Grainger County news. (Rutledge, Tenn.) 1917-current, 1919-10-16
Her Rowdy
II
By WILL T. AMES

The strike was called by the motor
men and conductors themselves, at
the end of a turbulent meeting, during
which the men, yielding to the mag
netic influence Of Kolb, the oratorlcal
agitator, had booed their own officials
and jeered at a letter from the head
of their national union declaring the
proposed walkout to be Ill advised, IL
not wholly unjustifable. ."You are be-
ing sold out" Kolb had shouted. And
somehow he made the men believe
him. Setting tradition and dlscre-
ton alike at defiance, the trolleymen
streamed out of their hall alight with
the excitement of a fight in which they
felt, under the spell of Kolb, that they
were championing the cause Of all OPP
pressed workers as well as their own.
An hour after midnight the last car
had been returned to the barn, and
next morning not a wheel turned on
any of the city lines.
At $50 that afternoon a girl with
gold-brown eyes and red hair plodded
YEARLY along on the last half mile of
a two-mile walk between Office and
home. All the town was walking, save
f. handful of adventurous souls who
took chances on the one occasional
car the traction people had been op-
Grating since noon, defying the jeers
of the mob and the risk of pebbles
flung by hoodlums.
But company in misery very slightly
palliated the discomfort of the unac-
customed tramp that Glory Blair
had been compelled to take with
scarcely an idle minute In 1t. She
could do very well without any pedes-
trian exercise Immediately before or
after 1t, she thought. "It's an outrage,
that's what 1t is !" she protested.
The worst of it was, Glory was wor-
ried about the job, too. She had be-
gun to suspect that Mcknight, the pro-
prietor by whom she was employed,
might be a bit of a wildcatter. Glory
was merely his stenographer and had
nothing to do with his accounts; but
little things recently had given her the
impression that 1t would not be sur
prising If Mcknight were to close that
office of his suddenly, some of these
days, and fade away. So, altogether,
Miss Blair was in a rather depressed
state at the moment when a group of
uniformed ~trolleymen, standing on the
corner and scoffing loudly at the eff
forts of a couple of traction company
office men to run a car, caught her
eye.
1t wasn't exactly the group that
caught her eye. 1t was Ford Bur-
goyne. Ford was one of the strikers.
He hadn't teen a trolleyman very long.
he had been a "tech." school man,
and then he had gone acros and got
gassed and came back with a bron-
chitis that forbade his staying indoors,
the doctors said, for at least two
years; and meantime his father had
died broke, and Ford had found him.
self obliged to quit college and earn a
living, and do it at "outside work."
All of a sudden Ford. who was
laughing as loudly as any of the
crowd at the unfortunate amateurs on
the car, realized that. Glory Blair was
standing stock still, six feet away,
looking at him with an expression he
had never seen on her face before. He
left the group instantly.
Glory didn't give him so much as
time to say "How do you doT"
"Tm rather glad that l CHANGED to
see you, Mr.. B%urgoyne." she said, and
the chill of disillusionment was in her
voice. IF some one else had told me
they heard you hooting and black
guarding decent people on the public
streets, l should have refused to be-
lieve it."
But, Glory" protested Ford, "those
fellows are just plain strike-breakers.
now surely"
Surely" blazed Glory, i%nterrupting
him, ito be a strike-breaker in this
kind of a strike is infinitely more cred
table, Ford Burgoyne, than to set a
city full of tired, wornout people afoot
in torrid weather like this. But l see
nov that l have given my friendship
to a mere rowdy, who could never, by
any possibility, look at things as l do,
l just wanted to say that you needn't
come to see me this ~evening-nor ever.
Good-by." And Glory Blair, stepping
oroyp5 PurCoyna who would baya do.
tanned her if he could, marched off
with the air of a duchess-and a lump
In her throat and an ache in her heart
for she had come to be more than
fond of this tall young fellow, who
had faced his altered future with SC
sunny a laugh and so willingly fol
lowed the admonition: "Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do"
The strike had been on a week. The
company was operating. The public
was riding when it could. The strik.
ers, feeling themselves losing ground
and failing to secure the Endorsement
of their own national organization OF
of other labor unions, had fallen into
en- ugly mood. They stood moodily
about in groups. There was no more
of the amused railing at Incompetent
strike-breakers. Some of them, com.
pletely dominated by the ubiquitous
Kolb, were working themselves up tc
the point of violence. Sheer stubborn
pride kept most of the men in line
Ona of These WAS Ford Rurgovne whf
had been harder hit by the disaffectior