The crowd on the platform surged away to the electric car to watch
further proceedings of the newly arrived "gang." The arrival of the
immigrant workmen always afforded fun for the natives. The men shivered
and hunched their shoulders; the raw March wind was searching. The
gesticulating and vociferating increased. To any one unacquainted with
foreign ways, a complete rupture of international peace and relations
seemed imminent. They tumbled over one another into the cars and filled
them to overflowing, even to the platform where they clung to the
guards.
The man who had been the last to leave the train stood on the emptied
platform and looked about him. He carried a small bundle. He noted the
sign on the electric cars, "To Quarry End Park". A puzzled look came
into his face. He turned to the baggage-master who was wrestling with
the immigrants' baggage:--iron-bound chests, tin boxes and trunks, sacks
of heavy coarse linen filled with bedding.
"Does this car go to the sheds?"
The station master looked up. "It goes past there, but this is the
regular half-hour express for the quarries and the Park. You a stranger
in these parts?"
"This is all strange to me," the man answered.
"Any baggage?"
"No."
At that moment there was a rapid clanging of the gong; the motorman let
fly the whirling rod; the over full cars started with a jerk--there was
a howl, a shout, followed by a struggle to keep the equilibrium; an
undersized Canuck was seen to be running madly alongside with one hand
on the guard and endeavoring to get a foothold; he was hauled up
unceremoniously by a dozen hands. The crowd watching them, cheered and
jeered:
"Goin' it some, Antoine! Don't get left!"
"Keep on your pins, you Dagos!"
"Steady, Polacks--there's the strap!"
"Gee up, Johnny!" This to the motorman.
"Gosh, it's like a soda bottle fizzin' to hear them Rooshians talkin'."
"Hooray for you!"
The cars were off swiftly now; the men on the platforms waved their
hats, their white teeth flashing, their gold earrings twinkling, and
echoed the American cheer:--
"Horray!"
The station master turned away laughing.
"They look like a tough crowd, but they're O. K. in the end," he said to
the man beside him who was looking after the vanishing car and its
trailer. "There's yours coming down the switch. That'll take you up to
Flamsted and the sheds." He pushed the loaded truck up the platform.
The stranger entered the car and took a seat at the rear; there were no
other passengers. He told the conductor to leave him as near as possible
to the sheds.
"Guess you don't know these parts?" The conductor put the question.
"This here is new to me," the man answered; he seemed nothing loath to
enter into conversation. "When was this road built?"
"'Bout five years ago. You'll see what a roadway they've made clear
along the north shore of the lake; it's bein' built up with houses just
as fast as it's taken up."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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