Part 36 (2/2)

Billy, too, had his unanswerable queries.

”Why won't the building trades come out?” he demanded wrathfuly of the obscurity that veiled the ways of living and the world. ”But no; O'Brien won't stand for a strike, and he has the Building Trades Council under his thumb. But why don't they chuck him and come out anyway? We'd win hands down all along the line. But no, O'Brien's got their goat, an' him up to his dirty neck in politics an' graft! An' d.a.m.n the Federation of Labor! If all the railroad boys had come out, wouldn't the shop men have won instead of bein' licked to a frazzle? Lord, I ain't had a smoke of decent tobacco or a cup of decent coffee in a c.o.o.n's age. I've forgotten what a square meal tastes like. I weighed myself yesterday. Fifteen pounds lighter than when the strike begun. If it keeps on much more I can fight middleweight. An' this is what I get after payin' dues into the union for years and years. I can't get a square meal, an' my wife has to make other men's beds. It makes my tired ache. Some day I'll get real huffy an' chuck that lodger out.”

”But it's not his fault, Billy,” Saxon protested.

”Who said it was?” Billy snapped roughly. ”Can't I kick in general if I want to? Just the same it makes me sick. What's the good of organized labor if it don't stand together? For two cents I'd chuck the whole thing up an' go over to the employers. Only I wouldn't, G.o.d d.a.m.n them!

If they think they can beat us down to our knees, let 'em go ahead an'

try it, that's all. But it gets me just the same. The whole world's clean dippy. They ain't no sense in anything. What's the good of supportin' a union that can't win a strike? What's the good of knockin'

the blocks off of scabs when they keep a-comin' thick as ever? The whole thing's bughouse, an' I guess I am, too.”

Such an outburst on Billy's part was so unusual that it was the only time Saxon knew it to occur. Always he was sullen, and dogged, and unwhipped; while whisky only served to set the maggots of cert.i.tude crawling in his brain.

One night Billy did not get home till after twelve. Saxon's anxiety was increased by the fact that police fighting and head breaking had been reported to have occurred. When Billy came, his appearance verified the report. His coatsleeves were half torn off. The Windsor tie had disappeared from under his soft turned-down collar, and every b.u.t.ton had been ripped off the front of the s.h.i.+rt. When he took his hat off, Saxon was frightened by a lump on his head the size of an apple.

”D'ye know who did that? That Dutch slob Hermanmann, with a riot club.

An' I'll get'm for it some day, good an' plenty. An' there's another fellow I got staked out that'll be my meat when this strike's over an'

things is settled down. Blanchard's his name, Roy Blanchard.”

”Not of Blanchard, Perkins and Company?” Saxon asked, busy was.h.i.+ng Billy's hurt and making her usual fight to keep him calm.

”Yep; except he's the son of the old man. What's he do, that ain't done a tap of work in all his life except to blow the old man's money? He goes strike-breakin'. Grandstand play, that's what I call it. Gets his name in the papers an makes all the skirts he runs with fl.u.s.ter up an'

say: 'My! Some bear, that Roy Blanchard, some bear.' Some bear--the gazabo! He'll be bear-meat for me some day. I never itched so hard to lick a man in my life.

”And--oh, I guess I'll pa.s.s that Dutch cop up. He got his already.

Somebody broke his head with a lump of coal the size of a water bucket.

That was when the wagons was turnin' into Franklin, just off Eighth, by the old Galindo Hotel. They was hard fightin' there, an' some guy in the hotel lams that coal down from the second story window.

”They was fightin' every block of the way--bricks, cobblestones, an'

police-clubs to beat the band. They don't dast call out the troops. An'

they was afraid to shoot. Why, we tore holes through the police force, an' the ambulances and patrol wagons worked over-time. But say, we got the procession blocked at Fourteenth and Broadway, right under the nose of the City Hall, rushed the rear end, cut out the horses of five wagons, an' handed them college guys a few love-pats in pa.s.sin'. All that saved 'em from hospital was the police reserves. Just the same we had 'em jammed an hour there. You oughta seen the street cars blocked, too--Broadway, Fourteenth, San Pablo, as far as you could see.”

”But what did Blanchard do?” Saxon called him back.

”He led the procession, an' he drove my team. All the teams was from my stable. He rounded up a lot of them college fellows--fraternity guys, they're called--yaps that live off their fathers' money. They come to the stable in big tourin' cars an' drove out the wagons with half the police of Oakland to help them. Say, it was sure some day. The sky rained cobblestones. An' you oughta heard the clubs on our heads--rat-tat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat-tat! An' say, the chief of police, in a police auto, sittin' up like G.o.d Almighty--just before we got to Peralta street they was a block an' the police chargin', an' an old woman, right from her front gate, lammed the chief of police full in the face with a dead cat. Phew! You could hear it. 'Arrest that woman!' he yells, with his handkerchief out. But the boys beat the cops to her an'

got her away. Some day? I guess yes. The receivin' hospital went outa commission on the jump, an' the overflow was spilled into St. Mary's Hospital, an' Fabiola, an' I don't know where else. Eight of our men was pulled, an' a dozen of the Frisco teamsters that's come over to help. They're holy terrors, them Frisco teamsters. It seemed half the workingmen of Oakland was helpin' us, an' they must be an army of them in jail. Our lawyers'll have to take their cases, too.

”But take it from me, it's the last we'll see of Roy Blanchard an'

yaps of his kidney b.u.t.tin' into our affairs. I guess we showed 'em some football. You know that brick buildin' they're puttin' up on Bay street? That's where we loaded up first, an', say, you couldn't see the wagon-seats for bricks when they started from the stables. Blanchard drove the first wagon, an' he was knocked clean off the seat once, but he stayed with it.”

”He must have been brave,” Saxon commented.

”Brave?” Billy flared. ”With the police, an' the army an' navy behind him? I suppose you'll be takin' their part next. Brave? A-takin' the food outa the mouths of our women an children. Didn't Curley Jones's little kid die last night? Mother's milk not nouris.h.i.+n', that's what it was, because she didn't have the right stuff to eat. An' I know, an'

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