CHAPTER VII
THE LABOR QUESTION
“Say, Jack, d’ roadmaster won’t know this mule,” said Tommy, standing off and looking the animal over. “Mr. Heidelberg says they’s just one thing ’at looks onryer ’n a long-haired mule, ’at’s a short-haired woman. Women an’ horses should be trimmed alike, an’ men an’ mules.”
With that Tommy put away his clippers and started the mule on his circular journey. The ingenious pump boy had grown tired of the narrow platform in the centre of the circle and conceived the idea of bringing a camp stool and sitting in the shadow of a tree just outside the ring. Immediately the mule walked to the far side of the circle and stopped. Tommy whipped him around the ring and tried it again. The mule stopped. Now up to this point it had made no great difference where the boy sat, but he would conquer the mule. He made a blind for the mule’s off eye, so that he couldnot see the driver as he went past, but, to his surprise, on the other side of the circle it was the near eye the mule used. He changed it. The mule went around to where he had been stopping, stopped, turned his head until his open eye was brought to bear upon his master, gave a deep sigh, and settled down to rest. Tommy was angry. He now put a blind over both the mule’s eyes, and the animal refused to budge. Tommy gave him a few sharp cracks and gave it up. He thought on the matter a great deal. It was the first time he had failed utterly; the first time he had ever been conquered; and by a mule! It was humiliating. He made a dummy and set it where he had been sitting, started the mule going and dodged behind a sycamore near where the mule was wont to stop. The animal pulled round to the effigy, shied a little, came nearer, smelled of it, snorted, and then began coolly to eat the stuffing out of it—some wisps of hay that were sticking up out of the dummy’s collar.
Little Jack came over, saw the dummy, and asked what it was for. Tommy was loath to acknowledge his defeat, and now a new ideacame into his head. “We’ll stan’ that dummy at d’ end of d’ bridge, hang a white light on his arm an’ let d’ Midnight Express go by while we sleep, eh! Jack, old boy?”
Jack smiled.
“An’ say, Jack! d’ you know we can give d’ dummy a lamp fur d’ Midnight Express an’ a flag for the White Mail in d’ morning an’ sleep till sun up.”
“An’ the red light,” Jack began, “how we goin’ t’ fix that, Tommy? S’posen the dummy wants a red light?”
“Thatso,” said Tommy. “An’ say, Jack,” he added quickly, “s’pose d’ bridge ketch afire, is d’ dummy gun to put it out? Jimminy!” and with that Tommy made a run at his dummy, hit him a kick in the ribs, dragged him to the bank, and without more ado sent him down to a watery grave.
“That’s a good lesson for you, Mr. Jack Connor,” said Tommy, taking the whip and climbing up on the platform. “Do yer work yerself an’ hold yer job, an’ don’t depend on d’ Union. They’s too much machinery already in th’ worl’. U. P. says the inventor’s robbin’d’ workin’ man. Here we’ve both got good jobs an’ we’re tryin’ to make a dummy watch a bridge.”
Jack was thoroughly shamed.
“Aint you got sense nuff to know, Jack Connor, that if a dummy’d do, the company’d have a dummy ’stead o’ payin’ you forty dollars a month to stay here?”
Jack nodded his head. “S’pose you made a dummy an’ it done d’ work, long comes Mr. Roadmaster, sees d’ dummy, says ‘that’s a good thing,’ an’ you git d’ bounce. No, sir, when a fellow’s got a job he wants to hold it, an’ not go sawin’ it off on an effigy, same as soldiers ’at’s grafted in d’ war an’s afraid to fight. There’s a good lesson fur you, Mr. Jack,” added Tommy: “Hold yer job an’ don’t bank on d’ Union or a dummy;” and with this advice Tommy cracked the mule up and subsided, with a countenance fixed and resolute.