Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy: 1899Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
General
Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy: 1899
Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
American wit and humor; Boys -- Fiction; Uncles -- Fiction
“I thought you boys were up to the times,” said the old man, as he
lighted up his pipe, and crossed his legs so the lame one was on top,
“but you are back numbers. You read too much algebra, English history
and fables. Why, Pullman has been dead for years, both the man and the
town. I guess I'll have to educate you a little in American history,
that you don't get in the ward school. Pullman was a carpenter who
worked with a jack plane, and a saw, and things. It is said he took
advantage of some ideas another man forgot to patent, got the ideas
patented, and the result was the sleeping car. He made money by the
barrel, and when the callouses and blood blisters were off his hands,
and they became soft, he began to blow in money, and made people
acquainted with the fact that he was too rich for words. He still looked
like a carpenter, but smelled like a rose garden, for he learned to
take a bath every few minutes and perfume himself, so the old-fashioned
perspiration that had been so healthy for him would not be noticed. He
hunted dollars as a pointer dog hunts chickens, and finally he got so
much money he could not count it, and he hired men who were good at
figures to count it for him. Then his brain took a day off and studied
out Pullman, and he built it on the prairie. His idea was all right,
only that he couldn't get over the idea that he must have a big
percentage on his outlay, in rents. He wanted his men to be happy, but
he wanted them to pay big prices. Another thing he wanted was for them
not to think, but to let him do all the thinking. For a few years they
were happy, but they kept getting in debt; he cut down on wages, but
kept rents up, and the price of gas and water never went down. If they
did not like it they could go somewhere else, and leave some of the
furniture to square up, if they were behind in rent, but usually the
bookkeeper took it out of the wages. Then they traded at his stores,
attended his theater, and he got most all the velvet. They stood it
as long as possible, and asked for more wages, and more work, and his
agents--Pullman was never there himself, he had an island in the St.
Lawrence, and residences everywhere except at his Utopia--told them to
hush up and go to work, and be mighty quick about it, or he would fire
them bodily out of the town. Then they struck, and wanted to arbitrate,
but Pullman telegraphed that there was nothing to arbitrate, and then
the Utopia became a Tophet, which it had resembled for some time.
Everything was closed up, men saw their children hungry, and they were
moved away by charity to new places, where they might get some work. The
cold-blooded proposition that is not popular with American citizens
was that if men would get on their knees, apologize, and beg, the
authorities would see what could be done for them. Men became desperate,
troops were sent to guard the premises and to jab with bayonets these
happy workmen that did not move along fast enough. Pullman himself
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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