Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser

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Idleness, however, and the sight of the company, backed by the
police, triumphing, angered the men. They saw that each day more
cars were going on, each day more declarations were being made by
the company officials that the effective opposition of the
strikers was broken. This put desperate thoughts in the minds of
the men. Peaceful methods meant, they saw, that the companies
would soon run all their cars and those who had complained would
be forgotten. There was nothing so helpful to the companies as
peaceful methods.
All at once they blazed forth, and for a week there was storm and
stress. Cars were assailed, men attacked, policemen struggled
with, tracks torn up, and shots fired, until at last street
fights and mob movements became frequent, and the city was
invested with militia.

Hurstwood knew nothing of the change of temper.

"Run your car out," called the foreman, waving a vigorous hand at
him. A green conductor jumped up behind and rang the bell twice
as a signal to start. Hurstwood turned the lever and ran the car
out through the door into the street in front of the barn. Here
two brawny policemen got up beside him on the platform--one on
either hand.

At the sound of a gong near the barn door, two bells were given
by the conductor and Hurstwood opened his lever.

The two policemen looked about them calmly.

"'Tis cold, all right, this morning," said the one on the left,
who possessed a rich brogue.

"I had enough of it yesterday," said the other. "I wouldn't want
a steady job of this."

"Nor I."

Neither paid the slightest attention to Hurstwood, who stood
facing the cold wind, which was chilling him completely, and
thinking of his orders.

"Keep a steady gait," the foreman had said. "Don't stop for any
one who doesn't look like a real passenger. Whatever you do,
don't stop for a crowd."

The two officers kept silent for a few moments.

"The last man must have gone through all right," said the officer
on the left. "I don't see his car anywhere."

"Who's on there?" asked the second officer, referring, of course,
to its complement of policemen.

"Schaeffer and Ryan."

There was another silence, in which the car ran smoothly along.
There were not so many houses along this part of the way.
Hurstwood did not see many people either. The situation was not
wholly disagreeable to him. If he were not so cold, he thought
he would do well enough.

He was brought out of this feeling by the sudden appearance of a
curve ahead, which he had not expected. He shut off the current
and did an energetic turn at the brake, but not in time to avoid
an unnaturally quick turn. It shook him up and made him feel
like making some apologetic remarks, but he refrained.

"You want to look out for them things," said the officer on the
left, condescendingly.

"That's right," agreed Hurstwood, shamefacedly.

"There's lots of them on this line," said the officer on the
right.
Around the corner a more populated way appeared. One or two
pedestrians were in view ahead. A boy coming out of a gate with
a tin milk bucket gave Hurstwood his first objectionable
greeting.

"Scab!" he yelled. "Scab!"

Hurstwood heard it, but tried to make no comment, even to
himself. He knew he would get that, and much more of the same
sort, probably.

At a corner farther up a man stood by the track and signalled the
car to stop.

"Never mind him," said one of the officers. "He's up to some
game."

Hurstwood obeyed. At the corner he saw the wisdom of it. No
sooner did the man perceive the intention to ignore him, than he
shook his fist.

"Ah, you bloody coward!" he yelled.

Some half dozen men, standing on the corner, flung taunts and
jeers after the speeding car.

Hurstwood winced the least bit. The real thing was slightly
worse than the thoughts of it had been.

Now came in sight, three or four blocks farther on, a heap of
something on the track.

"They've been at work, here, all right," said one of the
policemen.

"We'll have an argument, maybe," said the other.

Hurstwood ran the car close and stopped. He had not done so
wholly, however, before a crowd gathered about. It was composed
of ex-motormen and conductors in part, with a sprinkling of
friends and sympathisers.

"Come off the car, pardner," said one of the men in a voice meant
to be conciliatory. "You don't want to take the bread out of
another man's mouth, do you?"

Hurstwood held to his brake and lever, pale and very uncertain
what to do.

"Stand back," yelled one of the officers, leaning over the
platform railing. "Clear out of this, now. Give the man a
chance to do his work."

"Listen, pardner," said the leader, ignoring the policeman and
addressing Hurstwood. "We're all working men, like yourself. If
you were a regular motorman, and had been treated as we've been,
you wouldn't want any one to come in and take your place, would
you? You wouldn't want any one to do you out of your chance to
get your rights, would you?"

"Shut her off! shut her off!" urged the other of the policemen,
roughly. "Get out of this, now," and he jumped the railing and
landed before the crowd and began shoving. Instantly the other
officer was down beside him.

"Stand back, now," they yelled. "Get out of this. What the hell
do you mean? Out, now."

It was like a small swarm of bees.

"Don't shove me," said one of the strikers, determinedly. "I'm
not doing anything."

"Get out of this!" cried the officer, swinging his club. "I'll
give ye a bat on the sconce. Back, now."

"What the hell!" cried another of the strikers, pushing the other
way, adding at the same time some lusty oaths.

Crack came an officer's club on his forehead. He blinked his
eyes blindly a few times, wabbled on his legs, threw up his
hands, and staggered back. In return, a swift fist landed on the
officer's neck.

Infuriated by this, the latter plunged left and right, laying
about madly with his club. He was ably assisted by his brother
of the blue, who poured ponderous oaths upon the troubled waters.
No severe damage was done, owing to the agility of the strikers
in keeping out of reach. They stood about the sidewalk now and
jeered.

"Where is the conductor?" yelled one of the officers, getting his
eye on that individual, who had come nervously forward to stand
by Hurstwood. The latter had stood gazing upon the scene with
more astonishment than fear.

"Why don't you come down here and get these stones off the
track?" inquired the officer. "What you standing there for? Do
you want to stay here all day? Get down."

Hurstwood breathed heavily in excitement and jumped down with the
nervous conductor as if he had been called.

"Hurry up, now," said the other policeman.

Cold as it was, these officers were hot and mad. Hurstwood
worked with the conductor, lifting stone after stone and warming
himself by the work.

"Ah, you scab, you!" yelled the crowd. "You coward! Steal a
man's job, will you? Rob the poor, will you, you thief? We'll get
you yet, now. Wait."

Not all of this was delivered by one man. It came from here and
there, incorporated with much more of the same sort and curses.

"Work, you blackguards," yelled a voice. "Do the dirty work.
You're the suckers that keep the poor people down!"

"May God starve ye yet," yelled an old Irish woman, who now threw
open a nearby window and stuck out her head.

"Yes, and you," she added, catching the eye of one of the
policemen. "You bloody, murtherin' thafe! Crack my son over the
head, will you, you hardhearted, murtherin' divil? Ah, ye----"

But the officer turned a deaf ear.

"Go to the devil, you old hag," he half muttered as he stared
round upon the scattered company.

Now the stones were off, and Hurstwood took his place again amid
a continued chorus of epithets. Both officers got up beside him
and the conductor rang the bell, when, bang! bang! through window
and door came rocks and stones. One narrowly grazed Hurstwood's
head. Another shattered the window behind.

"Throw open your lever," yelled one of the officers, grabbing at
the handle himself.

Hurstwood complied and the car shot away, followed by a rattle of
stones and a rain of curses.

"That --- --- --- ---- hit me in the neck," said one of the
officers. "I gave him a good crack for it, though."

"I think I must have left spots on some of them," said the other.

"I know that big guy that called us a --- --- --- ----" said the
first. "I'll get him yet for that."

"I thought we were in for it sure, once there," said the second.

Hurstwood, warmed and excited, gazed steadily ahead. It was an
astonishing experience for him. He had read of these things, but
the reality seemed something altogether new. He was no coward in
spirit. The fact that he had suffered this much now rather
operated to arouse a stolid determination to stick it out. He
did not recur in thought to New York or the flat. This one trip
seemed a consuming thing.

They now ran into the business heart of Brooklyn uninterrupted.
People gazed at the broken windows of the car and at Hurstwood in
his plain clothes. Voices called "scab" now and then, as well as
other epithets, but no crowd attacked the car. At the downtown
end of the line, one of the officers went to call up his station
and report the trouble.

"There's a gang out there," he said, "laying for us yet. Better
send some one over there and clean them out."

The car ran back more quietly--hooted, watched, flung at, but not
attacked. Hurstwood breathed freely when he saw the barns.

"Well," he observed to himself, "I came out of that all right."

The car was turned in and he was allowed to loaf a while, but
later he was again called. This time a new team of officers was
aboard. Slightly more confident, he sped the car along the
commonplace streets and felt somewhat less fearful. On one side,
however, he suffered intensely. The day was raw, with a
sprinkling of snow and a gusty wind, made all the more
intolerable by the speed of the car. His clothing was not
intended for this sort of work. He shivered, stamped his feet,
and beat his arms as he had seen other motormen do in the past,
but said nothing. The novelty and danger of the situation
modified in a way his disgust and distress at being compelled to
be here, but not enough to prevent him from feeling grim and
sour. This was a dog's life, he thought. It was a tough thing
to have to come to.

The one thought that strengthened him was the insult offered by
Carrie. He was not down so low as to take all that, he thought.
He could do something--this, even--for a while. It would get
better. He would save a little.

A boy threw a clod of mud while he was thus reflecting and hit
him upon the arm. It hurt sharply and angered him more than he
had been any time since morning.

"The little cur!" he muttered.

"Hurt you?" asked one of the policemen.

"No," he answered.

At one of the corners, where the car slowed up because of a turn,
an ex-motorman, standing on the sidewalk, called to him:

"Won't you come out, pardner, and be a man? Remember we're
fighting for decent day's wages, that's all. We've got families
to support." The man seemed most peaceably inclined.

Hurstwood pretended not to see him. He kept his eyes straight on
before and opened the lever wide. The voice had something
appealing in it.

All morning this went on and long into the afternoon. He made
three such trips. The dinner he had was no stay for such work
and the cold was telling on him. At each end of the line he
stopped to thaw out, but he could have groaned at the anguish of
it. One of the barnmen, out of pity, loaned him a heavy cap and
a pair of sheepskin gloves, and for once he was extremely
thankful.

On the second trip of the afternoon he ran into a crowd about
half way along the line, that had blocked the car's progress with
an old telegraph pole.

"Get that thing off the track," shouted the two policemen.

"Yah, yah, yah!" yelled the crowd. "Get it off yourself."

The two policemen got down and Hurstwood started to follow.

"You stay there," one called. "Some one will run away with your
car."

Amid the babel of voices, Hurstwood heard one close beside him.

"Come down, pardner, and be a man. Don't fight the poor. Leave
that to the corporations."

He saw the same fellow who had called to him from the corner.
Now, as before, he pretended not to hear him.

"Come down," the man repeated gently. "You don't want to fight
poor men. Don't fight at all." It was a most philosophic and
jesuitical motorman.

A third policeman joined the other two from somewhere and some
one ran to telephone for more officers. Hurstwood gazed about,
determined but fearful.

A man grabbed him by the coat.

"Come off of that," he exclaimed, jerking at him and trying to
pull him over the railing.

"Let go," said Hurstwood, savagely.

"I'll show you--you scab!" cried a young Irishman, jumping up on
the car and aiming a blow at Hurstwood. The latter ducked and
caught it on the shoulder instead of the jaw.

"Away from here," shouted an officer, hastening to the rescue,
and adding, of course, the usual oaths.

Hurstwood recovered himself, pale and trembling. It was becoming
serious with him now. People were looking up and jeering at him.
One girl was making faces.

He began to waver in his resolution, when a patrol wagon rolled
up and more officers dismounted. Now the track was quickly
cleared and the release effected.

"Let her go now, quick," said the officer, and again he was off.

The end came with a real mob, which met the car on its return
trip a mile or two from the barns. It was an exceedingly poor-
looking neighbourhood. He wanted to run fast through it, but
again the track was blocked. He saw men carrying something out
to it when he was yet a half-dozen blocks away.

"There they are again!" exclaimed one policeman.

"I'll give them something this time," said the second officer,
whose patience was becoming worn. Hurstwood suffered a qualm of
body as the car rolled up. As before, the crowd began hooting,
but now, rather than come near, they threw things. One or two
windows were smashed and Hurstwood dodged a stone.

Both policemen ran out toward the crowd, but the latter replied
by running toward the car. A woman--a mere girl in appearance--
was among these, bearing a rough stick. She was exceedingly
wrathful and struck at Hurstwood, who dodged. Thereupon, her
companions, duly encouraged, jumped on the car and pulled
Hurstwood over. He had hardly time to speak or shout before he
fell.

"Let go of me," he said, falling on his side.

"Ah, you sucker," he heard some one say. Kicks and blows rained
on him. He seemed to be suffocating. Then two men seemed to be
dragging him off and he wrestled for freedom.

"Let up," said a voice, "you're all right. Stand up."

He was let loose and recovered himself. Now he recognised two
officers. He felt as if he would faint from exhaustion.
Something was wet on his chin. He put up his hand and felt, then
looked. It was red.

"They cut me," he said, foolishly, fishing for his handkerchief.

"Now, now," said one of the officers. "It's only a scratch."

His senses became cleared now and he looked around. He was
standing in a little store, where they left him for the moment.
Outside, he could see, as he stood wiping his chin, the car and
the excited crowd. A patrol wagon was there, and another.

He walked over and looked out. It was an ambulance, backing in.

He saw some energetic charging by the police and arrests being
made.

"Come on, now, if you want to take your car," said an officer,
opening the door and looking in.
He walked out, feeling rather uncertain of himself. He was very
cold and frightened.

"Where's the conductor?" he asked.

"Oh, he's not here now," said the policeman.

Hurstwood went toward the car and stepped nervously on. As he
did so there was a pistol shot. Something stung his shoulder.

"Who fired that?" he heard an officer exclaim. "By God! who did
that?" Both left him, running toward a certain building. He
paused a moment and then got down.

"George!" exclaimed Hurstwood, weakly, "this is too much for me."

He walked nervously to the corner and hurried down a side street.

"Whew!" he said, drawing in his breath.

A half block away, a small girl gazed at him.

"You'd better sneak," she called.

He walked homeward in a blinding snowstorm, reaching the ferry by
dusk. The cabins were filled with comfortable souls, who studied
him curiously. His head was still in such a whirl that he felt
confused. All the wonder of the twinkling lights of the river in
a white storm passed for nothing. He trudged doggedly on until
he reached the flat. There he entered and found the room warm.
Carrie was gone. A couple of evening papers were lying on the
table where she left them. He lit the gas and sat down. Then he
got up and stripped to examine his shoulder. It was a mere
scratch. He washed his hands and face, still in a brown study,
apparently, and combed his hair. Then he looked for something to
eat, and finally, his hunger gone, sat down in his comfortable
rocking-chair. It was a wonderful relief.

He put his hand to his chin, forgetting, for the moment, the
papers.

"Well," he said, after a time, his nature recovering itself,
"that's a pretty tough game over there."

Then he turned and saw the papers. With half a sigh he picked up
the "World."

"Strike Spreading in Brooklyn," he read. "Rioting Breaks Out in
all Parts of the City."

He adjusted his paper very comfortably and continued. It was the
one thing he read with absorbing interest.

Chapter XLII

A TOUCH OF SPRING--THE EMPTY SHELL

Those who look upon Hurstwood's Brooklyn venture as an error of
judgment will none the less realise the negative influence on him
of the fact that he had tried and failed. Carrie got a wrong
idea of it. He said so little that she imagined he had
encountered nothing worse than the ordinary roughness--quitting
so soon in the face of this seemed trifling. He did not want to
work.

She was now one of a group of oriental beauties who, in the
second act of the comic opera, were paraded by the vizier before
the new potentate as the treasures of his harem. There was no
word assigned to any of them, but on the evening when Hurstwood
was housing himself in the loft of the street-car barn, the
leading comedian and star, feeling exceedingly facetious, said in
a profound voice, which created a ripple of laughter:

"Well, who are you?"

It merely happened to be Carrie who was courtesying before him.
It might as well have been any of the others, so far as he was
concerned. He expected no answer and a dull one would have been
reproved. But Carrie, whose experience and belief in herself
gave her daring, courtesied sweetly again and answered:

"I am yours truly."

It was a trivial thing to say, and yet something in the way she
did it caught the audience, which laughed heartily at the mock-
fierce potentate towering before the young woman. The comedian
also liked it, hearing the laughter.

"I thought your name was Smith," he returned, endeavouring to get
the last laugh.

Carrie almost trembled for her daring after she had said this.
All members of the company had been warned that to interpolate
lines or "business" meant a fine or worse. She did not know what
to think.

As she was standing in her proper position in the wings, awaiting
another entry, the great comedian made his exit past her and
paused in recognition.

"You can just leave that in hereafter," he remarked, seeing how
intelligent she appeared. "Don't add any more, though."

"Thank you," said Carrie, humbly. When he went on she found
herself trembling violently.

"Well, you're in luck," remarked another member of the chorus.
"There isn't another one of us has got a line."

There was no gainsaying the value of this. Everybody in the
company realised that she had got a start. Carrie hugged herself
when next evening the lines got the same applause. She went home
rejoicing, knowing that soon something must come of it. It was
Hurstwood who, by his presence, caused her merry thoughts to flee
and replaced them with sharp longings for an end of distress.

The next day she asked him about his venture.

"They're not trying to run any cars except with police. They
don't want anybody just now--not before next week."

Next week came, but Carrie saw no change. Hurstwood seemed more
apathetic than ever. He saw her off mornings to rehearsals and
the like with the utmost calm. He read and read. Several times
he found himself staring at an item, but thinking of something
else. The first of these lapses that he sharply noticed
concerned a hilarious party he had once attended at a driving
club, of which he had been a member. He sat, gazing downward,
and gradually thought he heard the old voices and the clink of
glasses.

"You're a dandy, Hurstwood," his friend Walker said. He was
standing again well dressed, smiling, good-natured, the recipient
of encores for a good story.

All at once he looked up. The room was so still it seemed
ghostlike. He heard the clock ticking audibly and half suspected
that he had been dozing. The paper was so straight in his hands,
however, and the items he had been reading so directly before
him, that he rid himself of the doze idea. Still, it seemed
peculiar. When it occurred a second time, however, it did not
seem quite so strange.

Butcher and grocery man, baker and coal man--not the group with
whom he was then dealing, but those who had trusted him to the
limit--called. He met them all blandly, becoming deft in excuse.
At last he became bold, pretended to be out, or waved them off.

"They can't get blood out of a turnip," he said. "if I had it
I'd pay them."

Carrie's little soldier friend, Miss Osborne, seeing her
succeeding, had become a sort of satellite. Little Osborne could
never of herself amount to anything. She seemed to realise it in
a sort of pussy-like way and instinctively concluded to cling
with her soft little claws to Carrie.

"Oh, you'll get up," she kept telling Carrie with admiration.
"You're so good."

Timid as Carrie was, she was strong in capability. The reliance
of others made her feel as if she must, and when she must she
dared. Experience of the world and of necessity was in her
favour. No longer the lightest word of a man made her head
dizzy. She had learned that men could change and fail. Flattery
in its most palpable form had lost its force with her. It
required superiority--kindly superiority--to move her--the
superiority of a genius like Ames.

"I don't like the actors in our company," she told Lola one day.
"They're all so struck on themselves."

"Don't you think Mr. Barclay's pretty nice?" inquired Lola, who
had received a condescending smile or two from that quarter.

"Oh, he's nice enough," answered Carrie; "but he isn't sincere.
He assumes such an air."

Lola felt for her first hold upon Carrie in the following manner:

"Are you paying room-rent where you are?"

"Certainly," answered Carrie. "Why?"

"I know where I could get the loveliest room and bath, cheap.
It's too big for me, but it would be just right for two, and the
rent is only six dollars a week for both."

"Where?" said Carrie.

"In Seventeenth Street."

"Well, I don't know as I'd care to change," said Carrie, who was
already turning over the three-dollar rate in her mind. She was
thinking if she had only herself to support this would leave her
seventeen for herself.

Nothing came of this until after the Brooklyn adventure of
Hurstwood's and her success with the speaking part. Then she
began to feel as if she must be free. She thought of leaving
Hurstwood and thus making him act for himself, but he had
developed such peculiar traits she feared he might resist any
effort to throw him off. He might hunt her out at the show and
hound her in that way. She did not wholly believe that he would,
but he might. This, she knew, would be an embarrassing thing if
he made himself conspicuous in any way. It troubled her greatly.

Things were precipitated by the offer of a better part. One of
the actresses playing the part of a modest sweetheart gave notice
of leaving and Carrie was selected.

"How much are you going to get?" asked Miss Osborne, on hearing
the good news.

"I didn't ask him," said Carrie.

"Well, find out. Goodness, you'll never get anything if you
don't ask. Tell them you must have forty dollars, anyhow."

"Oh, no," said Carrie.

"Certainly!" exclaimed Lola. "Ask 'em, anyway."

Carrie succumbed to this prompting, waiting, however, until the
manager gave her notice of what clothing she must have to fit the
part.

"How much do I get?" she inquired.

"Thirty-five dollars," he replied.

Carrie was too much astonished and delighted to think of
mentioning forty. She was nearly beside herself, and almost
hugged Lola, who clung to her at the news.

"It isn't as much as you ought to get," said the latter,
"especially when you've got to buy clothes."

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