Then I started for home on the run, to get me derricks
and stuff. I got home, hooked up by twelve o'clock last night,
an' before daylight I had me rig up an' the fall set and the
buckets over her hatches. At six o'clock this mornin' I took the
teams and was a-runnin' the coal out of the chunker, when down
comes Mr.--Daniel--McGaw with a gang and his big derrick on a
cart." She repeated this in a mocking tone, swinging her big
shoulders exactly as her rival would have done.
"'That's me rig,' I says to him, p'intin' up to the gaff, 'an' me
coal, an' I'll throw the fust man overboard who lays hands on it!'
An' then the sergeant come out and took McGaw one side an' said
somethin' to him, with his back to me; an' when McGaw turned he
was white too, an' without sayin' a word he turned the team and
druv off. An' just now I met Mr. Crane walkin' down, lookin' like
he had lost a horse. 'Tom Grogan,' he says,'I hate to disappoint
ye, an' wouldn't, for ye've always done me work well; but I'm
stuck on the coal contract, an' the sergeant can put me in a hole
if ye do the haulin'.' An' I says, 'Brace up, Mr. Crane, there's
a hole, but ye ain't in it, an' the sergeant is. I'll unload
every pound of that coal, if I do it for nothin', and if that
sneak in striped trousers bothers me or you, I'll pull him apart
an' stamp on him!'"
Through all her talk there was a triumphant good humor, a
joyousness, a glow and breeziness, which completely fascinated
Babcock.
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