trouble."
Turning to the older men, some of whom had already begun to feel their
joints stiffening with rheumatism, she said: "Fishing's a hard game,
boys, for the best of us. And it doesn't get any easier as we get older.
There's a lot of you who will have to go into dry-dock before long and
get patched up. And there's some that can't afford to lay up. You've
been working with your hands too long. You've got to ease up and use
your brains. That's what I want to hire now. These young fellows are
eager to help you. It will be up to you to show them what to do."
Could this be the girl who had angrily announced that she intended to
run her business in her own way? Gregory could only stare at Dickie
Lang. So far, she had not even included him as being a partner to the
idea, save by her pledge of the profits of his cannery. Surely she would
explain her sudden change of heart. Listening intently, he heard her
conclude:
"Think it over, boys. It's a chance that may never come again. If there
are any questions you'd like to ask, shoot."
Blagg noted that her words were having a marked effect upon the silent
fishermen. Seeking to stem the tide of the reaction which he felt was
setting in against him, he began to make objections.
Dickie Lang met his arguments with painstaking explanations and the
objections gradually became fewer, simmering down into more or less
intelligent questions. Gregory noticed that the fishermen began to
retire and clustered together in little groups while they talked
earnestly among themselves. Still there came no explanation from the
girl. She was championing his ideas as if they had been her own
cherished plans.
At length the various knots of men drew further apart and faced each
other in two well-marked divisions. To the left stood Joe Blagg, about
him clustering the younger and more radical element of the fishing
colony. On the right the property-owners and heads of families for the
most part, drew closer to Big Jack Stuss, their acknowledged leader.
Dickie Lang regarded the two factions carefully, striving to count their
ranks. Each was about evenly divided, she figured, with Big Jack's
constituency slightly in the lead.
Blagg stepped forward and began to speak: "It's six straight for me and
mine," he said. "Them's our terms. The boys can't see your new-fangled
proposition at all."
"It's up to you," the girl replied coolly. "If that's the way you feel,
you can get your money. But before you do, I'd advise you to talk it
over at home. Don't forget that I'm fighting for you--not against you.
It might be pretty nice to remember some time that you tried to help
yourselves. Think it over before you get your checks."
As she finished speaking, Big Jack got slowly under way. Elbowing a path
through the crowd he shuffled closer, hitching at the straining
suspender to which was entrusted the task of holding in place his two
pairs of baggy canvas trousers. Shifting from one bowed knee to the
other, he contemplated his great bare toes in silence while he drew in a
deep breath which filled his huge lungs to the bursting point and caused
the muscles of his neck to stand out in purpled knots.
Dickie waited, knowing full well that it was Big Jack's invariable
preface for speech. When the big fisherman had secured enough
compression to proceed, he boomed forth in a fog-horn voice:
"Me and my fellers has decided to stick. Youse fellers can count on us
if you shoot square. We's willin' to take a chanct."
[Illustration: "Me and my fellers has decided to stick"]
His sentences were interpolated with great gusts of surplus breath. As
he finished speaking he lumbered away to rejoin his companions.
"That's the stuff, boys. It's the way I like to hear men talk. It shows
you've got the sand. Take it from me, you'll never be sorry you stuck."
She walked forward and passed familiarly among them while the Blagg
faction melted slowly away and straggled down the dock in the direction
of the town.
Gregory stood with McCoy while the excitement quieted down and Dickie
despatched the fishing-boats on their accustomed morning cruise.
"Well, I'll say you've done wonders," McCoy was saying. "Who would ever
have thought that Dick would have given in?"
Gregory nodded weakly. "I was rather surprised myself," he admitted.
McCoy looked at his watch. "I must go," he said. "It's almost time to
blow the whistle. Coming up soon?"
Gregory promised to be on hand as soon as he got his breakfast and McCoy
hurried off. When the last of her remaining men had left the dock,
Gregory noticed the girl coming toward him. Now he would learn the
reason for her sudden change of mind. He listened eagerly for the
explanation.
Dickie Lang passed a slim brown hand slowly over her forehead and
replaced a tousled lock of red-brown hair.
"Now," she said calmly, "when can you get me my men?"