“Hey, you!” he shouted. “Keep out!”
She backed away hastily, and looked up to see if anything were about to fall on her.
“Why should I keep out?” she asked at last.
“’Cause you’ll git hit with a rock if you don’t,” was the prompt reply.
“But, little boy—” she began.
“I ain’t a little boy,” asserted Danny. “I’m a union.”
The woman looked puzzled, but she finally decided that this was some boyish joke.
“You’d better run home,” she said, and turned to enter the messenger-office. She could not refrain from looking over her shoulder, however, and she saw that he was poised for a throw.
“Don’t do that!” she cried hastily. “You might hurt me.”
“Sure I’ll hurt you,” was the reply. “I’ll smash your block in if you don’t git a move on.”
The woman decided to look for another messenger-office, and Danny, triumphant, resumed his seat on the paving-stones.
Then came another messenger, returning from a trip.
“What’s the matter, Danny?” he asked.
“Got the plant picketed,” asserted Danny. “Nobody can’t go in or come out.”
“I’m goin’ in,” said the other boy.
“You!” exclaimed Danny scornfully, as he suddenly caught the boy and swung him over on to the stones.
“No, I ain’t, Danny,” the boy hastened to say, for Danny gave every evidence of an intent to batter in his face.
“Sure?” asked Danny.
“Honest.”
“This here’s a strike,” explained Danny.
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” apologized the boy. “I ain’t a strike-breaker.”
Danny let him up, but made him sit on another pile of stones a short distance away. He would be all right as long as he kept still, Danny explained, but no longer.
* * * *
While Danny was continuing strike operations with rapidly growing enthusiasm, the woman he had first stopped was taking an unexpected part in the little comedy. She had gone to another of the branch offices with the message she wished delivered, and had told of the trouble she had experienced. Thereupon the manager of this office called up the manager of the other on the telephone.
“What’s the matter over there?” he asked.
“Nothing,” was the surprised reply. “Who said there was?”
“Why, a woman has just reported that she was driven away by a boy with a pile of stones.”
The manager hastened to the window, and realized at once that something was decidedly wrong. On a pile of paving-stones directly in front of the door sat the proud and happy Danny. At his feet there was a pile of smaller stones, and he held a few in his hands. On his right was a boy who had started on a trip a short time before, and on his left was one who should have reported back. A man was gesticulating excitedly, a number of others and some boys were laughing, and Danny seemed to be intimating that any one who tried to enter would be hurt.
“Jim,” said the manager to the largest messenger, “go out there and see what’s the matter with Danny Burke. Tell him I’ll have him arrested if he doesn’t get out.”
* * * *
Danny was a wise general. He wanted no prisoners that he could not handle easily, and this big boy would be dangerous to have within his lines. The big boy was a sort of star messenger, who did not fraternize with Danny anyhow. Consequently Danny fired a volley the moment he saw who it was, and the big boy hastily retreated, bearing with him one bump on the forehead.
“That’s Jim,” Danny explained to the increasing crowd. “He’s the biggest, next to the boss. Watch me nail the boss.”
“You’re the stuff!” exclaimed some of the delighted loiterers, thus proving that the loiterers are just as anxious to see trouble in a small strike as in a large one.
Danny picked out a stone considerably larger than the others, for he expected the manager to appear next, and the manager had incurred his personal enmity. In the case of his victims thus far, he had acted merely on principle—to win his point.
The manager appeared. For his own prestige (necessary to maintain discipline), the manager had to do something, but he felt reasonably sure that the dignity of his official position would make Danny less hasty and strenuous than he had been with others. The manager planned to extend the olive branch and at the same time raise the siege by beckoning Danny in, so that he might reason with him and show him how surely he would land in a police station if he would not consent to be a good boy. This would be quicker and better than summoning an officer. But the manager got the big stone in the pit of his stomach just as he had raised his hand to beckon, and he and his dignity collapsed together, with a most plebeian grunt. As he had not closed the door, he quickly rolled inside, where he lay on the floor with his hands on his stomach and listened to the joyous yelps of the crowd outside. This was too much for the manager.
“Call up police headquarters,” he said, still holding his stomach as if fearful that it might become detached, “and tell them there’s a riot here.”
The boy addressed obeyed literally.
Meanwhile Danny had decided that, as victory perched on his banners, it was time to state the terms on which he would permit the enemy to surrender, but he was too wise to put himself in the enemy’s power before these terms were settled.
“Go in, Tim,” was the order he gave to one of his prisoners, “an’ tell the guy with the stomick-ache that when he recognizes the union an’ gives me fifty cents more a week an’ makes a work-day end when the clock strikes, I’m willin’ to call it off.”
“Make him come down handsome,” advised one of the loiterers.
“I guess I got ’em on the run,” said Danny exultingly.
But Tim went in and failed to come out. This was not Tim’s fault, however, for the manager released his hold on his stomach long enough to get a grip on Tim’s collar. The striker’s defiance seemed to displease him, and, because he could not shake Danny, he shook Tim, and he said things to Tim that he would have preferred to say to Danny. Then his excited harangue was interrupted by the sound of a gong, which convinced him that he might again venture to the door.
Danny was in the grasp of the strong arm of the law. A half dozen policemen had valiantly rushed through the crowd and captured the entire besieging party, which was Danny.
“What you doin’?” demanded Danny angrily.
“What are you doing?” retorted the police sergeant in charge.
“This here’s a strike,” asserted Danny. “I got the plant picketed.”
“Run him in!” ordered the manager from the doorway.
“What’s the row?” asked the sergeant.
“That’s the row,” said the manager, pointing to Danny.
“That!” exclaimed the sergeant scornfully. “You said it was a riot. You don’t call that kid a riot, do you?”
“Well, it’s assault and battery, anyhow,” insisted the manager. “He hit me with a rock.”
“Where?” asked the sergeant.
“Where he carries his brains,” said Danny, which made the crowd yelp with joy again.